The Arjun/T-90 shoot-out

Strangely, the greatest favour the Arjun Main Battle Tank project ever received was from the Indian Army itself when stand-in army chief General Shankar Roy Chowdhary placed the first orders for the tank in a bid to industrialise the technology that had been developed by the DRDO. Though DRDO scientists breathed a sigh of relief, the attacks from interested quarters, both from within the army and outside, only increased in intensity. Defence imports are a big-ticket business after all.

Refusing to buckle under unceasing pressure from the army to wind up the programme and shift to developing a ''futuristic'', or Mark II version, of the Arjun, project scientists from the Defence and Research Development Organisation (DRDO) insisted on a showdown with the much touted Russian T-90, which the army had begun peddling as a panacea for all its armour related needs.

Faced with persistent demands from the DRDO the army initially tried its best to squirm out of a one-on-one with the T-90, rightly fearing that all its tall claims about the T-90, and critically, its determined campaign to run down all aspects of the Arjun MBT, would stand exposed.

Failing in its efforts to dilly dally its way through the process of organising such a one-on-one with the T-90 it finally held a summer trial in the deserts of Rajasthan this year only after letting it be known that this wasn't a 'comparative trial' but only a test to figure out the 'operational role' for the Arjun MBT.

The results of the March comparative trials, it is now being let known, was a shocker for the Indian Army top brass, who attended the test in surprisingly large numbers, with the Arjun outperforming and outgunning the T-90 in all departments of the game.

The T-90 currently serving with the Indian Army after all upgrades costs Rs17 crore, as against an Rs16 crore price tag for the Arjun. Larger orders for the Arjun will further bring down per unit costs.

The defence ministry decided last week to go in for the development of the second-generation of Arjun tanks.