The new Indian tank Arjun shaved the Russian T-90, say to the Ministry of Defense of India

In India, comparative tests of the promising national tank Arjun and the Russian T-90 have ended. Their official results will be published later, but yesterday the Indian publication Business Standard , referring to sources in the Ministry of Defense of India, hastened to report that Arjun surpassed the T-90 in all respects. Russian experts reacted more than skeptical about this statement, noting that the whole history of the creation and production of the Arjun tank is talking about the opposite, Kommersant writes.

The main combat tank Arjun has been developed in India since the early 1970s. Its mass production began in 2004. Weight - about 58.5 tons, is equipped with a German diesel engine with a capacity of 1400 l/s, maximum speed - 70 km/h, and 450 km. Armament: a 120-mm rifled gun, two machine guns, the Israeli anti-tank missile system Lahat. The crew is four people. In 2000, the Ministry of Defense of India ordered 124 such vehicles, in 2009 the first 45 was reported. The average price of the tank is $ 3.8 million.

In the lasting week of comparative tests at the Mahajan training ground (Rajastan), the ARJUN battalion and the T-90 battalion for 14 cars in each took part. The tanks drove 150 km in the desert, overcame water barriers up to 1.8 m deep, made 30-50 shots both in a stationary position and in the movement. According to Business Standard, one of the officers, "representatives of the Higher Military Command of India were amazed at the magnificent actions of Arjun", which bypassed the T-90 in all respects.

Meanwhile, Russian experts told the newspaper that the tests of 14 pre -production "licked" machines cannot give a direct answer to whether the reliability problems of the Indian tank and its systems are resolved in the event of large -scale production. They noted that Arjun, which has been developed for 34 years and is still finished, “suffers” with difficult defects in the design of the motor-transmission department, its German engine is chronically overheating.

Russian experts also said that Arjun does not have dynamic protection, the drive of the tower of the tower, which increases fire hazard, the tank silhouette above the T-90 by a quarter, which makes it a more vulnerable target. The fact that the very large weight of the Arjun is almost 60 tons (T-90 weighs 46 tons) creates problems for the operational mobility of the tank, the Indian military itself has repeatedly stated. They have repeatedly talked about the low accuracy of the shooting of a tank of a 120-mm rifled gun. Finally, due to endless improvements, the price of this still experimental tank has already reached $ 5.3 million, that is, it is twice as much as the T-90.

Meanwhile, according to experts, Arjun in India will push into the market, regardless of the characteristics and cost. It will be produced in small quantities, and the “workhorse” of the armed forces, according to experts, will become just the Russian T-90 for the next decades. Since 2001, India ordered 657 T-90 tanks, of which 409 sets for assembly at a local plant. In 2007, Delhi bought a license for production for another thousand T-90.