tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13775856965888931692010-03-03T11:53:44.847-08:00Indian Defense InformationSujit Kulkarnihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17102237524274210497noreply@blogger.comBlogger2125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1377585696588893169.post-21315474637257585872010-03-03T11:49:00.000-08:002010-03-03T11:53:44.391-08:00Arjun MBT<a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_2istSpJf6tk/S46-K7g4SSI/AAAAAAAAABI/n0sLflhEbFg/s1600-h/arjun_5.jpg"><img style="float:right; margin:0 0 10px 10px;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 320px; height: 184px;" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_2istSpJf6tk/S46-K7g4SSI/AAAAAAAAABI/n0sLflhEbFg/s320/arjun_5.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5444498094521076002" /></a><br /><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_2istSpJf6tk/S46-IMrehPI/AAAAAAAAABA/fQfGPwcPdgQ/s1600-h/arjun_4.jpg"><img style="float:right; margin:0 0 10px 10px;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 320px; height: 176px;" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_2istSpJf6tk/S46-IMrehPI/AAAAAAAAABA/fQfGPwcPdgQ/s320/arjun_4.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5444498047589319922" /></a><br /><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_2istSpJf6tk/S46-ErFA_zI/AAAAAAAAAA4/gBjGmVgzVUU/s1600-h/arjun.jpg"><img style="float:right; margin:0 0 10px 10px;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 320px; height: 214px;" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_2istSpJf6tk/S46-ErFA_zI/AAAAAAAAAA4/gBjGmVgzVUU/s320/arjun.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5444497987030023986" /></a><br />In 1972 India's land force command formulated requirements for a new main battle tank, that will enter service in India's army. For that time India's industry had a solid experience building British "Vickers" Mk.1 ("Vilijanta") Medium Tank and the Soviet T-72M Main Battle Tank. The last mentioned was produced in India under license. Consequently in 1974 India decided to develop a new main battle tank on it's own and organize mass production of the new MBT in national plants. It's development project was named MBT-80 (Main Battle Tank of 80-ties).<br /><br /><br />Main Battle Tank's development process took lot of time and expenses. Only in 1984 it's first prototypes development was publicly announced and in 1985 first example of the new main battle tank was shown. In 1988 there were built some tanks for developers and polygon tests. And at last in 1996 India's government made decision to begin it's mass production on Avadi tank building plant. The new Main Battle Tank was officially named "Arjun". First industrial series in 100-200 tanks were planned to be built during 5 years and. It was a first test party and after "Arjun's" maintenance in the armored forces developers intended to notice disadvantages and correct them. Only after all there should begin it's full-scale production. Till the year 2000 there were planned to built 1 500 "Arjuns".<br /><br /><br />The "Arjun" Main Battle Tank has classical arrangement. It's design has some external similarity to the "Leopard 2" Main Battle Tank.<br /><br /><br />Hull and turret was welded from Indian "Kanhan" developed multi-layer armor which is most likely a variant of the British "Chobhem" armor. Frontal armor plate is placed with a great inclination providing additional defense. Hull boards and chassis are covered with steel anti-cumulative screens. Projecting the new Main Battle Tank designers considered to anthropometrical height of an ordinary Indian solider. This feature allowed to position optimally controllers and other internal devices. <br /><br /> "Arjun's" armament consists from 120-mm rifled gun stabilized in both planes. Main gun is fed by modular projectiles fitted with armor-piercing, cumulative, High-Explosion - armor piercing, and High-Explosion fragmentation warheads. The main gun aiming and turret rotation mechanisms are based on electro hydraulic. Gun is reloaded manually by loader what significantly decreases rate of fire, reaching 6 shots per minute. The gun has a maximum elevation range from -9º to +20º.<br /><br /><br /><br />The Main Battle Tank has an integrated semi-automatic fire control system based on ballistic computer. It is provided by Spanish company "ENOSA". This system automatically considers such factors as external temperature, atmosphere pressure, wind speed and direction, projectile's temperature and other.<br /><br /> It is claimed that "Arjuns" fire control system provides high fire accuracy. Hit probability when tank is moving is approximately 90% what is a really impressive number.<br /><br /> "Arjun's" gunner uses day sight with stabilized viewing field, thermo vision device (common with tank commander), and a laser rangefinder. Commander uses panoramic battlefield observation sight.<br /><br /><br /><br />Additional armament is similar to all Soviet/Russian made main battle tanks: the 7.62-mm coaxial machine gun, and 12.7-mm anti-aircraft machine gun, placed on the roof. Grenade launcher blocks are mounted from the both sides of the turret. They are intended for setting up smoke screens. <br /><br /> The main designers problem was to choose a suitable engine as far as India's western regions are desert type, while northern are mostly alpine regions. In desert regions day temperature passes over +50ºC, while tanks face engine ignition problem in alpine regions, where temperature is below 0ºC.<br /><br /> As far as Indian designers were unable to develop their own reliable engine suitable for the new Main Battle Tank it was completed with German "MTU" 838 KA 501 ten cylinder diesel engine. This diesel has a turbo charging system and liquid cooling. It reaches 1 400 h.p. and provides for almost 60-tone "Arjun" high h.p. to weight ratio in 24h.p./t.<br /><br /> Hydromechanic transmission including hydro transformer and "Renk" planetary gear box, is blocked with engine. The gear box is manual and provides four forward and two backward gears.<br /><br />"Arjun's" suspension is hydro pneumatic. Seven bearing rolls and four supporting rolls are placed from the both sides of the hull. Tracks are made from steel with a rubber-metallic hinges and are fitted with rubber pads.<br /><br />Main Battle Tank's ground pressure is quiet low (0.84 kg/cm²) what alongside with a powerful engine provides high maneuverability and cross-country performance. "Arjun" manages 2.43 m wide trench, fords 1.4 m water obstacle without preparation. It is fitted with a Nuclear, Biological, Chemical protection system, automatic fire extinguishing system and radio equipment.<br /><br /> "Arjun" Main Battle Tanks will replace "Vilijanta" and T-72M out-dated main battle tanks in India armed forces. Overall India's armed forces require approximately 2 000 new main battle tanks.<div class="blogger-post-footer"><img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/1377585696588893169-2131547463725758587?l=knowindianmillitary.blogspot.com' alt='' /></div>Sujit Kulkarnihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17102237524274210497noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1377585696588893169.post-27912960306734501132010-02-18T06:42:00.000-08:002010-02-18T06:47:05.319-08:00HAL ADA "Tejas<a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_2istSpJf6tk/S31Sezi2z1I/AAAAAAAAAAw/IYKH1zZZ_-o/s1600-h/HAL_Tejas.jpg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 320px; height: 155px;" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_2istSpJf6tk/S31Sezi2z1I/AAAAAAAAAAw/IYKH1zZZ_-o/s320/HAL_Tejas.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5439594614119386962" /></a><br />The Tejas single-seat, single-engine, lightweight, high-agility supersonic fighter aircraft has been undergoing flight trials in preparation for operational clearance, and by mid 2005 had flown over 400 flights up to speeds of Mach 1.4. The Tejas light combat aircraft design and development programme is being led by the Aeronautical Development Agency (ADA) of the Indian Department of Defence with Hindustan Aeronautics Limited (HAL) as the prime industrial contractor.<br /><br />Tejas, the smallest lightweight, multirole, single-engined tactical fighter aircraft in the world, is being developed as a single seat fighter aircraft for the Indian Air Force and also as a two-seat training aircraft. In November 2008, the Indian Air Force confirmed a requirement for 140 Tejas aircraft to equip seven squadrons.<br /><br />The design of a carrier-borne Tejas in single-seat and two-seat versions with a modified nose, strengthened landing gear and an arrestor hook was granted approval in 1999. The carrier variant has retractable canards and adjustable vortex control.<br /><br />The development programme for the carrier-borne versions was agreed by the Indian government in 2002 and the first flights of two prototype aircraft are scheduled for late 2009. The carrier variant may replace the fleet of Sea Harriers.<br /><br />The Indian Aeronautical Development Agency (ADA) is carrying out a conceptual design study of the ADA medium combat aircraft, which will be an advanced, stealthy version of the Tejas, to replace the Indian Air Force Jaguar and Mirage 2000 fleet. The medium combat aircraft has two engines with fully vectoring nozzles and no vertical or horizontal tail.<br /><br />Delta planform design<br />The aircraft is of delta planform design with shoulder-mounted delta wings. The aircraft has a fin but no horizontal tail. Lightweight materials including aluminium and lithium alloys, titanium alloys and carbon composites have been used in the construction. The wing structure includes composite spares and ribs with a carbon fibre-reinforced plastic skin.<br /><br />The National Aerospace Laboratories (NAL), based in Bangalore, has designed and is responsible for the manufacture of the fin and the rudder and the construction of the aircraft fuselage.<br /><br />Tejas cockpit<br />The aircraft is fitted with a night vision compatible glass cockpit with Martin Baker (UK) zero-zero ejection seats.<br /><br />The cockpit has two 76mm×76mm colour liquid crystal multi-function displays developed by Bharat Electronics, a head up display developed by the Indian government-owned Central Scientific Instruments Organisation (CSIO) in Chandigarh, a liquid crystal return-to-home-base panel and keyboard. The pilot also has a helmet-mounted display.<br /><br /><br />The aircraft has a quadruplex fly-by-wire digital automatic flight control. The navigation suite includes Sagem SIGMA 95N ring laser gyroscope inertial navigation system with an integrated global positioning system.<br /><br />The communications suite includes VHF to UHF radio communications with built-in counter-countermeasures, air-to-air and air-to-ground data links and a HAL information friend-or-foe interrogator. The cockpit is fitted with an environmental control system developed by Spectrum Infotech of Bangalore. The avionics suite has an integrated utility health-monitoring system.<br /><br />Fighter weapons<br />The aircraft has eight external hardpoints to carry stores, with three under each wing, one on the centre fuselage and one installed under the air intake on the port side. A 23mm twin barrelled GSh-23 gun with a burst firing rate of 50 rounds a second and muzzle velocity of 715m a second is installed in a blister fairing under the starboard air intake.<br /><br />The aircraft can be armed with air-to-air, air-to-ground and anti-ship missiles, precision-guided munitions, rockets and bombs. Electronic warfare, targeting, surveillance, reconnaissance or training pods can be carried on the hardpoints. Drop tanks can also be carried.<br /><br />In October 2007, the Tejas successfully test-fired the R-73 air-to-air missile. The Vympel R-73 (Nato codename AA-11 Archer ) missile is an all-aspect short-range missile with cooled infrared homing. The missile can intercept targets at altitudes between 0.02km and 20km, g-load to 12g, and with target speeds of up to 2,500km/h.<br /><br />Countermeasures<br />The aircraft's electronic warfare suite, developed by the Advanced Systems Integration and Evaluation Organisation (ASIEO) of Bangalore, includes a radar warning receiver and jammer, laser warner, missile approach warner, and chaff and flare dispenser.<br /><br />Sensors<br />The Electronics Research and Development Establishment and HAL have jointly developed the aircraft's multi-mode radar. The radar has multiple target search and track-while-scan and ground-mapping modes of operation. The radar incorporates pulse Doppler radar with Doppler beam shaping, moving target indication and look-up / look-down capability. The radar is mounted in a Kevlar radome.<br /><br />Turbofan engines<br />The prototype development aircraft are fitted with General Electric F404-GE-F2J3 turbofan engines with afterburn. Production aircraft will be fitted with one General Electric 85kN F404-GE-IN20 turbofan engine with full authority digital engine control. HAL placed an order for 24 F404-GE-IN20 engines in February 2007.<br /><br />LSP-2 (limited series production 2) will be the first aircraft to be fitted with the engine. Flight trials with the production engine began in June 2008.<br /><br />It was planned that a new turbofan engine, the GTX-35VS Kaveri, under development by Gas Turbine Research Establishment (GTRE), would be fitted to the production aircraft, but delays in development led to the purchase of the General Electric engines. Snecma-Larzac has been chosen as the industrial partner in the engine development.<br /><br />The Kaveri engine develops 52kN dry power and 80.5kN with afterburn. The aircraft will use multi-axis thrust vectoring nozzles. The engine has Y-duct air intakes.<br /><br />The aircraft has wing and fuselage tanks and an in-flight refuelling probe on the front starboard side. Drop tanks with a capacity up to 4,000l, can be carried on the inner and mid-board wing and fuselage centreline hardpoints.<br /><br />The aircraft is fitted with a HAL gas turbine starter unit model GTSU-110.<div class="blogger-post-footer"><img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/1377585696588893169-2791296030673450113?l=knowindianmillitary.blogspot.com' alt='' /></div>Sujit Kulkarnihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17102237524274210497noreply@blogger.com0