Arjun Tank News Thread

I would have thought the Tegas was a good idea but they are trying to make it into a 5th gen light fighter when what they really should be developing is a real modern MiG-21 replacement that is affordable and able to be made and used in enormous numbers with good basic capabilities... not amazing, but solid and reliable and useful.

Instead their expectations seem too high so of course it fails...

I personally think the best cheap light fighter you could have would be to take a medium fighter and simplify it down to the basics with decent but not amazing features that is not too expensive to operate.... sort of like the MiG-29M/2.

Make it in large numbers to keep the price down... it is a modern capable aircraft that is not expensive to operate and maintain and you could make in numbers so you have lots of them and they are available.

Over time it can be upgraded with better stuff developed for the Mig-35 when that stuff becomes affordable and available.

RTN wrote:

Isos wrote: India tried that with transfert of technology in its contracts but it failed because no one gives them actually the technology, only the right to make the assembly which isn't really helping their industry.

I was referring to the West. Third world countries like India do not have the talent to develop a defense, aerospace industry. Nor do they have the capital required to sustain Research & Development in the defense sector.

Here in the U.S for small-to-medium companies in the mid- and lower-tiers of the sector, it generates something of a crisis of commercial confidence when it comes to investing heavily in developing precisely the kinds of technologies that the Pentagon needs for the future.

China, OTOH  is developing and acquiring key defense technologies through licit and illicit means. These include investment in private industries, talent recruitment programs, directing academic and research collaboration to military gain, forced technology transfer, intelligence gathering, and outright theft.

The ages of space, stealth, and precision strike had already arrived by 2000; progress has surely continued since then, yet it has been progress mostly of degree rather than of kind. And tasks that were difficult at the turn of the century, even for very advanced militaries, remain generally very hard today, including missile defense, most dimensions of anti-submarine warfare, and most aspects of infantry combat.

GarryB wrote:There are a range of systems that will stop an anti tank missile

Beam riding ATGMs like Kornet cannot be stopped. APS are not designed to intercept these beam riding missiles.

lyle6 wrote:At this point, the Arjun isn't so much as a prospective piece of equipment as much as an object of nationalistic pride. That its a lemon by any objective accounts doesn't matter at all when it gives Indian nationalists something to point to when asked to produce their example for a domestic tank. It also looks nothing like the foreign T-72/90 tanks, and are closer to the more "capable" Leopard 2s, so this not only demonstrates the independence of the entire process from external input unlike the pirating Chinese, but illustrates that Indian designers and industry are closer to their Western counterparts in modernity than even those Russians who only win contracts by plying corrupt defence officials with cash and wh*res (I sh*t you not, this is what a lot of them think). Really people ought to have been clued in by now as to the true nature of the Arjun tank in the Indian TO&E when you consider that India's infrastructure could barely handle mid 40 ton Soviet/Russian let alone bloated 60 ton tanks.

And that's what's really irksome with the Arjun at least to me. Had the designers been more sensible they ought to have at least incorporated elements from what already works and not go around reinventing the wheel like they did. I get that the Indian industry needs to get their experience doing this on their own and that each failure is a lesson appreciated more but there really is no reason for the bizarre design decisions they made for the Arjun. Not rational ones, anyway. And the timeframe is just... Someone really ought to have put their foot down when it reached the 15 year mark in gestation with not even working prototypes to show for it.

magnumcromagnon wrote:

lyle6 wrote:At this point, the Arjun isn't so much as a prospective piece of equipment as much as an object of nationalistic pride. That its a lemon by any objective accounts doesn't matter at all when it gives Indian nationalists something to point to when asked to produce their example for a domestic tank. It also looks nothing like the foreign T-72/90 tanks, and are closer to the more "capable" Leopard 2s, so this not only demonstrates the independence of the entire process from external input unlike the pirating Chinese, but illustrates that Indian designers and industry are closer to their Western counterparts in modernity than even those Russians who only win contracts by plying corrupt defence officials with cash and wh*res (I sh*t you not, this is what a lot of them think). Really people ought to have been clued in by now as to the true nature of the Arjun tank in the Indian TO&E when you consider that India's infrastructure could barely handle mid 40 ton Soviet/Russian let alone bloated 60 ton tanks.

And that's what's really irksome with the Arjun at least to me. Had the designers been more sensible they ought to have at least incorporated elements from what already works and not go around reinventing the wheel like they did. I get that the Indian industry needs to get their experience doing this on their own and that each failure is a lesson appreciated more but there really is no reason for the bizarre design decisions they made for the Arjun. Not rational ones, anyway. And the timeframe is just... Someone really ought to have put their foot down when it reached the 15 year mark in gestation with not even working prototypes to show for it.

It's a failure just like Tejas, and the 'trials' where it 'trounced & defeated' the T-90 was a complete Kabuki theater. In many ways India is just like Ukraine, quick to forget Soviet/Russian historical ties and is more than willing to cut off it's nose to spite it's face....I mean Algeria will field a 5th gen aircraft much earlier before the Indians will.    I wouldn't be shocked if it turns out that the U.S. secretly bribed Indian officials to leave the program, there's literally a massive bribery scandal every few years thanks to military contacts and contracts with the West.

GarryB wrote:

Beam riding ATGMs like Kornet cannot be stopped. APS are not designed to intercept these beam riding missiles.

Of course they can... the old ARENA system from the 1990s... the first version could intercept anti tank missiles travelling at up to 700m/s which is faster than most ATGMs move at... note it can't jam the Kornet, but it can explode above it and send a shower of fragments down towards it as it approaches the tank and set it off 5-10m away from the tank destroying its warhead and the missile making it unable to penetrate any armour.

The newer APS systems fitted to Russian tanks are even better and can intercept APFSDS rounds moving much much faster than any ATGM.

I was referring to the West. Third world countries like India do not have the talent to develop a defense, aerospace industry. Nor do they have the capital required to sustain Research & Development in the defense sector.

That is just western propaganda... look at the names of engineers working on projects and there are plenty of Indian names already... they just don't work for India.... the big rich US companies head hunt these guys when they go to do their study in the west or in India and offer them huge salaries to work in the west making stuff for the west. A great engineer needs the right training but also the right personality and people skills and intelligence... that does not only happen in the west... you will find such people everywhere.

Some craftsman in the west who makes jet engines might not even be able to cook a poached egg...

People have skills in different areas and there are people who recognise this and hire them... and a talented designer can come from any country at all.

The guy that invented the jet boat was from New Zealand for goodness sake...

China, OTOH is developing and acquiring key defense technologies through licit and illicit means.

China is prepared to pay for technology it wants, but the slur that they steal is amusing... around the world the US has bullied its allies into not buying Chinese 5g technology... actually for commercial reasons because US 5g tech does not fully exist yet, but the reasons given that China MIGHT use that technology to spy on the customer is hilarious... don't buy Chinese 5g stuff because it is possible they might do what we have been fucking doing to you for more than half a century or more is really not just the pot calling the kettle black... it is the black pot calling the white oven black...

The US accusing China of possible foul play with no evidence at all is amusing because it has been proven time and time again that the biggest spy and cheat and thief is the US... don't buy US 5th gen gear if you fear being spied upon... the huge irony is that while there is no evidence there are back doors built in to Chinese 5th gen gear there are certainly back doors built in to US sponsored 5th gen gear... the US government requires it from them... so you get the silly situation that by not buying Chinese gear these countries think they are being safe and secure but there is nothing to stop the Chinese from stealing information about these backdoors in the western equipment and actually spying the way the US will.

The US objection to Chinese 5g gear is that there are no backdoors so no one can spy easily... you have to hack and break the security every time...

By listening to the dirty old US the US allies who think they are improving their security are handing all the local burglars their front door keys and security system codes to access their secrets any time they please.... and Russia and China will get those codes and keys soon enough too.

These include investment in private industries, talent recruitment programs, directing academic and research collaboration to military gain, forced technology transfer, intelligence gathering, and outright theft.

All things the US and the west does... in fact their capacity at the latter two items you mention vastly surpass anything China or Russia could hope for... all you are missing is bullying allies to not buy rival products or risk sanctions and isolation...

Not at all TeJas is 5 th gen fighter.

Yes, that is what they are trying to achieve... what I am saying is that it shouldn't be... it should be a cheap simple but useful numbers aircraft... by making it 5th gen it stops being cheap and simple... if it is not cheap or simple then make it bigger and more effective.

Its sole purpose is to replace ageing fleet of mig 21s. It does it well with complete fly by wire systems, carbon composite skin, some rumours are they are using experimental RAM from 5th gen project.

Their problem is that with all the new tech and sophisticated bits it wont end up being cheap enough to make in large numbers, and if they don't make a lot of them then their problems will start to be more obvious... if they made 5,000 of them a slight lack of range or payload would not be a problem... good communications and good weapons and cheap and simple to operate is what you need.

But it's no waay 5th gen, its just light 4+ gen, cheap, high milage patrol/interceptor.

It is a cheap peoples car but they are trying to make it a Ferrari...

The engine couldn't be made to achieve required thrust, so they setteled for ge404 engines. Working with Safran for reviving kaveri project for bigger Tejas, which might have first flight in 2025?
If engine is not developed in time, ge414 will be chosen.

I would argue if you can't get a powerful enough engine... make it lighter... reduce the specification requirements.... lower the top speed requirements... lower the payload capacity requirements.... with a Gefest & T like upgrade it can use dumb bombs instead of expensive guided weapons... dumb bombs offer more bang for buck because a larger proportion of mass is HE and not electronics and plastic...

Beam Riding ATGM are for the moment all under 300m/s weapons, they are in the lower threshold of the interception parametres of all Kinetic APS. Even Drozd from the 80's could stop missiles up to 450M/s.

Actually Beam riding ATGMs can go quite fast... Kornet is about 400m/s.... Vikhr is faster at 610m/s, and the new Pine has a flight speed at about 1.5km range at solid rocket booster burn out of about 1.3km/s and takes about 12-15 seconds to reach targets at 10km range...

You might be confusing beam riders with wire draggers.

But you are correct that Drozd and Arena from the 1980s could intercept Kornet missiles easily enough on paper of course...

It wouldn't be politicaly correct to say on this forum that russia too didn't want local jet to be successful, but thats understandable since no one wants to lose their market.

The thing is that as long as they don't try to keep making Tegas into a 5th gen fighter then it really isn't entering Russian market territory... the Russians don't have a cheap simple light fighter aircraft for export to anyone. They talk about single seat fighter versions of the Yak-130 but that sort of stuff never pans out... people who make Lead In Fighter Trainers (LIFTS) try to justify their expense by saying they are useful little aircraft that can be used as light attack aircraft and light fighters. They probably could but the cost of adding a full self defence avionics suite and the new weapons and systems and you could probably make a small light fighter cheaper than that.

As I mentioned.... I think making a medium fighter into a simplified cheap light fighter replacement makes more sense...

A bit like the PC clone concept... a standard airframe with new contents that can be replaced over time with newer better stuff, but essentially the aerodynamics don't change that much...

I think the Arjun looks too German to be considered an Indian tank, but the Tegas has potential as long as they keep focus on simple and cheap numbers aircraft.

Top Gun training in the US shows a good pilot in a small manouverable aircraft can be a total pain in the ass for a rookie pilot in a big powerful expensive aircraft... with helmet mounted sights and high offboresight AAMs then small manouverable fighters are going to become rather effective... and with modern anti missile technology and anti missile missiles small targets in large numbers will become something useful... especially when fitted with a good gun.

The Indian army has adopted the Arjun Mk 1A tank