India's Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG) has censured the Indian Army for spending INR90.83 billion (USD1.47 billion) since 2001 on 657 Russian T90S main battle tanks (MBTs) that do not have air conditioning.
In a report tabled in parliament on 18 February, the CAG also reproached the Ministry of Defence (MoD) for agreeing to license-build another 1000 T90Ss at the Heavy Vehicles Factory (HVF) in southern India under a separate INR3 billion contract, also without air conditioning. The CAG revealed that other than crew discomfort, the absence of air conditioning affected the "performance of the MBT's fire control system, thermal imaging (TI) sights and missile firing mechanisms due to their prolonged exposure to heat and dust conditions". A majority of the about 800 T90S MBTs inducted into service are deployed in the Rajasthan desert region where daytime summer temperatures exceed 55 degrees Celsius, rising to around 70 degrees Celsius inside the MBTs, armoured corps officers said.
According to the CAG, the MoD initiated a programme between the original equipment manufacturer and the HVF to co-develop an air-conditioning plant three years after the first batch of 310 T90S MBTs were imported in 2001. The MoD considered this essential in order to "derive the optimum level of performance of all systems in the MBT", the CAG declared. However, trials of the new cooling plant, which were conducted in India in August 2006, failed and the project was abandoned. The purchase of 347 additional T90S in 2007 led to renewed efforts by the army in 2010 to try and air condition the MBTs with help from indigenous vendors, but these also failed. "As of October 2013, further action on the procurement of ACs [air conditioners] for all the 1,657 T90S tanks was still awaited and procurements were planned to be carried out under the Annual Acquisition Plan 2012-14," the CAG report concluded. Meanwhile, armoured corps officers told IHS Jane's that from 2004-05 onwards the fire control systems of several T90S MBTs were rendered inoperable after their Thales Catherine thermal imaging (TI) cameras stopped working due to Rajasthan's excessive heat.
Recurring problems with the TI systems led to the establishment in early 2008 of Thales India, a maintenance facility on Delhi's outskirts, to keep the equipment serviceable. "These breakdowns could have been avoided had the MBTs been air conditioned" said former armoured corps officer, Lieutenant General V K Kapoor (rtd), who added that the army "needs to fit the T90S with cooling plants to realise their full operational potential."
via IHS Jane's Defence Weekly
