One hundred years ago battle tanks changed the way wars were fought and won. Today wars are about to change the fate of the giant armoured fighting machines.
Taking a giant leap forward the Indian army has released a request for information for all-terrain friendly Future Ready Combat Vehicles that can operate in the desert as well as high altitude areas and eventually go on to replace the existing tank fleet by the year 2025.
There is a school of thought that says that helicopters are better than tanks. They can get a top angle view of the battlefield to spot the enemy hideouts and engage both- the enemy on the ground as well as in the air. All these features make the helicopter gunships that can fire missiles to damage targets on the ground as well as in the air – a better option than the typical tank. Hence they should be called helicopter tanks.
This idea seems promising but cannot fulfil the need for the main battle tank (MBT), that has the invincibility and firepower of a heavy tank, armour protection of a medium tank, and mobility of a light tank.
India currently operates fleets of T-72 and T-90 tanks, with a much smaller fleet of indigenously developed Arjun tanks. Indian armed forces face a plethora of problems due to a shortage of spares, inferior overage equipment. According to defence experts, reportedly more than 180 tank barrels have burst during practice firing leading to loss of life and limb. A few years ago India signed a Rs 1,500 Cr deal with Russia to replace T-72 tank barrels with T-90 tank barrels. As a part of the deal, India has ordered 800 barrels from Russia.
The matter came up before the Parliamentary Committee where the Army admitted that nearly 200 such accidents had adversely affected the confidence of the gunners operating the T-72 guns. All this while T-72 is — the backbone of India’s Armoured fleet and has undergone several upgrades since its induction.
The urgency behind all this is that the Indian Army is facing acute deficiency of ammunition and spares. Almost 60-70 % of the army’s inventory is out-of-date and unserviceable due to lack of spares for repair, maintenance and overhaul. According to an internal audit – the Army has a critical shortage of artillery ammunition, tanks shells, fuses and spares for all types of weapons.
Similarly, the Indian artillery faced a problem with the Krashnapov ammunition imported from Russia, which failed to hit the targets in Kargil. Later it was discovered that the ammunition was only fit to be used at specific height and temperature – in short, it was not meant for high altitude areas. As a result, the entire lot of ammunition had to be shifted to the plains, where there was no war.
As far as tanks are concerned India has been facing a big problem since the day MBT Arjun tanks were entered active service in 2004. However, because of their non-availability of spares and excess weight, the MBT Arjun’s have created a serious problem for the roads, bridges and canals along the Pakistan border.
The Arjun MK-I inspired by the German Leopard II main battle tank had a number of design defects like – too heavy armour versus too little horsepower. This led to inordinate delays. Apart from this, the Army suggested many improvements which led to an improved version called Arjun Mark II, which turned out to be even heavier than before. As things stand nearly 75 per cent of the 124 Arjun MBT tanks are unserviceable and have been grounded. All these tanks have technical issues.
The crux of the problem is that initially more than 50 per cent of components of these tanks were imported, which was over a period of time were replaced by indigenous parts. In the meanwhile, due to the decline in demand, the foreign manufactures producing those parts stopped production.
