T-90 Bhishma / T-72 Ajeya of Indian Army : News and Discussions
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700-800 CIAs are there. We expect to retain 1800-2000 T72s out of 2500+ for next decade after which a Indian ~50ton MBT will start their replacement.
No mention of timelines but.
No mention of upgraded of CIAs, means we are looking at all those going to holding formations.
Excellent news. This was lacking.
It's the reason why the picture in post 262 has T-72s with mine ploughs. In exercises we have even used T-55s with mine ploughs to clear the way for the T-90s.
Major boost to ‘Make in India’: MoD signs contract with BEML for procurement of 1,512 Mine Plough for T-90 tanks
With an aim to boost ‘Make in India’ initiative of the Government, with the approval of Raksha Mantri Shri Rajnath Singh, Acquisition Wing of Ministry of Defence (MoD), has today signed a Contract with Bharat Earth Movers Limited (BEML) for procurement of 1,512 Mine Plough (MP) for Tank T-90 S/SK at an approximate cost of Rs 557 crore. The contract has Buy and Make (Indian) categorisation with a minimum of 50 per cent indigenous content in make portion of the contract.
These mine ploughs will be fitted on T-90 Tanks of Indian Armoured Corps which will facilitate individual mobility to Tanks while negotiating mine field. Mobility of Tank Fleet will enhance manifold, which in turn would extend the reach of Armoured Formation deep into enemy territory without becoming mine causality.
With the induction of these 1,512 mine ploughs, planned to be completed by 2027, the combat capability of the Army will be further enhanced.
Major boost to ‘Make in India’: MoD signs contract with BEML for procurement of 1,512 Mine Plough for T-90 tanks
With an aim to boost ‘Make in India’ initiative of the Government, with the approval of Raksha Mantr
www.pib.gov.in
One thing I have noticed is that the T72M1 And CIA have decent ERA cover on the sides , but the T90S/M have only a partial covering of 3 steel plates on the side. I don't know how thick those plates are, but ERA surely would provide better protection.
Some light reading.
One thing from the pics in article shows that they might have added extra armour in the frontal arc of Turret below the ERA covering. If so, that will improve the survivability of T72 manifolds. Because the only Turret design is the most vulnerable part.
Avadi should look into this, maybe adding some extra sheets just in the frontal arc. With a uprated engine, this weight increase should be offset.
That basically looks like a T-72 with a Karrar turret, instead of just an upgrade over the existing tank.
We can do the same with all the T-72s, simply add a T-90 turret to them and uprate the engine.
Since most of our operations are expected to happen in the field, we only need protection in a 30 deg arc. What's more important is superior sensors, so that the turret can turn towards the threat on its own, hence bringing the best protected area and the gun facing the threat. Any weight increase will decrease mobility, and that's worse than not having protection beyond the 30 deg.
What's more, any extra on the side is going to do nothing against a tank, the shell will go through no matter how much ERA you have on. It's the same case with most types of ATGMs. Only the Abrams is well-protected from the side, all other tanks require add-on armour. 300mm on the Abrams vs 80mm on the T-90. I think the Leopard 2 does 120mm. Arjun's also apparently 80mm.
Well for that we will have to take into account what is the expected life of the hull also. Because even though it's metal , at the end it's a vehicle doing most of its operations off road. And stress and strain are strong forces , which surely causes deformations in the hull/chassis. Thus weakening the overall strength, so its not like that we can keep using the hull over and over.
It's expected service life and economics will have to be accounted for before adding a fully new Turret.
But removing the IR search lights and say even 60-75mm armour blocks just in the front before adding ERA will improve the protection from front manifolds.
On the side , what I wish is atleast the 1st half portion have additional steel plates and ERA to increase the protection to crew , the 2nd half will mostly have engine and ammo I think , so a compromise can be done there.
But again all these won't matter untill we get a decent modern gun on these tanks and a Laser Warning System.
Any new future tank will have to have a solid active protection system in place. Because there's a limit to how powerful an engine we can use , therefore a limit on the overall weight as well.
On Arjun we need to move away from the rifled system asap first.
Tank is an.obsolete concept, the more you add selpf protective measurements the more it become expansive nothing more nothing less. What IA is need high mobile troop carrying vehicle with reasonable ballistic protection with attack helicopter coverage, and mounted howitzers.
The Iranian T-72s are not very old. A quick look at Sipri says they bought 422 tanks and assembled 300 of them, and this happened between 1993 and 2001. 104 were bought from Poland. And it doesn't say if more were license produced. There's no proper record of it. Even if they did, then this is about the time the first set of tanks have to finish undergoing a mid-life upgrade. So it seems to be the correct time.
Otoh, our tanks are a mix of ancient and Iran-equivalent. So at least a 1000 of our T-72s can get a turret replacement and last beyond 2030.
The Karrar turret itself is a welded turret, similar to what we have on the T-90A/S. So it's a pretty significant upgrade over the T-72M1. It should be more or less equivalent to our T-90S. So it's definitely a massive improvement over what we have done with our T-72s.