Under the Make-1 category, the industry will undertake the project and be funded by the government in a stark departure from the direct purchase route.

The need for a light tank was realized at the height of the standoff with the Chinese PLA in Ladakh that began in May 2020, where India had to move the heavier T-72 Ajeya tanks (45 tons) and the T-90 (46 tons).

Although effective against all Chinese tanks and crewed by experienced and well-trained Indian Cavalry, they still caused movement and logistical issues in the high-altitude air and inhospitable terrain at 17,500 feet. The treacherous mountain passes made transport a bane, adding to the logistical strain of maintaining 50,000 troops.

Things got worse in the winter of 2020 when the Indian Army had to sustain the high posture through the cold for the first time in 4 decades. Troops from both armies leave forward positions since the Line of Actual Control (LAC) is much calmer than the Line of Control (LoC) with Pakistan.

Moreover, China’s logistical advantage owing to the extensive border infrastructure coming deep from within Tibet and Sichuan, allows it to replenish losses and keep units supported with spares. These operational difficulties associated with using heavy tanks in mountain warfare have pushed India’s light tank program.

In the last two years, Beijing has positioned the most recent ZTL-11 wheeled armored personnel carriers, CSK series assault vehicles, and ZTQ 15 (Type 15) third-generation modern light tanks weighs roughly 33-36 tons along the LAC in Eastern Ladakh.

DRDO-L&T Partnership

DRDO & Larsen and Toubro (L&T) are working together fore the development of the light tank. The tank that is currently under fabrication, is based on the chassis of DRDO’s Next Generation Main Battle Tank (NGMBT) and the successful rollout of the first prototype could happen in 2023.

This will also strengthen the DRDO’s proposal  to develop the Next Generation Main Battle Tank (NGMBT) to meet the Indian Army’s requirement for 1,770 Next Generation Main Battle Tank (NGMBT) under Future Ready Combat Vehicles (FRCV) program.

Project Zorawar

Talks have already started that the NGMBT will be manufactured through a Special Purpose Vehicle (SPV) under a public-private partnership (PPP) model which has been adopted for the development of the 5.5 generation AMCA and Indian Multi-Role Helicopter (IMRH).

L&T has revealed that it is a development partner in the ‘Zorawar Project’ aimed at building light tanks for the Indian Army, with the first prototype expected to be unveiled in late 2023.

While the company is involved in the platform’s development, L&T is not assured a role in the tank’s production phase. Under the Indian process, development and manufacturing contracts could not be combined.

The project is overseen by the Combat Vehicles Research and Development Establishment(CVRDE) of the DRDO.

The Indian Army is looking for a light tank with a 25-ton weight limit and the same firepower as its traditional tanks. In addition, the military wants them to be equipped with loitering weapons, artificial intelligence (AI), tactical drone integration for surveillance to offer situational awareness, and an active defense system.

Quest to Acquire Light Tank

The development of light tanks for the Indian Army was announced by the Modi government on March 3, 2022. This move was made under the Make-I category of the 2020 Defence Procurement Procedure (DPP).

The Indian Army sensed a compelling need to put light tanks into service to counter China and establish operational superiority in high-altitude areas like Ladakh. After the border conflict with China in the summer of 2020, India initially considered purchasing the Russian light tank Sprut SDM1.

A Request for Information (RFI) for 350 light tanks in the 25-ton weight category was released by the Directorate General of Mechanized Forces in April 2021 on behalf of the Ministry of Defence (MoD). However, the country has now decided to develop its own light tank rather than import them.

The production and upkeep of India’s imported fleet of tanks had been impeded by the interruption in the world supply chain for defense-related components brought on by the ongoing Russia-Ukraine conflict. India must therefore create a light tank for the Indian Army domestically.

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The defence ministry placed the order, on 23 September, for the 118 Arjun Mk-1A main battle tanks (MBT), for the Indian Army at a cost of Rs 7,523 crore. Mk-1A is a new variant of Arjun tank, infused with 72 new features, with the Heavy Vehicles Factory (HVF), Avadi, Chennai.

The new variant is designed to enhance fire power, mobility and survivability, infused with 72 new features and more indigenous content from the Mk-1 variant. The ministry said the tanks would ensure effortless mobility in all terrains, besides precise target engagement during day and night.

It has been designed and developed by the Defence Research & Development Organisation (DRDO) by incorporating numerous upgrades on Arjun MBT, the in-service main battle tank with the Indian Army.

It said the production order to Heavy Vehicles Factory will open up a large avenue in defence manufacturing for over 200 Indian vendors including MSMEs, with employment opportunities to around 8,000 people.

It said the MBT Arjun Mk-1A has been designed and developed by Combat Vehicles Research and Development Establishment (CVRDE), along with other laboratories of DRDO within two years (2010-12).

“Extensive trial evaluation was conducted in various phases covering 7000 plus kms (both in DRDO and user trials) of automotive and substantial firing of various ammunition during 2012-2015,” it said.

The army already operates 124 Arjun Mark 1 MBTs. It has stoutly resisted ordering more, arguing that the 62.5-tonne tank was too heavy to be transported over bridges and culverts near the border.

Eventually, in a tank-versus-tank face-off in the Rajasthan desert in March 2010, one squadron (14 tanks) of Arjuns was pitted against an equal number of Russian T-90 tanks, which the army wants to buy more of. Top army generals who witnessed the trial admitted the Arjun performed superbly. Whether driving cross-country over rugged sand dunes; or accurately hitting targets with its powerful main gun; the Arjun matched and outdid the T-90.

Yet, the army refused to order more Arjuns, beyond the 124 already in service. At a meeting of the MoD-led Arjun Steering Committee in 2010, the army demanded 72 capability enhancements to improve the Arjun Mark 1into what would be called the Arjun Mark 2.

Incredibly, given the army’s complaint that the Arjun Mark 1 was too heavy, these 72 enhancements would make it 6 tonnes heavier.

These included the fitment of mine ploughs (1.6 tonnes extra), explosive reactive armour (1.5 tonnes extra), suspension improvements (one tonne extra) and two more tonnes in other areas. The 62.5 tonne Arjun Mark 1 was to be translated into a 68.5 tonne Mark 2.

In June 2012, the DRDO offered the Arjun for trials with all the enhancements, except one: a cannon-launched guided missile (CLGM) that the army wanted to fire through the Arjun’s main gun. The Israeli Lahat CLGM that equipped the Arjun could strike targets two-to-five km away. However, the army insisted that the CLGM must strike targets as close as 1.2 km, even though the Arjun’s powerful main gun was adequate to destroy such targets.

By 2015, a series of trials had validated the improvements the army demanded. However, the army dilly-dallied for three years, until March 2018, when it was agreed that the next batch of Arjuns, which would be supplied without missile firing capability. They would be designated Arjun Mark 1A.

After several months of delay, Arjun Mark 1A trials were held in December 2018 and the tank found fit in all respects. The army’s trial team recommended the Arjun Mark 1A be inducted into service. Yet, it has taken almost three more years for an order to be placed.

From the time the indent is placed, it would still take HVF 36 months to start delivering the first Arjun tanks. Since the DRDO is confident it would develop and prove the CLGM by then, the 118 Arjun Mark 1A tanks ordered today will actually be delivered as Arjun Mark 2, with full CLGM capability.

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Prime Minister Narendra Modi, on 13 February, handed over the indigenous main battle tank (MBT) Arjun Mk-1A, to the Army at Chennai.

 “We will continue working to make our armed forces one of the most modern forces in the world. At the same time, the focus on making India Atmanirbhar (self-reliant) in the defence sector moves with full speed,” the Prime Minister said at the event.

The state-of-the-art main battle tank has been indigenously designed, developed and manufactured by Chennai-based Combat Vehicles Research & Development Establishment (CVRDE), a unit of the Defence Research & Development Organisation (DRDO), along with 15 academic institutions, eight labs and several micro, small & medium enterprises (MSME).

With modern battle tank technologies, Arjun MBT Mk-1A is distinct from the contemporary MBT and is a dependable war-fighting machine. It is a weapon platform with superior firepower, high mobility, excellent protection and crew comfort with 14 major upgrades on Arjun MBT Mk-1, according to the CVRDE.

About the Arjun MBT

The Arjun MBT project was initiated by DRDO in 1972 with the CVRDE as its lead laboratory. The objective was to create a “state-of-the-art tank with superior fire power, high mobility, and excellent protection.” During the development, the CVRDE achieved breakthroughs in the engine, transmission, hydropneumatic suspension, hull and turret as well as the gun control system. Mass production began in 1996 at the Indian Ordnance Factory’s production facility in Avadi, Tamil Nadu.

The Indian Army received the first batch of 16 tanks in 2004 and they were inducted as a squadron of the 43 Armoured Regiment. In 2009, the first Arjun regiment of the Indian Army had 45 tanks. By 2011, over 100 tanks had been delivered. In 2010, the Indian army ordered another 124 Arjuns. The Ministry of Defence ordered another 118 units of the Arjun Mk-1A. These are the units being inducted now at a revised cost of over Rs 8,400 crore.

Main Features

The Arjun tanks stand out for their 120-mm calibre rifled gun. It also has a computer-controlled integrated fire control system with stabilised sighting that works in all lighting conditions. The secondary weapons include a co-axial 7.62-mm machine gun for anti-personnel and a 12.7-mm machine gun for anti-aircraft and ground targets.

The Mk-1A version has 14 major upgrades on the earlier version. It is also supposed to have missile firing capability as per the design, but this feature will be added later as final testing of the capability is still on. However, the biggest achievement with the latest version is 54.3 per cent indigenous content against the 41 per cent in the earlier model.

Initial Reluctance

Before operating Arjun, for a long time, the Indian Army operated Russian tanks with the Russian design philosophy of three-man crew with an auto-loader. Indian tank crews, tank commanders and the armoured corps made its strategies and tactics keeping the Russian tanks in mind also addressing the shortcomings of the autoloader. Implementing them on Heavy tanks based on western design would be quite challenging. This was the most significant reason behind the army’s reluctance.

Inducting such heavy tanks like Arjun will create logistic problems but this is not something which should prevent the army from buying these in large numbers. The army just needs to invest in carriages capable of carrying heavier loads.

Arjun is very well suited for the Western borders. It can outperform any other tank in that terrain. But now after the Ladakh standoff Army’s primary focus has shifted to China. The lighter tanks like the T-90 give a broader spectrum for deployment.

India is one of the largest operators of the Russian T-90. Thus, there are import lobbyists inside Indian committees which decide which tank to procure.

Technically speaking, the Army has no reason to be unhappy with the Arjun tank, as its senior officers had given the clearance more than a year ago after the MBT had undergone numerous trials. The tank comes with with 14 major improvements that the Army had sought.

Compared to its earlier version Arjun Mk 1, the Mark 1A boasts an improved gunner sight (a 120mm main gun), fitted with automated target tracking capabilities. This allows the tank’s crew to locate and track mobile targets automatically, enabling attack even when the MBT is moving.

It also incorporates day-and-night stabilized sights. Besides, it is integrated with thermobaric and penetration-cum-blast ammunition, in addition to the conventional fin-stabilized armor-piercing discarding sabot and high explosive squash head ammunition.

Arjun Mark 1A can run at a maximum road speed of 58 km/h and 40 km/h in cross country with a maximum cruising range of 500 km. It can negotiate a gradient of 30% and a vertical step of 910 mm. It can cross natural or man-made trenches 2,430 mm wide. The tank can cross a water obstacle of 1.4 m depth without preparation and 2.15 m with a kit.

At the same time, it is being said that this would be the last of the 68-ton Arjun series. The Army has placed a Rs 20,000 crore order for the manufacture of 464 T-90MS standard tanks to add to the 1,191 Bhishma tanks already inducted.

Not-so-rosy History

The Arjun has seen numerous changes in design and been over-budget with long delays. It was planned in 1972 and the DRDO started the work on it in 1974. It was to be a 40-ton vehicle, small enough to be strategically mobile and capable of being shuttled on internal lines (roads and railroads) to the borders.

But when in 2009, 35 years after it was originally conceived, Arjun was “ready” for production, its weight turned out to be 62 tons. It had other shortcomings too, which the Army did point out.

And yet, the Army was persuaded (pressured?) to buy 124 of them, with the last batch being procured in 2013. However, by mid-2015, two years after the purchase was complete, nearly 75 percent of the Arjun force was inoperable due to technical problems.

A 2016 report from the Comptroller and Auditor General of India (CAG) noted that most of the tanks had not been in operation since 2013 due to a lack of spare parts. And the DRDO, in 2017, informed that it had imported spare parts to repair any faults that had sidelined 75 per cent of the Arjun tanks

Side by side, all these years (after 2010), the DRDO declared that it would work for Arjun 2 where many shortcomings of the Arjun 1 would be rectified with additional features. In 2014, the Union Cabinet decided to procure 118 of these, but the proposal was formally cleared by the DAC (Defence Acquisition Council) only in 2018, with Arjun 2 being rechristened now as Arjun Mark 1A.

But the Army said that even this version did not meet all its requirements like the ability to fire a missile from its main gun and battlefield management system. Besides, the Army, which had found problems with the 62-ton weight of version 1, had to cope with the 68-ton weight with the latest version of 1A.  It was only in 2020 that the Army gave its final “clearance”.

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This indigenization project was funded by DRDO and Navy jointly and the technology is successfully transferred to the industry. Two sets of these filters, duly qualified by Directorate of Quality Assurance (Naval), were handed over to Indian Navy.

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CVRDE has indigenously designed and developed 3-ton Retractable Landing Gear (RLG) System for Tapas UAV. The design, development and testing of this gear system is carried out in co-ordination with Centre for Military Airworthiness & Certification (CEMILAC) and Directorate General of Aeronautical Quality Assurance (DGAQA) for certification.

The tricycle nose wheel type multidisciplinary, hydro-electro-mechanical system is now being manufactured by an Industry at Coimbatore. First set of Retractable Landing Gear system developed by industry was handed over by Director CVRDE, Chennai to the Director, Aeronautical Development Establishment (ADE), Bengaluru.

CVRDE has also designed and developed 1-ton Retractable Landing Gear System for a different class of UAV known as SWiFT. This system is designed and developed for accommodating the Landing Gears within the constrained bay volume. It is manufactured with the help of Indian industry with due inspection and certification of CEMILAC and DGAQA. This system was also handed over to ADE, Bengaluru.

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