India cancels LAHAT installation on Arjun Mk II

[Saifullah Sani]

The Indian Army recently rejected an Israeli missile that was to have been fitted onto the indigenously designed Arjun Mk II main battle tank (MBT), further delaying the upgraded platform's induction into service.

"The IAI [Israel Aerospace Industries]-built Laser Homing Anti-Tank [LAHAT] missile failed to meet the Indian Army's acceptance criteria," said P Shiv Kumar, head of the state-run Combat Vehicles Research and Development Establishment that designed the Arjun.

"We have decided to indigenously develop the missile over the next three years at the Armaments Research and Development Establishment [ARDE in Pune, western India]," Kumar told IHS Jane's on 22 September.

India cancels LAHAT installation on Arjun Mk II - IHS Jane's 360

 

[oFFbEAT]

discussed already........scroll down.

 

[AZADPAKISTAN2009]

I misread LAHAT as LANAT installation untill I realized my error

 

[IBRIS]

Governments decision to giving self reliance a chance unlike kangurussies importing everything they set eyes on.

 

[holysaturn]

The guided as such is a weapon of much less lethality than a kinetic round.The kinetic round is the biggest threat to tanks and will be primary antitank weapon of choice because
1.It cannot be fooled by countermeasures.
2.It cannot be stopped by APS(no proven APS exists against FSAPDS).
3.It is much more effective than all types of armour than the HEAT round used in missiles.
4.It does not keep lighting up the enemy's LWR as the missile does.
5.It provides minimal reaction time for the crew because of the muzzle velocity and flight time.
6.It can can hit targets with reasonable accuracy at 4 km(although a majority of the engagement will be under 2km because of the terrain)
7.It costs 20 times less than the missile(orally told by CVRDE officials)

Now that the kinetic round beats the missile in engagements upto 4km(where more than 90% of the engagements will take place) ,the only advantage the missile has is in NLOS engagements where the tanks designators cannot be used and an offboard designator(like a soldier with designator,helicopter,UAV,aircraft)has to be used. but that is a very complex,time consuming process which needs exceptional coordination between the two systems and thus practically not that viable in the chaos of combat.

Given the complexity in NLOS engagements,the natural unreliability of a missile and its vulnerability to countermeasures it will not make a major impact on the outcome of the battle in terms of the percentage of engagements.They might however be used in direct fire mode in tanks with guns which are not so effective beyond 2 km engagements.
The requirement of that army that the missile should be used at a short range is ludicrous and laughable.​

 

[SRBM2]

The guided as such is a weapon of much less lethality than a kinetic round.The kinetic round is the biggest threat to tanks and will be primary antitank weapon of choice because
1.It cannot be fooled by countermeasures.
2.It cannot be stopped by APS(no proven APS exists against FSAPDS).
3.It is much more effective than all types of armour than the HEAT round used in missiles.
4.It does not keep lighting up the enemy's LWR as the missile does.
5.It provides minimal reaction time for the crew because of the muzzle velocity and flight time.
6.It can can hit targets with reasonable accuracy at 4 km(although a majority of the engagement will be under 2km because of the terrain)
7.It costs 20 times less than the missile(orally told by CVRDE officials)

Now that the kinetic round beats the missile in engagements upto 4km(where more than 90% of the engagements will take place) ,the only advantage the missile has is in NLOS engagements where the tanks designators cannot be used and an offboard designator(like a soldier with designator,helicopter,UAV,aircraft)has to be used. but that is a very complex,time consuming process which needs exceptional coordination between the two systems and thus practically not that viable in the chaos of combat.

Given the complexity in NLOS engagements,the natural unreliability of a missile and its vulnerability to countermeasures it will not make a major impact on the outcome of the battle in terms of the percentage of engagements.They might however be used in direct fire mode in tanks with guns which are not so effective beyond 2 km engagements.
The requirement of that army that the missile should be used at a short range is ludicrous and laughable.​

And yet APFSDS rounds are useless beyond 2km distance while ATGMs still have high hit probability and still make a significant damage, not to mention that ATGMs are the biggest threat to tanks not APFSDS rounds, they have inferior range and actually even damage is low and even a hit with APFSDS beyond 2-2.5km is not going to penetrate armor of any MBT.
ERA is still effective against long rod APFSDS. The futuer will show that ATGMs is the biggest potential threat to tanks from tank ammunition, since they can be designed in different ways and they always maintain their lethality and distance does not matter on the penetration capabilities, movement of opponent vehicle does also no effect on hitprobability.
And yes shooting with APFSDS like any other round will most likely expose your presence due the FCS laser ranging the target.
APFSDS does not beat any ATGM at ranges above the effect engagement range of tanks which is not higher than 3.5-3.8km on modern tanks, not to mention that inferior FCS have lower effective engagement range which is only mentioning the hit probability not the kill probability of specific ammunition. That all does not matter in case for Arjun since it is a failed project anyway, tried to copy a Leopard 2 tank and ended up with a monstrum that is horrible in all regards and no ATGM nor APFSDS will turn it into something usefull.

 

[GR!FF!N]

That all does not matter in case for Arjun since it is a failed project anyway, tried to copy a Leopard 2 tank and ended up with a monstrum that is horrible in all regards and no ATGM nor APFSDS will turn it into something usefull.

you should read about Arjun again...

Arjun uses both APFSDS round as well as Israeli Lahat.


Ordnance Factory Board

its about Arjun II,where they're trying to integrate new missiles,thats all..

 

[Donatello]

They probably realized no point in wasting funds on Arjun.

 

[holysaturn]

And yet APFSDS rounds are useless beyond 2km distance while ATGMs still have high hit probability and still make a significant damage, not to mention that ATGMs are the biggest threat to tanks not APFSDS rounds, they have inferior range and actually even damage is low and even a hit with APFSDS beyond 2-2.5km is not going to penetrate armor of any MBT.
ERA is still effective against long rod APFSDS. The futuer will show that ATGMs is the biggest potential threat to tanks from tank ammunition, since they can be designed in different ways and they always maintain their lethality and distance does not matter on the penetration capabilities, movement of opponent vehicle does also no effect on hitprobability.
And yes shooting with APFSDS like any other round will most likely expose your presence due the FCS laser ranging the target.
APFSDS does not beat any ATGM at ranges above the effect engagement range of tanks which is not higher than 3.5-3.8km on modern tanks, not to mention that inferior FCS have lower effective engagement range which is only mentioning the hit probability not the kill probability of specific ammunition. That all does not matter in case for Arjun since it is a failed project anyway, tried to copy a Leopard 2 tank and ended up with a monstrum that is horrible in all regards and no ATGM nor APFSDS will turn it into something usefull.

I respectfully disagree, historically even the identification range let alone the engagement range has been less than 2km including the gulf war.The effect FSAPDS begins to reduce only beyond 3km. The HEAT warhead can be effectively countered using ERA than FSAPDS because ERA is primarily designed to tackle HEAT .

In my interactions with tank designers at CVRDE almost everyone expressed that kinetic rounds are the biggest threat in tank vs tank battles and designing a tank and its armour to deal with is a big challenge, however they are more optimistic when it comes to countering missiles as there are countermeasures like LWR smoke grenade combo,APS which are affordable ways to deal with missiles.

Let me be clear on the last line.The DRDO,MOD or the army dont depend on internet warriors(with no access to any detail at all) comments on arjuns performance .The configuration studies and the tests are carried out on the lines of global best practices and sometimes even go beyond those testing regimes.They also have independant third party evaluations.Thus CVRDE the MOD and the army are confident on the arjuns capabilities but a lot boils down to logistics,obsolence management,spares management.
Care to counter with detail or please refrain.

 

[GORKHALI]

Another false flagger

Damn kenya mein bhi phaunch gaye yea log

They probably realized no point in wasting funds on Arjun.

Arjun?? They talking about LAHAT missile.Did Indian 81mm mortar hit you too ?

 

[SRBM2]

I respectfully disagree, historically even the identification range let alone the engagement range has been less than 2km including the gulf war.The effect FSAPDS begins to reduce only beyond 3km. The HEAT warhead can be effectively countered using ERA than FSAPDS because ERA is primarily designed to tackle HEAT .

In my interactions with tank designers at CVRDE almost everyone expressed that kinetic rounds are the biggest threat in tank vs tank battles and designing a tank and its armour to deal with is a big challenge, however they are more optimistic when it comes to countering missiles as there are countermeasures like LWR smoke grenade combo,APS which are affordable ways to deal with missiles.

Let me be clear on the last line.The DRDO,MOD or the army dont depend on internet warriors(with no access to any detail at all) comments on arjuns performance .The configuration studies and the tests are carried out on the lines of global best practices and sometimes even go beyond those testing regimes.They also have independant third party evaluations.Thus CVRDE the MOD and the army are confident on the arjuns capabilities but a lot boils down to logistics,obsolence management,spares management.
Care to counter with detail or please refrain.

Wrong, APFSDS have already at 2km not enough penetration capability to pierce through any modern MBT and there are no APFSDS rounds that have even anywhere near the capability to penetrate tanks frontal armor anyway, different armor has different purposes, some armors are more effective against shaped charges due the layers and materials others are relative good against KE, still both of those weapons have relative weak penetration capabilities that would not even match protection level of frontal armor on any modern MBT not to mention when they use ERA that already reduces KE/CE penetrators penetration capabilities.

Kontakt-5 made german T-72AV immune to american M829 penetrators that is why they started to develope A2 and A3, but ERA did not stop progressing today russians have 4th gen ERA that is both good against Tandem HEAT and APFSDS rounds, same goes for Israel catching up on 4th gen ERA and China, too.

ATGMs which are laser beam riders can not be defeated or breaking their guidance by using IR smoke screen, it will fly through the cloud and hit whatever object is in the trajectory, if the tank stays still which they usually tend to do in IR smoke screen then it will get hit.
ATGMs are and will be the biggest threat in tank vs tank engagements, not that this would matter since Tank vs Tank won't happen and biggest threat to tanks will still be ATGM and RPG teams followed by Airforce and Artillery and on the very last place tanks as a threat for tanks.

 

[holysaturn]

Wrong, APFSDS have already at 2km not enough penetration capability to pierce through any modern MBT and there are no APFSDS rounds that have even anywhere near the capability to penetrate tanks frontal armor anyway, different armor has different purposes, some armors are more effective against shaped charges due the layers and materials others are relative good against KE, still both of those weapons have relative weak penetration capabilities that would not even match protection level of frontal armor on any modern MBT not to mention when they use ERA that already reduces KE/CE penetrators penetration capabilities.

Kontakt-5 made german T-72AV immune to american M829 penetrators that is why they started to develope A2 and A3, but ERA did not stop progressing today russians have 4th gen ERA that is both good against Tandem HEAT and APFSDS rounds, same goes for Israel catching up on 4th gen ERA and China, too.

ATGMs which are laser beam riders can not be defeated or breaking their guidance by using IR smoke screen, it will fly through the cloud and hit whatever object is in the trajectory, if the tank stays still which they usually tend to do in IR smoke screen then it will get hit.
ATGMs are and will be the biggest threat in tank vs tank engagements, not that this would matter since Tank vs Tank won't happen and biggest threat to tanks will still be ATGM and RPG teams followed by Airforce and Artillery and on the very last place tanks as a threat for tanks.

Lets put it this way, there is a race between ammo and Armour where ammo has traditionally stayed ahead and the even today that has not changed.Penetration levels of ammunition are some of the best kept secrets, I repeat again the quote from the designers "THES BEST TO EXCAPE A KINETIC ROUND IS TO GET OUT OF THE PLACE".
The I dont know about IR smoke screens but modern smoke granades dissipate laser significantly and not only mask to mask the position,when the laser is dissipated or scattered the missile does not have a beam to ride thus the missile is flying blind.

And tanks staying still at a place and deploying smoke grenades have no correlation(they deploy whether the tank moves or not),smoke grenades deploy automatically as the tank is lased for a good duration of time(much greater than FSAPDS as it is used only for fire control) which is what happens in guiding missiles.As I said before the longer flight of the missile provide critical time for the crew to brake and retreat while the laser is dissipated.
The missile is also not a fire and forget weapon as the gunner has to keep lasing from target acquisition,engagement till the missile hits the target which means in that he cannot engage other targets but when firing FSAPDS he can lase fire and then pick another target for engagement when the commander does the damage assessment.

DRDO issue talking about ALWCS. Can be used against SACLOS,laser guided missile
http://www.drdo.gov.in/drdo/pub/techfocus/2014/TF_April_2014_WEB.pdf

In the below video at 1.37 you see the missile launch and time time it takes to reach the target,now compare it with the challenger video below on the flight time.
At 2.43 you see the t-90 deploying smoke grenades on the move.

Challenger FSAPDS flight time

 

[SRBM2]

Lets put it this way, there is a race between ammo and Armour where ammo has traditionally stayed ahead and the even today that has not changed.Penetration levels of ammunition are some of the best kept secrets, I repeat again the quote from the designers "THES BEST TO EXCAPE A KINETIC ROUND IS TO GET OUT OF THE PLACE".
The I dont know about IR smoke screens but modern smoke granades dissipate laser significantly and not only mask to mask the position,when the laser is dissipated or scattered the missile does not have a beam to ride thus the missile is flying blind.

And tanks staying still at a place and deploying smoke grenades have no correlation(they deploy whether the tank moves or not),smoke grenades deploy automatically as the tank is lased for a good duration of time(much greater than FSAPDS as it is used only for fire control) which is what happens in guiding missiles.As I said before the longer flight of the missile provide critical time for the crew to brake and retreat while the laser is dissipated.
The missile is also not a fire and forget weapon as the gunner has to keep lasing from target acquisition,engagement till the missile hits the target which means in that he cannot engage other targets but when firing FSAPDS he can lase fire and then pick another target for engagement when the commander does the damage assessment.

DRDO issue talking about ALWCS. Can be used against SACLOS,laser guided missile
http://www.drdo.gov.in/drdo/pub/techfocus/2014/TF_April_2014_WEB.pdf

In the below video at 1.37 you see the missile launch and time time it takes to reach the target,now compare it with the challenger video below on the flight time.
At 2.43 you see the t-90 deploying smoke grenades on the move.

Challenger FSAPDS flight time

The point is that IR smoke screen have almost zero effect on Laser beam riders since this was proven with HOT3 and Vikhr missiles flying through the cloud and through the rather high velocity the space between IR smoke screen and where the seeker on missile loses its guidance and the distance it travels to the last input guidance/trajectory is very low, meaning if the tank stays still which they often do, since idling is what tanks do most of the time, they will still have high hit probability, not perfect for sure but not entirely secure.

Usually Laser beam riding missiles and the lasers are far weaker and most of the time out of the spectrum of LWR, since the seeker on ATGMs is facing directly to the source (Laser) and does not need a high powering designation laser like on SALH seekers which need a rather strong reflection on the target coming from Laser designator. That of course, does not mean every LWR will track it or be blind to it, but it reduces the chance to get intercepted and alterting the enemy of the engagement which is also a reason why Laser Beam riders are considered on some plattforms.

Fire and forget weapons would be far worse against Tanks with IR smoke screen since they can only be fire and forget when they have IIR seekers and the guidance would break immidiatley when IR smoke screen would be deployed and most "Fire and Forget" weapons have such a short range that they are in effective engagement range of maingun of the enemy tank, not the best solution.

Again there are no APFSDS rounds that are effective on any combat relevant distances to have any chance of actually penetrating the enemies armor, while ATGMs or even HEAT rounds cause at least some damage to either gun, optics or mobility which is combat relevant to make your enemy incapable of fighting and not to actually kill him, that is no objective anyway.

 

[holysaturn]

The point is that IR smoke screen have almost zero effect on Laser beam riders since this was proven with HOT3 and Vikhr missiles flying through the cloud and through the rather high velocity the space between IR smoke screen and where the seeker on missile loses its guidance and the distance it travels to the last input guidance/trajectory is very low, meaning if the tank stays still which they often do, since idling is what tanks do most of the time, they will still have high hit probability, not perfect for sure but not entirely secure.

Usually Laser beam riding missiles and the lasers are far weaker and most of the time out of the spectrum of LWR, since the seeker on ATGMs is facing directly to the source (Laser) and does not need a high powering designation laser like on SALH seekers which need a rather strong reflection on the target coming from Laser designator. That of course, does not mean every LWR will track it or be blind to it, but it reduces the chance to get intercepted and alterting the enemy of the engagement which is also a reason why Laser Beam riders are considered on some plattforms.

Fire and forget weapons would be far worse against Tanks with IR smoke screen since they can only be fire and forget when they have IIR seekers and the guidance would break immidiatley when IR smoke screen would be deployed and most "Fire and Forget" weapons have such a short range that they are in effective engagement range of maingun of the enemy tank, not the best solution.

Again there are no APFSDS rounds that are effective on any combat relevant distances to have any chance of actually penetrating the enemies armor, while ATGMs or even HEAT rounds cause at least some damage to either gun, optics or mobility which is combat relevant to make your enemy incapable of fighting and not to actually kill him, that is no objective anyway.

The point is that IR smoke screen have almost zero effect on Laser beam riders since this was proven with HOT3 and Vikhr missiles flying through the cloud and through the rather high velocity the space between IR smoke screen and where the seeker on missile loses its guidance and the distance it travels to the last input guidance/trajectory is very low, meaning if the tank stays still which they often do, since idling is what tanks do most of the time, they will still have high hit probability, not perfect for sure but not entirely secure.

Usually Laser beam riding missiles and the lasers are far weaker and most of the time out of the spectrum of LWR, since the seeker on ATGMs is facing directly to the source (Laser) and does not need a high powering designation laser like on SALH seekers which need a rather strong reflection on the target coming from Laser designator. That of course, does not mean every LWR will track it or be blind to it, but it reduces the chance to get intercepted and alterting the enemy of the engagement which is also a reason why Laser Beam riders are considered on some plattforms.

Fire and forget weapons would be far worse against Tanks with IR smoke screen since they can only be fire and forget when they have IIR seekers and the guidance would break immidiatley when IR smoke screen would be deployed and most "Fire and Forget" weapons have such a short range that they are in effective engagement range of maingun of the enemy tank, not the best solution.

Again there are no APFSDS rounds that are effective on any combat relevant distances to have any chance of actually penetrating the enemies armor, while ATGMs or even HEAT rounds cause at least some damage to either gun, optics or mobility which is combat relevant to make your enemy incapable of fighting and not to actually kill him, that is no objective anyway.

Please go by combat record,canon launched guided missiles havent been used extensively in combat and proven.
Yes of course not all LWRs can pick up beamriders but the modern ones do and Please elaborate that LWR is out of the spectrum of missiles and your logic that LWR cannot pick up weak laser beams ,I find no base in your argument.
When I say fire and forget weapon I am talking about FSAPDS.If SACLOS missiles have been so divine that they are immune to jamming then why have the western nations ignored it and still content with long rod penetrators.
BTW HESH is much more effective than HEAT at damaging communication and optics as it cover more area as the explosive spread.
I agree with your view that today a tank vs tank battle is rare and it will be more asymmetric in nature where anti tank teams vs tanks will be more relevant.

 

[SRBM2]

Please go by combat record,canon launched guided missiles havent been used extensively in combat and proven.
Yes of course not all LWRs can pick up beamriders but the modern ones do and Please elaborate that LWR is out of the spectrum of missiles and your logic that LWR cannot pick up weak laser beams ,I find no base in your argument.
When I say fire and forget weapon I am talking about FSAPDS.If SACLOS missiles have been so divine that they are immune to jamming then why have the western nations ignored it and still content with long rod penetrators.
BTW HESH is much more effective than HEAT at damaging communication and optics as it cover more area as the explosive spread.
I agree with your view that today a tank vs tank battle is rare and it will be more asymmetric in nature where anti tank teams vs tanks will be more relevant.

Tube launched ATGMs didn't proof themselfs so far because there are no tank battles...plain and simple use either some real arguments or just refrain from non argument posts.
LWR only range from a specific spectrum for IR and they do not cover spectrum of most Laser Beam riders.
SACLOS missiles are great and western countries are far behind in tank technology than russians for example, they used RWS already during the 80's, they were the first who used composite armor, ERA, APS, tube launched ATGM, soft kill system like Shtora, EMT shield against electrofuzed mines, airburst ammunition, image processing and autotracking for FCS and western tanks are only starting to implement some of those technologies while those technologies are around for quite some time.
Also APFSDS have only one good point it is the velocity but everything else, they are inferior in penetration on range, combat irrelevant for any engagement ranges and have only one purpose to be fired against TANKS, ineffective against APCs,IFVs,buildings or anything else that is not as armored as a MBT while HEAT rounds do have some capability to effectivley engage any target.