Arjun MBT

Why in news?

• The Prime Minister handed over the state-of-the-art Arjun Main Battle Tank (MK-1A) to the army.

About Arjun MBT:

• The Arjun is a third generation main battle tank developed by Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO).
• The Arjun features a 120 mm main rifled gun with indigenously developed armour-piercing fin-stabilized discarding-sabot ammunition, one PKT 7.62 mm coaxial machine gun, and a NSVT 12.7 mm machine gun.
• It is powered by a single MTU multi-fuel diesel engine rated at 1,400 hp, and can achieve a maximum speed of 67 km/h (42 mph) and a cross-country speed of 40 km/h (25 mph).
• It has a four-man crew: commander, gunner, loader and driver. Automatic fire detection and suppression and NBC protection systems are included.
• It has an all-round anti-tank warhead protection provided by the indigenously developed Kanchan armour which is claimed to be much higher than available in comparable third generation tanks.
• The Arjun first entered service with the Indian Army in 2004.
• The Mk-1A version has 14 major upgrades on the earlier version.
• It is also supposed to have missile firing capability as per the design, but this feature will be added later as final testing of the capability is still on.
• However, the biggest achievement Mk-1A version is 54.3 per cent indigenous content against the 41 per cent in the earlier model.

PRELIMS QUESTION

Consider the following statements:
1.“T-90 Bhishma” is an indigenous battle tank developed by DRDO.
2.NAG is an anti-tank guided missile of India.
Which of the statements given above is/are correct?
(a)1 only
(b)2 only
(c)Both 1 and 2
(d)Neither 1 nor 2

Answer to Prelims Question