In 1972, the command of the Indian ground forces decided on the requirements for a new main battle tank, which was planned to be adopted by the army. By this time, the Indian industry already had the experience of licensed assembly of the British Vickers Mk1 (Vijayanta) tank and the Soviet T-72M tank. The final decision on the creation of the tank was made in 1974. It was assumed that the tank will be developed by Indian designers and will be 100% composed of units, components and assemblies manufactured in India. The tank project was named MVT-80 (Main Battle Tank of the 80-ies - the main battle tank of the 80s). This is how the history of the creation of the first Indian tank began, stretching over many decades.
India spent a huge amount of time and money on the creation of its first MBT. Only in 1984 was the creation of the first prototype of the tank announced, and in 1985 the first demonstration of the finished model was carried out. In 1988, a small pilot batch of machines was manufactured for comprehensive testing. At the same time, the decision to start production of tanks by the government of the country was made only in 1996, in the same year the tank received its name "Arjun". It was planned to establish the production of tanks at the tank-building plant in Avadi. The first industrial batch was planned to be released within 5 years and in the course of operation it was planned to reveal all the shortcomings that require further elimination.
Apparently, these military tests did not turn out to be anything good for the vehicle, since serial production began only in 2006, and the first tanks entered service with the Indian army in 2007. They had already abandoned their initial plans to build 2,000 Arjun tanks in India, leaving without changes only to the initial order for 124 tanks. Last but not least, the purchase from Russia of T-90S tanks, which are superior in price and reliability to a modern Indian tank, played a role here. So the price of Arjun from the planned $ 1.6 million in the 1980s has already doubled and today the price of 1 tank is at the level of $ 3.3 million, which is almost twice as expensive as the cost of the export T-90.
It is worth noting that the creation of a main battle tank in itself is a big breakthrough for the Indian tank industry, but the goals set for it were not met. So, in particular, the localization of the tank is currently about 60%. The tank, most likely, will not become an MBT of India, its fate remains unclear. At the same time, the development of the Arjun Mk2 model has already begun, the first tests of which are planned for 2011, and the mass production of the vehicle is planned to begin in 2014. The main work is to bring the localization of the tank from 60 to 90% Primarily through the use of the engine and transmission local production, as well as enhancing the firepower of the tank, through the use of modern science-intensive developments. The tank will have to receive an improved MSA, as well as the ability to launch anti-tank missiles through the gun barrel.
Layout and booking
Tank Arjun has a classic layout. The control compartment is located in front of the tank, the driver's seat is shifted to the right. The fighting compartment is located behind the control compartment, in which the 3 remaining crew members are located (the crew of the tank is 4 people, there is no automatic loader in the tank). The tank commander and gunner are located in the turret to the right of the gun, the loader is located to the left. The engine compartment is located in the rear of the tank. In its external design, the tank resembles the German Leopard-2 and the Japanese Type-90 tank.
The armor protection of the bow of the hull is combined, with a sufficiently large angle of inclination of the upper frontal part. The sides of the tank hull are protected by anti-cumulative screens, their front part is made of armor material, the rest of the sides of the tank is covered with rubber screens. The front of the turret of the tank is inclined in relation to its stern, the sides of the turret are vertical. Blocks of smoke grenade launchers are mounted at the rear of the tower. The tank is equipped with a fast-acting fire extinguishing system and protection against weapons of mass destruction. The fire detection system is guided by information received from infrared sensors - its response time is 200 ms. in the crew compartment and 15 s. in the engine compartment.
The turret and hull of the tank have a welded structure using the Kanhan armor created in India, which is apparently one of the variants of the Chobham armor used on Western tanks. When designing a tank, Indian engineers took into account the anthropometric data of Indian soldiers, which allowed them to place the various instrumentation and controls of the tank in the most optimal way.
MSA and weapons
The main armament of the tank is a 120-mm rifled gun, stabilized in two planes. The gun is equipped with a heat-insulating casing and an ejector. The gun is fired with separate-loading shots with cumulative, armor-piercing sub-caliber, armor-piercing high-explosive and high-explosive fragmentation shells. Electro-hydraulic drives are used to guide the gun and turn the tank turret, allowing for high speed and aiming accuracy. The gun is loaded manually, which partly explains the rather low rate of fire - up to 6 rounds per minute. The tank gun has maximum elevation and depression angles in the range from +20 to -9 degrees.
A 7.62 mm machine gun is paired with the gun, another 12.7 mm machine gun is mounted on the turret roof, at the loader's hatch, and is used as an anti-aircraft gun. The tank is equipped with an automated integrated control system, the main element of which is an on-board computer manufactured by the Spanish company "ENOSA". This computer automatically takes into account the value of such indicators as wind speed and direction, air temperature and pressure, charge temperature and make the necessary adjustments when shooting.
The tank gunner has at his disposal a sight stabilized in all planes with a laser rangefinder and a thermal imager (shared with the vehicle commander). The commander observes the battlefield with a stabilized panoramic sight. It is reported that the Arjun FCS is capable of providing a sufficiently high accuracy of fire from a gun when moving with a direct hit rate of 90%. The ability to control fire on the move and at night is a major step forward for Indian developers.
Engine and transmission
According to the initial plans, it was planned to install a gas turbine engine with a capacity of 1500 hp on the tank, but later it was decided to stop at a 12-cylinder air-cooled engine of the same power. As a result, Indian engineers developed a number of engines with power ranging from 1200 to 1500 hp, but all of them did not satisfy the military and required design improvements. As a result, Arjun received a German ten-cylinder V-shaped diesel 838 KA 501 manufactured by MTU, which has a liquid cooling and a turbocharging system. At 2500 rpm, this engine develops a power of 1400 hp, which provides an almost 60-ton machine with a fairly decent thrust-to-weight ratio - about 24 hp. per ton. The 59-ton Arjun can reach speeds of up to 70 km / h on the highway, and up to 40 km / h on rough terrain.
A hydromechanical transmission is connected to the engine, which includes a planetary gearbox manufactured by the German company Renck and a torque converter. The mechanical shift transmission has 4 forward and 2 reverse gears. The suspension of the tank is hydropneumatic. On each side of the body there are 7 support and 4 support rollers. The driving wheels are rear. The gable track rollers are externally cushioned. The track of the tank is steel, equipped with rubber-metal hinges, and rubber pads on the tracks. The hull of the tank and its hydropneumatic suspension are sealed to prevent dust from entering them and water seepage (when the tank is wading or operating in swampy areas).
Due to the relatively low ground pressure (0, 84 kg / cm2) and the sufficient power of the German MBT engine, it is distinguished by good maneuverability and maneuverability. The tank is able to overcome a ditch up to 2.43 m wide and, without additional preparation, force a water obstacle up to 1.4 m deep. The hydropneumatic suspension used on the tank provides the vehicle with good smoothness when driving over rough terrain.
