Army’s plan to induct ‘Future Tanks’ on course

New Delhi: The Indian Army’s plan to modernise its mechanised Arm by inducting a new-generation ‘Future Tank’ platform namely FRCV (Future Ready Combat Vehicle), in a phased manner, is on course. New Indian Express has reported.

The plan, other than towards Pakistan, also includes the deployment of armoured vehicles along the mountainous terrain along the Line of Actual Control with China.

The plan is to replace its over four-decade-old Russian-origin T-72 main battle tank with future-ready combat vehicles (FRCVs) by 2030. The sources in the defence establishment said that the Army is procuring a total of 1,770 FRCVs in three phases with 550-600 to be procured in each phase.

The sources told the daily, "We expect that the developmental process would be completed in 4-5 years and it would take another 1.5-2 years for production to be rolled out. So by 2030, we will start inducting them in the armoured fleets,” said the sources, adding that the last phase will be completed in the next 10-12 years.

The Request for Information (RFI) was issued in 2021.

Elaborating on FRCV, the Request For Information said, with the capability to act as a multiple weapon platforms along with an infusion of niche technology will cater for the future capability requirements and enhance the overall operational effectiveness index of the Indian Army (IA) by catering for emerging threats in varied terrain.

FRCV will offer multiple options for rapid operational employment enabling the Indian Army to execute operations across the entire continuum of conflict against diverse threats and equipment profiles of the adversaries.

The FRCV would be In-service for the next 35-45 years and therefore should be designed to deliver the highest lethality survivability and agility on the battlefield combined with a fully digitised data backbone architecture to enable Next-generation operational capabilities and automation.

The expected induction timeline is by 2030, and it will come along with performance-based logistics, transfer of technology, engineering support package and other maintenance and training requirements, they said.

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