Germany

Arjiin Mk 1

India

The Arjun is India's first indigenous MET design and has been developed by the Indian Army's Combat Vehicle Research and Developed Establishment (CVRDE) over a protected period from 1974 for an expected service entry in the late nineties,

A total of 17 prototypes and 20 preproduction vehicles have been used in an extensive test and evaluation programme of all the various tank subsystems with the first pre-production series vehicle delivered in 1988. However, significant problems with the programme have resulted in major timescale overruns with the Arjun only due to enter limited production in 1996, As an interim measure, license production of the Russian T72M1 MBT was started in 1987. At present the cost of upgrading the various Indian tank fleets is slowing down the production rate even further so that the required number of 2000 Arjuns will not be met until around the year 2015,

Amongst the problems encountered is the design of a suitable local powerpack system thus the initial production batches are using an imported unit, the German MTU diesel used in some of the prototype vehicles.

The suspension is of the hydropneumatic type and the armour package type used is of a special composite type developed by the Indian Defence Metallurgical Laboratory,

The Arjun is armed with a locally designed stabilised 120 mm rifled gun firing similarly developed APFSDS, HEAT, HESH, HE and smoke rounc types, The associated fire control systen is a full solution integrated follow-oi to the computerised Bharat Electronic! Tank Fire Control System Mk IB used 01 Vijayanta MBTs and is fitted with ; combined day/night thermal imagine gunner's sight assembly with built-ii laser rangefinder module and ful meteorological parameter senso: package.

A full range of combat support vehicle models is being designed to suppor the Arjun MBT fleet on the battlefield These include an ARRV, an AVLB and £ 155 mm self-propelled artillery chassis

Specification

First prototype: 1983-84 First production: 1996-current (initial batch of 100-200 to equip two regiments, at least 2000 required by year 2015) Current user: India

Crew: 4

Combat weight: 58 500 kg Ground pressure: 0.84 kg/cm2 Length, gun forwards: 10.19 m

Width (with skirts): 3.85 m Height (without AA gun): 2.32 m Ground clearance: 0.45 m

Max. road speed: 70 km/h Fording: unprepared 1.4 m Trench: 2.4m Powerpack: MTU MB 838 Ka 501 water-cooled diesel developing 1400 hp coupled to a ZF automatic transmission Armament: (main) 1 x 120 mm gun 39 rounds; (coaxial) 1 x 7.62 mm MG; (anti-aircraft) 1 x 12.7 mm MG; (smoke dischargers) x 6 No other reliable data is available.

Prototype ofArjun Mk 1 MET.