Indigenous tank T-90 Bhishma rolls out
The first batch of the indigenously built T-90 Bhishma tanks was on Monday (August 24) flagged off by Minister of State for Defence MM Pallam Raju at the rolling out ceremony held at the Heavy Vehicles Factory, Avadi, in Chennai.
The T-90S tank incorporates many new technologies in terms of mobility, protection, fighting capabilities, safety and communication.
The tank is equipped with 125mm smooth bore gun stabilised in Elevation and Azimuth, 12.7mm anti-craft machine gun and 7.62mm co-axial machine gun supported with high accuracy sighting systems and Automatic Loader ensuring high rate of fire.
A significant feature of this tank is its capability to fire guided missile in addition to conventional ammunition using the same main gun barrel. The integrated fire control system consisting of the gunner’s sight, guided weapon system and ballistic computer facilitates accurate firing of conventional ammunitions as well as the guided missiles.
The built in Explosive Reactive Armour (ERA) enhances the tank protection, which will save crew and equipment from chemical, biological and radio active (nuclear) attack. New Thermal imagers have been installed in the tank with night fighting capability and the radio communication sets have been upgraded to improve the communication.
According to a release, HVF has plans to produce 100 tanks per year. HVF took up manufacture of T-90 Tanks in collaboration with Russia, which is named as Bhishma. The first Bhishma tank assembled with imported knocked down aggregates was rolled out on January 7, 2004 and subsequently T-90 indigenous tank production commenced in 2008-09.
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