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Tuesday, April 7, 2009

Indian Army to evaluate Israeli laser-based defensive suite on the Arjun Tank


The Indian Army will evaluate an advanced laser-based defensive suite designed by the Indian Defense Research and Development Organization (DRDO) in collaboration with Israel, on the Arjun battle tank this summer, reported the local daily The Tribune on Sunday.Designated as the Advanced Laser Warning and Countermeasure System (ALWCS), the suite comprises a laser warning system, infra-red jammer and an aerosol smoke grenade system. The sensors of these systems are mounted on the front sides of the turret, said the report.The purpose of ALWCS is to enhance survivability of armored vehicles against anti-tank guided missiles. Israel's Elbit Systems Limited which manufactures and integrates Israel's hi-tech defense electronic and electro-optic systems undertakes weapon upgrade projects for militaries throughout the world, and is DRDO's collaborating partner for ALWCS.The Arjun battle tank, which is under development for the past 36 years, is scheduled to undergo comprehensive trials with the Russian-origin T-90 tanks in May-June. Moreover, last year's trials were not reported to be successful.As part of Arjun's protection capability, DRDO's Adavi-based Combat Vehicles Research and Development Establishment has also developed a mobile camouflage system to provide multi-spectral signature management for reducing vehicle visual, thermal and radar signature against sensors and smart munitions.

12 comments:

I've been reading about this tank, for over three years now. I read the claims of the world class Arjun on defence forums. Its a joke that people (Indians and westerns) still claim this is a great tank. This tank's capability is no better then other tanks made in the 1980s.

Its still a western concept tank with twice the armor and twice the gun power of a contemporary eastern design tank. Nevertheless I have been reading about it for 20 years, the Indian Army has long removed it from their plans but DRDO will remain latched to it until the label of success is applied to it even if as a "successful technology demonstrator"

To Type 99
I have already written about the condition and its history but can you tell me about the western sources you are talking about?

To Anonymous @ April 8, 2009 6:56 AM
Can you explain the twice the gun power of a contemporary eastern design tank? I am simply amassed at figure you are putting here

AD, Western tanks use 120mm gun system with a typical power of 9MJ. They use single piece ammo which gives them the advantage of using long rod kinetic energy penetrators. Eastern tanks of the T series and Chinese tanks use 125mm gun system. This uses two piece ammo and accordingly a short rod penetrator. Their typical power is 2.5MJ. Latest guns like in T90 have 4.5MJ. This is the secret behind Abram's spectacular success against T72 in the gulf war. There are other differences in Eastern and Western tanks that you can research yourself.

Gun metallurgy is one of the fields where the Soviets were not able to catch up. India got the 120mm gun technology from where everyone else in the west got it from. Germany.

Anonymous @ April 8, 2009 9:57 AM
Please get your facts right before making wild claims just saying 120mm don’t change the world you have see the whole picture. You made a claim about the power of Arjun that uses rifled bore gun not the smooth bore.


The spin from rifling decreases the effective penetration of these rounds by decreasing the round's velocity and impact energy. APFSDS can still be fired from rifled guns but the sabot is of a modified design incorporating bearings to isolate the spin of the sabot in the barrel from the round itself, so far as practicable. Nations across the world are shifting toword smoothbore guns from rifled guns.

1.L55 smoothbore cannon used on the Leopard 2A6
2.M1A1 / M1A2 / M1A2SEP has the M256 120 mm smoothbore cannon developed by Rheinmetall AG of Germany
3.Merkava IV also uses MG251 smoothbore
4.C1 Ariete is a main battle tank of the Italian Army uses 44-calibre 120 mm smoothbore gun produced and manufactured by Oto Melara.
5.K2 Black Panther's main armament is an indigenous L55 120 mm smoothbore gun
6.K1A1 also uses 120 mm smoothbore gun
7.Pakistani Al-Khalid tank uses 125 mm smooth-bore tank gun
8.Leclerc is equipped with a GIAT (Nexter) CN120-26 120mm smoothbore cannon
9.T-80 series MBT uses 125 mm 2A46-2 smoothbore gun
10.Type 90 (Japanese)main battle tank of the Japan Ground Self-Defense Force uses 120 mm smoothbore gun
11.Chinese Type 99 is armed with 120 mm smoothbore
12.T-90 uses 2A46M 125 mm smoothbore gun


So today almost all main battle tanks except for the British Challenger 2 & Indian Arjun MBT use smoothbores

And even incase of challenger, Under Challenger Lethality Improvement Programme Britin plans to upgrade the main gun of Challenger 2 from its current 120mm L30A1 rifled gun to the 120mm Rheinmetall L55 smoothbore gun currently used by the Leopard and Challenger 2 has been fitted with the L55 and is undergoing trials as of January 2006. And we all know about the Arjun


Anonymous @ April 8, 2009 10:13 AM
Damn right, only point I want to make is that after transferring the technology of rifled bore guns to india everyone else transferred to smooth bore

Oey, Go get an education before running a blog. Rifling doesn't make hell of a difference to the gun's power. The longest range engagement recorded by a tank in history was by a rifled Challenger at over 5km in the gulf war. The difference in rifled and smoothbore is not a matter of gun metallurgy but armory doctrine. One can switch from rifled to smoothbore in 2mins but not from 125mm to 120mm concepts.

Smoothbore was adopted for APFSDS before solutions like isolation bearings were available. The energy lost is only in rotating the bearing which is only a fraction of the fraction of the gun's power. As a principle smoothbore is not a good idea for guns. Why not smoothbore everything from AKs to 155mm howitzers. The point is what will you do with a little extra range and power when you loose the accuracy of rifling. The IA chose rifled gun for Arjun because of the need to accurately engage DCBs along the Pakistan border. The nations you mentioned above are sticking to smoothbore for the sake of maintaining standardized ammo among the NATO forces. The roots of all 120mm guns lies in German metallurgy. Officially Arjun's gun is indigenous as well.

The Soviet adopted smoothbore so as to fire missiles from their tanks because they knew their guns were no match for the western tank. So they put their faith in missiles while the west put theirs in APFSDS.Rotating slip ring assembly was not available to either side then. 125mm guns owing to their design can still not fire long rod penetrators.

if Soviet adopted smoothbore so as to fire missiles from their tanks because they knew their guns were no match for the western tank. then why west transferred to smoothbore genius

Modern rounds are adopted to spin even when fired from smoothbore guns so accuracy is not the issue


The longest range engagement recorded by a tank in history was by a rifled Challenger at over 5km in the gulf war. and that has been very controversial as few sources cal it 5km others call it 5miles.

If rifle bore don’t make difference then why transfer to smooth bore? Do you think whole world is fool and may you and DRDO is the smartest people on the earth? Guess what you are not as as Indian army has already chosen the T-90 with smooth bore guns

No where you are so far able to describe why Rifled bore gun of Arjun has twice the power of 125mm smooth bore gun.

Don’t run around try to support your claim with some proper argument

Indian armed forces need to be equipped with world class weapon systems without any further delay. Unfortunately we have wasted crucial time and resources .Indian army has already gracefully rejected Arjun tank without buckling under any pressure . It would have been prudent for DRDO to simply get in to a technical collaboration with Germany to locally manufacture truly formidable Leopard 2 . In both the tank and artillery which are principle weapon systems for any army and we seem to have screwed up on both the fronts . It is disgraceful that Indian army has not been provided a single artillery piece for last two decades adversely affecting our firepower . We should have gone ahead with bofors guns irrespective of its political stigma . Bofors gun had been reportedly cleared by the army but MOD shot down the proposal for the reasons best known to them .

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