Is India throwing good money after bad?

By Hirak Choudhuri

NEW DELHI: Sometime later this month, according sources who refuse to divulge their identity, there's going to be a trial run of the T-90 main battle tank.

Days before the actual run, the course will be mapped, targets identified -- targets that won't shoot back. And on the day designated, the invited dignitaries will go wow! And herein lies the paradox. The recently concluded agreement to purchase 310 of these tanks from Russia for US$450 million will have an enormous impact, none of it positive, on the Indian Army.

This tank is a dog and its design flaws have already been well documented, and the technology of its main gun (2A46) is obsolescent if not obsolete.

The Army is also buying into an armored warfare doctrine that could produce such fatally flawed weapon systems as the T-90 and its design predecessor, the T-72 which is in service with the Indian Army and whose design flaws were ruthlessly exposed during the Gulf War in 1991.

An army usually formulates and defines its war fighting doctrine first, or, in this case, its tank warfare doctrine, and then acquires the armored hardware to fit it.

Unfortunately for the Indian Army, since the early 1960s, Russian tanks have been purchased because of their low acquisition costs without a second thought being given to whether these were value for money, or even whether these would be compatible with an evolving Indian armored warfare doctrine.

The Army has also imported and "bought" a Russian tank doctrine unsuitable to the Indian operational environment. Russian armored warfare doctrine is an extremely inflexible "command-down" system with very limited applications within the Indian subcontinent.

A variety of Russian main battle tanks have already seen service with the Indian Army now for almost 40 years. And the T- 90 is now being purchased for the armored forces.

Not only should the Army be very familiar by now with both the design philosophy of these tanks and also the combat doctrine for which they were originally designed.

The US$64 million question is whether these Russian tanks and doctrine are compatible with both the Indian operational environment and the Indian Army doctrine pertaining to tank warfare. Russian studies of their World War II experiences of their tank forces inevitably confronted the issue of the tactical superiority of German forces throughout most of the conflict.

The German armored forces on the Eastern Front were almost consistently outnumbered by Russian tanks, yet managed to exact disproportionate kill ratios against Russian armored vehicles.

What was particularly troubling was that these unbalanced attrition rates often occurred when the qualitative balance between German and Russian tank units was fairly even.

Russian tank designs were much closer in quality to the Germans' than the British and American versus German balance. Yet the U.S. and British units did not suffer disproportionate loss rates.

The experience of the war made it absolutely clear that the possession of greater quantities of technically equivalent weapons alone could not ensure battlefield success.

The Russian Army could not openly admit its qualitative shortcomings with its Western armies. Public acknowledgment of the qualitative shortcomings of the Soviet army was particularly unacceptable since this would call into question the political and social roots of the Red Army's inadequacies.

Russian post-war military studies focussed on quantitative operational requirements in offensive operations, and consciously ignored the qualitative issues that lay at the root of the disproportionately high numerical requirements.

The qualitative issues were further hidden by the usual ritual repetition of the moral and technical superiority of the Soviet soldier to his non-Soviet counterpart. Yet a consciousness of qualitative inferiority with Western European or American military forces became very manifest in Soviet and Russian war planning and in its ground forces' order of battle.

The Russian army of the post-war period was undoubtedly closer, qualitatively, to West European forces as compared to the 1941 balance between the Soviet Union and Nazi Germany. But the highly embarrassing performance of Russian allies in West Asia, using Soviet equipment, training and tactics against Israeli and, later, coalition forces using Western (primarily American) equipment has probably reinforced this pattern of thought among Russian military and political leaders.

The size and expense of Russian vehicle acquisition programs also affects the design characteristics of the armored vehicles, as well as management of their life cycle costs.

Russian tanks are not designed to be smaller than Western tanks simply because they make smaller targets. They are smaller since a smaller size means less weight. This means a smaller engine can be used; both factors bring down the cost of the tank.

A smaller tank carries less ammunition, does not foster crew effectiveness and forces critical design compromises such as the external storage of fuel. But this degradation in quality is viewed as being acceptable in view of cost savings.

Very little detailed information on Russian tank costs are available, but from prices charged to export clients like India, some estimates can be made. In 1970, a T-55 cost about $115,000 and the U.S. M60A1 tank cost about $250,000. Unlike the T-55, the M-60 still remains a viable weapons system even today. Current estimates indicate that a T-90 tank costs about $1.5 million or about half the cost of an Arjun or the American M1 Abrams tank.

To keep the initial purchase costs of such an enormous armored vehicle park low, the basic durability of most Russian armored vehicles is lower than comparable Western designs.

Russian tank engines of the 1960s and early 1970s had a life of only about 500-1,200 running hours. Comparable U.S. and German engines have at least four times the life.

Their lower durability obliges the Russian army to restrict their employment in peacetime training for fear of wearing them out. A Russian tank crew, on average, fires only 12 live rounds of ammunition annually to avoid wearing out the gun barrel. This permits the gun tube on an average tank to last 10 years. In contrast, U.S. tank crews fire an average of 100 rounds annually, allowing a barrel to last about four years.

The U.S. army feels that this level of live-round training is necessary for adequate crew proficiency -- which the Russians cannot possibly afford.

An average Russian tank is restricted to about 250 miles of running annually, a U.S. tank averages 1,000 miles. Both a Russian and American tank will thus last for about 20 years of peacetime use, but in the process the more durable Western tank will permit four times the level of peacetime training.

Considering the financial and industrial constraints under which the Indian Army is forced to operate, it is rather surprising that it should select the T-90.

This tank has little potential for "growth" and the basic design, which began life in the mid-1960s with the T-64, is reaching the end of its developmental cycle, if it has not already done so. Although it may well be cheaper than the Arjun, that will be cold comfort to the Indian tank crews who might well go into harm's way in these technologically inferior and technically flawed machines.

Being second best in combat means being dead. Or has Army Headquarters along with the Defense Minister forgotten that lesson already? But, then, we are such a "wealthy country" our government can afford to squander taxpayer money like this! Indeed, this amounts to throwing good money after bad.

The author is a professional engineer who comments on defense- related issues.

-- The Statesman/Asia News Network