Arjun was abandoned

I saw a magazine reported that the Arjun tank which cost India billion dollars and several decades was abandoned at least. I am so surprised, why such great project was stoped since they has already paid so huge? In my sight, development of tank is more easier than an aircraft project, but LCA still being process. Also India still are ambicious to raise carrier, why they give up easy one whereas complax will being continue?

The Arjun has already entered service in limited numbers, but the hoped for "indian tank fleet" of arjuns is no more. They will be organized in organic Arjun divisions and be used in Indias "cold start" doctrime for breakthroughs and such

U can find more details here
link
your home work and some search on internet you can find some thing else.

This is a good read as well. And its recent(June 06)

there's a pretty article on this in many indian newspapers, arjun tank is a failure ,



www.defencejournal.com...

www.indianexpress.com...

^^
failue in terms of the mainstay of the Indian MBT fleet; but not in terms of capability.
The cold start doctrine is a accurate assessment for the MBT.

Maybe the tank isn't a failure?

Maybe India does not need a massive tank force anymore. Maybe they have an ageement with someone to supply the armor, and India can focus on a navy.

Maybe? Lots of stuff going down in the area.

The tank is a 'failure' in the sense that the Army supposedly didn't get what it wanted in time and in the numbers expected..
Failure in the sense that the initial program was plagued with engine and FCS bugs.
But the army wasn't quite stable on its demands either. They wanted the best of everything, cheap and fast. There has been a constant shifting of the goalposts so to say as well.
The in-production tank is not a failure. The link to a reputed analyst org in my above post is a testament to that.
India has not altered its MBT doctrine. It needs tanks like it(or any other ground force) has needed since the beginning.
However the mainstay of the Indian MBT fleet will be the T-90S (Bhishma); an awesome machine in itself.

So that's about ~1300 or so T-90S, 125 Arjun MkI(MkII?) and ~1500+ upgraded T-72M1s.
The upgradation of the T-72M1 fleet is called Project Rhino and the key players in it are Russia(offering modernisation upto T-90S stds), Poland(offering the PT-91 std),Israel(offering impressive upgrades to systems installed on the Merk 3) and an indigneous option as well.

In summary, India's tank force is staying the course(Hey I quoted Bush! )

EDIT:The Indian Naval doctrine does in no way control the future of Indian MBTs

[edit on 24-12-2006 by Daedalus3]