Friends Forever! : Russia and India ‘sweetening’ the deal

Moscow with its all sincerity goes on with the deal for India. New Delhi also is preoccupied pondering over Russian ToT & Production Assistance for Sprut Light Tanks.

The deal is around thirteen years old when in 2009 Indian Army first projected a need for a Light Tank and  an RFI (request for information) was also initiated towards procuring 300 such tanks  expected to weigh 22 tons.

Then the proposal kept languishing till the year 2017 when the MoD asked the Army to draw up requirements for a light tank. And this was when China tested its Type-15 tank equipped with a 1,000-horsepower engine and 105mm main gun.

Last year in the month of April 2021, the Indian Army (IA) issued an RFI for the vendors in order to procuring  of 350 new generation light tanks with less than 25-ton in weight. Significantly the project belongs PM Modi’s ambitious Make in India drive which is going to witness  the transfer of technology (ToT) as well.

Retired Lt Gen AB Shivane has also revealed that the Indian Army is planning towards procuring light tanks in order to counter the Chinese Army’s deployment of Type 15 light tanks.