from internal documents and multiple interviews with MoD sources, an account of how the Indian Army has saddled itself with an underperforming, yet overpriced, version of the Russian T-90.
A) The T-90 would be priced only marginally higher than the T-72 by removing key T-90 systems;
Shtora active protection system,
B) Maintenance vehicles, which are vital to keep the T-90s running, were not included in the contract
C) that the T-90s were not battle worthy. The T-90’s thermal imaging (TI) sights, through which the tank aims its 125mm gun, proved unable to function in Indian summer temperatures.
D
) INVAR missiles assembled in India simply didn’t work. Since nobody knew why, they were sent back to Russia.
F) Even more alarmingly, the army discovered that the T-90 sighting systems could not fire Indian tank ammunition, which was falling short of the targets
G) The army has decided to fit each T-90 with an Environment Control System, to cool the delicate electronics with a stream of chilled air .
None of the world’s current tanks, other than France’s LeClerc, has such a system. The American Abrams and the British Challenger tanks fought in the Iraq desert without air-conditioning.
India’s Arjun tank, too, has “hardened” electronics that function perfectly even in the Rajasthan summer.
http://ajaishukla.blogspot.in/2010/02/t-90-tank-piercing-armys-armour-of.html
That proved to rectified , and also pointed to sabotaged angle..
Did you know ???
A) Army asked to build the Tank with 4 Men Crews , So Army want a tank which can have 4 crew and size , weight of T-90
The Wanted list of AF like Zero Zero Seat / pressurised cabins was not available with any trainners, but just to prolong the development IAF demanded from the DRDO/ HAL.
Just like Tejas, Just to keep changes the goal post,
Just See JF-17 / Euro/ Rafael planes, when inducted they only able to perform one function , either ground role or air role, non of them are Multi- role fighter when they are inducted.
BUT IAF want Multi-role fighter from the start just to long the development cycle and scrap the project.
Every trail is takes 3-4 yrs. trail for light GUN also gone for 3-4 yrs. this process need to be changed.
Navy is working with DRDO and see the level on Indian content with them...... they are happy with NLCA and also partly funding the program.
What happened with T-90 , if happened with Arjun , IA will declared it failed. Any tank which cannot fire in RAJ desert is failed tank , still Army bought it T-90? why?
The failure of T-90 is more serious then Arjun tank problems.