Made-In-India Combat Vehicles To Replace Aging Russian Tanks

Giving Make-in-India in defence sector a major thrust, India has decided to manufacture battle tanks indigenously. An ambitious project for development and production of more than 500 future ready combat vehicles (FRCVs) in the country itself has been approved by the Ministry of Defence.

According to the ministry, the project's design and development will have at least 50 per cent indigenous content. A total of 590 FRCVs will be built under the project's Make-I category, which provides for up to 70 per cent of government funding for prototype development, it specified during a project brief held recently.

Phasing out Russian tanks

The project's main thrust is to replace the Army's age-old Russian tanks, beginning in 2030. The Russian-origin T-72 main battle tanks are over four-decade old now.

The indigenously-built vehicles will be developed on a modular concept to serve as the base platform of at least 11 tracked vehicles, including a main battle tank, according to The Diplomat.

Other possible FCRV variants are light tracked, wheeled, bridge layer and trawl tanks, self-propelled howitzers, air defence guns, artillery observation post and engineering reconnaissance vehicles, and armored ambulances, according to a report in The Hindu.

The outlet reasoned that advancing asymmetric anti-tank technologies, such as combat drones and top-attack and loitering munitions, have increased the vulnerabilities of older tank models that lack more advanced mobile protection systems.

Main features

The four-crew FRCV will be powered by a 1,500-horsepower engine and should be transportable by aircraft, ship, rail and road transport. The 55-ton tank will have a minimum range of 400 km in cross-country/desert terrain and 500 km on paved roads. The tank's expected life span is 35-45 years.

The tank's main gun will be of 120 mm or above caliber, capable of firing three types of rounds -- armour piercing fin stabilised discarding sabot, high explosive anti-tank, and high explosive -- in static and dynamic mode, day or night.

The shells' minimum range should be 2,500 metres, 1,600 metres and 5,000 metres in direct and 10,000 metres in indirect roles. The gun should also be able to fire anti-tank and anti-helicopter missiles at a minimum range of 500 metres.

Weaponry system

The combat platform's secondary weapons will be a coaxial machine gun with a minimum range of 1,800 metres and an anti-aircraft machine gun capable of striking an aerial target at a minimum range of 1,500 metres and a ground target at 2,000 metres.

The tank will feature an AI-enabled fire control system capable of switching into hunter-killer, killer-killer and automatic target detection and tracking system modes, depending on the situation.

The fire control system will be integrated with the battlefield management system (BMS) and identification of friend and foe (IFF) to generate a common fire control picture.

Protection capabilities

To defeat evolving anti-tank capabilities, the ministry has specified an active protection system (APS) for the tank, comprising a dedicated top attack protection system (TAPS). The APS should include soft and hard kill systems to detect and disrupt laser designation, ranging, missile launch, missile homing and destroy and deflect incoming projectiles.

Other protection elements include explosive reactive armour, scalable, non-explosive reactive armour, and belly protection against improvised explosive devices and mine blasts of at least 15 kg of TNT.

It should also include chemical, biological, radiological & nuclear protection, an instant fire detection & suppression system, a missile warning system and stealth & signature management to suppress acoustic, visual, infra-red, thermal and electromagnetic signatures by 50 per cent in the observation range.