Innovations in Defence Research

With the announcement that India will have its own indigenously developed Light Battle Tank (LBT), the Zorawar, the Indian Army (IA) is on course to matching its principal adversary, the Peoples Liberation Army-Army (PLAA) and its Type-15 light tank. Although the LBT is yet to be subjected to gruelling tests and its readiness for combat deployment is still some distance away, the Zorawar—which is a collaborative effort between Larsen and Toubro (L&T) and the Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO)—is a remarkable achievement. The Zorawar was developed at warp speed—a record two years. Yet, this is only the initial variant of the Zorawar which, as the DRDO Chief Sameer Kamath admitted, has to be subjected to all forms of rigorous environmental, terrain, climatic and user trials before the IA can proceed to commission the tank for mass production and induction. These trials are likely to take another 2 to 2.5 years. L&T’s Hazira plant in Gujarat played a key role in the development of the LBT prototype following a tie up with the Combat Vehicles Research and Development Establishment (CVRDE), a lab of the DRDO. The Zorawar LBT features include a three-man crew, weight of 25 tons, a 105 mm gun developed by John Cockerill, and an integrated Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV) capability that provides greater visibility on the battlefield and is rapidly deployable through air transportation to high altitudes. Its engine is developed by the American Cumminsan, after India’s failure to get the German Motoren-und Turbinen Union (MTU) engine due to Germany’s refusal to relax its export control restrictions to sell the engine to India. The Ministry of Defence (MoD) showed great alacrity in switching to the American-built Cummins following Germany’s demurral, which as of this writing, has satisfactorily met the requirements of the L&T, CVRDE and the IA. The Zorawar LBT’s current prototype has a power to weight ratio that is under 40 Horse Power (HP) per tonne (HP/tonne)—optimal to meet the low track pressure which is determined by the surface properties prevalent in the high-altitude region of Ladakh. A further necessity for the tank is to operate effectively in the thin or rarefied air of Ladakh where the general elevation is 5,000 meters above sea-level making engine performance critical to meeting the LBT’s mobility requirements in mountainous terrain. Extensive testing will be required if the Zorawar LBT is to satisfactorily meet the demanding requirements of high-altitude armoured operations. Further, some of the other claims that it is superior to its Chinese counterpart, the Type–15, both in mobility and accuracy can only ascertained after several field trials are completed before its deployment in Ladakh and, above all, in an actual combat engagement with the PLAA’s Type-15 LBT. The initial order will consist of a batch of 59 tanks with a potential follow-on order of roughly 350 tanks. Irrespective of the quantity of the tanks that the IA plans to order, the service with the DRDO and industry must make sure it secures delivery of the Zorawar LBTs for effective operational use on the terrain and in the environment for which they were initially designed and developed. Otherwise, the IA is likely to suffer the same travails it endured with the development of the Arjun Main Battle Tank (MBT). Any improvements that are required can be done incrementally and not all the components of the tank need to be indigenously sourced. In any case, as is evident from the foregoing, the DRDO and L&T have sourced the Cummins engine to power the Zorawar and its 105mm gun from foreign vendors. The IA and the lead developers of the Zorawar LBT can replace imported components with native ones down the line. The prototype unveiled by the CVRDE and L&T is lighter than its Chinese counterpart the Type-15, which has an approximate weight of 33 tonnes with additional armour increasing its weight to 36 tonnes. Yet, the Zorawar could see its weight grow with the possibility of the IA demanding that more armour be slapped on the LBT as well as the integration of an Active Protection System (APS) to detect and repel incoming anti-tank munitions, which none of the IA’s in service tanks such as the T-72s and T-90s currently possess. The key test for the IA will be to ensure that its own performance and technical demands do not completely derail the development of the Zorawar LBT. The last decade has not been good for tanks, especially with the ongoing war between Russia and Ukraine making the tank’s reputation suffer even further. Yet tanks are still needed, despite their seeming obsolescence, because they are still vital for breakthroughs on the battlefield and offer a level of mobile firepower in land combat still unmatched by any other weapons system or platform.