Prasun K. Sengupta

A close examination of the Indian Army’s plans for procuring Future Main Battle Tanks (FMBT) and Future Infantry Combat Vehicles (FICV) reveals that Army HQ has decided to ape the same scientific and military-industrial processes that were adopted by Russia two decades ago for introducing a family of New Generation combat vehicles for the futuristic battlefields.

It was in last November that Indian Army HQ issued Request for Information (RFIs) calling for the procurement of approximately 1,770 new-generation, contemporary combat vehicle platforms in various kit combinations in a phased manner under its ambitious Future Ready Combat Vehicle (FRCV) project. The FRCV’s design will form the base platform for both the FBMT (meant for the replacing the existing T-72 family of medium battle tanks) and the FICV, with 2,610 of the latter being required. It is also planned to subsequently develop other need-based family of variants of the tracked FRCV. The FRCV’s FMBT variant will have an all-up combat weight of 50 tonnes, and it will also be required to:

• Provide fire-support to assaulting forces
• Fire while on the move, accurately
• Fire multiple types of ammunition, including anti-armour guided-munitions
• Include capability to destroy enemy battle tanks at ranges higher than the latter can engage, in a time earlier than the latter can fire at and with very high first-round hit/kill probability and acquire targets at a longer range
• Engage low-flying manned and unma