Two opposite reactions. The boffin was very angry, and said that the equipment fitted onto the Arjun did not give off infra-red or heat detection system signatures, and was thermally uncooled precisely to be invisible to such sensors. The soldier was nonchalant and said, rather airily, that there was nothing to fuss about, as all the good features of the Arjun's electronic capability had been incorporated into the indigenous modifications of the T90, so why was everybody getting so excited? He was dismissive about the heat-detection avoiding capabilities of the thermal uncooled sight, saying something to the effect of it being so small against the general heat signature that it didn't matter. When asked about performance under desert conditions, he said it hadn't been in desert service long enough to conclude anything.
This pattern, the scientist angry about every point, the soldier amused and dismissive, continued on every point.
I was told specifically that the Arjun was protected by reactive armour.
Perhaps it calls for digging around a little more.
Both agreed that a minimum of 1500 HP, preferably 1800 HP, was needed. Apparently this is to be indigenous, and will fitted on to the Future Main Battle Tank.
There are no plans to retrofit a larger engine onto the Arjun.
All modern tanks have reactive armor. The reactive armor on the Arjun is not too impressive compared to what’s on the Pakistani VT-4s. It is likely Better than or comparable to reactive armor used on Pakistani T80UDs, Al-Khalids and Indian T90S. Reactive armor is one part of a tanks total armor. There’s the base armor, there’s the composite layer on top of that, and then the reactive armor on top of that. Arjun, like all modern tanks, has all three, the vulnerability lies in the coverage of this armor, my complaint was that there’s little to no armor on the sides of the Arjun (especially the MK-1, the 1A makes some minor improvements in this regard), leaving it vulnerable to any attack that isn’t directly from the front (again, this is an issue with all the above mentioned tanks apart from the T90S which at least has some side protection due to its Russian origin, the others just have their rather thin base armor on the sides).
Otherwise Arjuns armor isn’t impressive in general for its size, with large weak spots on the turret and the hull (the latter was fixed in MK-1A, former wasn’t). Then again, the Al-Khalid has rather poor armor too. The only tanks I’d consider to be well armored in the sub-continent are the T90S and the VT-4s. However india does have much older ammunition on all its tanks, ammo that likely cannot penetrate all but the weakest of Pakistani tanks (Type 85s, Al-Zarrars, Type 59 and 69s). I’ve talked about this stuff at length on the forum before, it’s all technical details that are rather boring unless you’re into numbers and like to geek out over tanks.
Good to know they don’t think the uncooled sight is an issue, I would assume that modern ones aren’t as bad in that regard as older ones. Arjun does have rather good sights, they comparable to newer Al-Khalids and VT-4s, better than the T90S, T80UD etc. Arjun (MK1A specifically) is also pretty good in regards to its Fire control and other electronic systems. However as mentioned earlier it fails at the basics of tank design; mobility, firepower, armor.
That being said, the number of Arjuns in the IA is so minuscule that it will barely have an effect on the overall Indian offensives. I’ve always argued that the entire Indian armored fleet in general is not impressive (technologically) when compared to Pakistani tanks. They do make up for it in numbers somewhat, but their real strength lies in how strong the supporting elements of the IA are (gunships, SHORADs, artillery, ATGMs etc), they more than easily make up for any shortcomings in the armor department, tanks aren’t the biggest threat to tanks, they are infantry support.
The biggest threat to tanks are drones, infantry with ATGMs and gunships, and india certainly isn’t lacking in 2/3 of those departments right now. The biggest losses of armored vehicles on either sides in a Pak-India conflict will be to troops with AT-rocket launchers and ATGMs, and these losses will be massive.
