PTI,
| Chennai:T-90, one of the most advanced of battle tanks with tremendous night fighting and missile firing capability, will shortly be inducted into the Indian Army.
A senior official of the Heavy Vehicles Factory at Avadi, near Chennai, which is assembling the tanks from parts imported from Russia, said the HVF planned to roll out more than 50 T-90 tanks before the close of this year. Talking on the sidelines of a workshop on Rubber Technology for Russian Armoured Vehicles at the HVF premises, he said the biggest advantage of the T-90 over its predecessor T-72, was its superb night-fighting capability and its capacity to fire missiles up to a range of 4 kilometres. T-90 had proved its mettle in field trials. “T-90 will be commissioned into the Indian Army in the next two to three months, may be even before that,” the official said. Speaking on condition of anonymity, he said the indigenous production of T-90, on the lines of T-72, would begin at the HVF in another year. Asked about reported snags with the indigenously manufactured tank, the 58-tonne 'Arjun,' the official said, “media reports that 'Arjun' had developed technical snags during trials and would not be inducted into the Army are totally wrong. There is no technical hiccup and it will soon be commissioned into the army”. The official said the production of 'Arjun', conceived and developed by the Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO), began a year ago and two such tanks had been rolled out for firing trials in the Western sector. |
