NEW DELHI – The newly ordered Russian T-90MS tanks for the Indian Army\u00a0will\u00a0come without advanced protections systems, prompting India to weigh the\u00a0acquisition of these defenses from domestic sources.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The Indian Army wants the advanced protection systems on the 464\u00a0T-90MS\u00a0tanks ordered for $2 billion in November 2016, said an Indian Army\u00a0official.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
“The new active generation protection system is one of the most\u00a0advanced in\u00a0the world; India could do well to acquire the same in whatever mode\u00a0rather than\u00a0going in for a mix-and-match approach as in the past,” says Rahul\u00a0Bhonsle, a\u00a0retired Indian Army brigadier and defense analyst.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The active protection system in question is a tank-mounted radar that\u00a0detects the launch of an antitank missile and then engages an interceptor to destroy the incoming round or deflect its trajectory.
The MoD official said efforts were made last year to procure advanced\u00a0protection systems from the overseas market, but the Russian system was\u00a0rejected on technical grounds, and the second competitor from Israel would have led\u00a0to\u00a0a single-vendor situation. The Indian government avoids purchasing\u00a0weapons\u00a0and equipment on a single-vendor basis.
India already operates around 800 T-90S tanks, first delivered by Russia\u00a0in\u00a02001.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Despite the newly ordered tanks lacking active protection systems, the\u00a0Indian Army is satisfied with the purchase of the upgraded T-90MS tanks\u00a0from Russia.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The new batch is equipped with thermal imaging night\u00a0sights to allow the tank commander to fire at enemy locations even\u00a0during\u00a0night battles, the Indian Army official said. The tank features an improved chassis and new modular turret which\u00a0for\u00a0the first time in Russian battle tank design history factored in better\u00a0crew comfort and survivability.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The tanks will be license-produced at state-owned\u00a0Heavy Vehicle Factory (HVF), based at Avadi in south India. But Indian\u00a0Army\u00a0officials say in private that the state-owned factory is not able to\u00a0meet\u00a0the production target and is in fact meeting less than 30 percent of\u00a0the\u00a0target of production. Besides, the level of indigenization of the T-90\u00a0tanks being license-produced at Avadi factory is very low because the\u00a0Russians are not transferring technology fully to India.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The newly ordered Russian T-90MS tanks for the Indian Army will come without advanced protection systems, prompting India to explore acquisition of these systems from domestic sources.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":82834,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_yoast_wpseo_meta-robots-noindex":"","_yoast_wpseo_meta-robots-nofollow":"","_yoast_wpseo_canonical":"","_acf":"","_yoast_wpseo_primary_category":14,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","_smg_distribution_targets":[]},"categories":[45,11,14],"tags":[],"coauthors":[3390],"class_list":["post-40468","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-asia-pacific","category-global","category-land"],"acf":{"subheadline":"","legacy_arc_id":"YNPDDODJK5CWZIIKBT7AWKBEWA","arc_canonical_url":"\/land\/2017\/01\/17\/india-wants-defensive-upgrades-for-its-new-russian-tanks\/","remove_feature_photo":false,"is_sponsored":false,"subtype":"","redirect_url":"","disable_inline_ads":false,"native_logo_pretext":"Presented By:"},"yoast_head":"\n