Future Ready Combat Vehicle: Prioritising Mobility for Modern Warfare

Image Source: Press Information Bureau, Government of India

Beyond the ‘Zorawar’ Light Battle Tank (LBT), the initial prototype of which is currently undergoing trials and testing, the Indian Army (IA) and the Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO) have already started the process of developing an advanced Main Battle Tank (MBT) of a higher weight class—dubbed the Future Ready Combat Vehicle (FRCV) or ‘Ranjeet’. It is expected to replace the Russian origin T-72 MBTs from 2030 onwards, which is very optimistic. In September 2024, the Acceptance of Necessity (AON) was issued by the Ministry of Defence (MoD) approving the IA’s quest to develop the FRCV.

As discussed in detail below, the IA, the DRDO, and their private-sector collaborators may need to ease some of their technical requirements and demonstrate flexibility. There are risks in overdesigning the FRCV. Consequently, they may be compelled to dilute some of the technical strictures enshrined under the IA’s Qualitative Requirements (QRs) if they are to design, produce, and commission a medium-weight MBT. Tank design invariably involves a trade-off between three core principles—protection/survivability, mobility, and firepower—as is the case with the FRCV. Of these, mobility is crucial for the FRCV's operational effectiveness along India's hostile land frontiers, especially with Pakistan.

The FRCV, once fully developed and deployed, will play a crucial role in offensive manoeuvre warfare.    

Nonetheless, India’s domestic tank development trajectory—especially in the form of the ‘Arjun’—has tended towards tactical and attritional attributes, privileging protection over mobility. This orientation towards slow, grinding, and even defensive warfare runs counter to the mobility requirements of manoeuvre warfare embedded in the IA’s Land Warfare Doctrine (LWD). This assertion may appear somewhat overstated because mobility matters as much for defensive operations as it does for offensive operations. Defensive Manoeuvre Warfare (DMW) does not deploy forces to defend and hold territory. Instead, it draws the enemy into territory and then cuts off the attacking enemy force from the flanks and by encircling from the rear. DMW adopts the ‘Matador sidestep’ witnessed in the Spanish bullring at all levels of command and can move to considerable depth. It trades space through a carefully crafted retreat to outflank the adversary and may even “relish it”.

Nevertheless, DMW will fundamentally be effective only if the defending force is mobile and has sufficient operational reserves. Classic historical examples where armour has been used effectively in defensive manoeuvres and mobile operations include German armoured counter-offensives blunting Soviet armoured offensives between 1943–1945. Another notable example is the Israeli mobile defence against the Syrian Army on the Golan Heights during the Yom Kippur War of 1973, even though the Germans against the Soviets and the Israelis against the Syrians were outgunned and outnumbered. The Battle of Asal Uttar during the 1965 India–Pakistan War serves as a strong empirical example of defensive manoeuvre warfare (DMW), wherein the Indian Army (IA) destroyed over 260 Pakistani Patton tanks while losing only 10 of its own. Even the Arjun—despite its unfavourably high Nominal Ground Pressure (NGP), a metric indicating the pressure exerted on the ground during movement—can, under certain conditions, support defensive manoeuvre operations owing to its excellent cross-country mobility, particularly in select sectors along the India–Pakistan border. Heavy armour is as relevant to DMW in the plains or desert as light infantry is to it in mountain terrain. Contrastingly, Offensive Manoeuvre Warfare (OMW) seeks to punch through enemy defences and seize territory by exploiting gaps in enemy defences. The German term is Schwerpunkt, which aims to exploit and make breakthroughs by attacking the enemy’s vital yet weakly protected positions or gaps in its defence with massive force. Here, the mobility of the FRCV will matter for OMW as much as it will for DMW. The IA may, in all probability, be compelled to resist using or deploying the Arjun in defensive manoeuvre operations in the event of a war against Pakistan, owing to its heavy logistical burden and the NGP-related constraints it is expected to encounter in desert-based operations. Once fully deployed, the FRCV is poised to play an even more pivotal role in OMW than the Arjun.

The objective here is to highlight the misalignment between the IA’s doctrine and its Qualitative Requirements (QRs) on the one hand, and the capacity of the DRDO and Indian private defence engineering firms to meet these QRs on the other. Such a disconnect entails considerable risks for the FRCV programme—ranging from setbacks akin to those faced by the Arjun MBT to the possibility of long-term derailment. Some critics in the Indian defence establishment have already sounded caution concerning the FRCV by drawing attention to the IA’s unrealistic QRs and performance benchmarks for the yet-to-be-built FRCV tank.

Tank mobility matters as much in defensive manoeuvre warfare as it does in offensive manoeuvre warfare. 

A cursory analytical glance at some of the QRs set by the IA in its May 2021 Request for Information (RFI) will reveal the extent to which they are quite demanding technical targets to meet. First, it requires that the NGP of the FRCV tank operate effectively in ‘boggy terrain’      combined with ‘High trafficability’. The QRs also require that the tank be of ‘medium weight’, which would fundamentally require that it cannot exceed a Combat Weight (CW) of 58 tonnes. If this is going to be the CW, it will require that the designers of the FRCV place a higher premium on mobility, sacrificing protection. However, the QRs mandate that the FRCV have 800 mm frontal Rolled Homogenous Armour (RHA) with 600 mm RHA on its sides. No tanks, which are of a much higher weight class than the FRCV, match this QR, such as the British Challenger, the American Abrams, and the German Leopard-2.  As happened to the Arjun, it progressively witnessed a growth in weight, making it difficult and logistically cumbersome to deploy; the FRCV cannot meet the same fate, especially for a tank intended to perform OMW missions. According to the QRs, the FRCV must have a fording capacity of up to 5 meters, which means that it needs to negotiate or move through water bodies at that depth. This is not an easy target to meet given the stated weight of the tank. Furthermore, the QRs initially issued mandated the FRCV to have a two- or three-person crew. However, it is now evident that the FRCV will have a four-person crew consisting of a gunner, a loader, a commander, and a combat operator. This is despite the MBT possessing an autoloader, which is not found in any comparable tank variant under development or operational across the globe—including the Japanese Type 10, the French Leclerc, and the Korean K-2. The DRDO and the IA have concluded that they need a fourth crew member due to the top attack and First Person View (FPV) anti-tank threat from armed drones. Turret vulnerability has been a crucial reason for incorporating a fourth crew member in the FRCV, who can or is expected to perform the role of a visual scout against threats. However, limiting the size of the turret and pushing the crew into the hull will also reduce weight.

Yet, Active Protection Systems (APS)—which the DRDO is currently developing—are a hard kill system and mandated by the QRs for the FRCV to neutralise anti-tank projectiles. Additionally, the IA’s T-90 MBTs—which are still in service—will be equipped with the under-development DRDO APS. This system and its advanced follow-on variants will add to the weight of the FRCV, and it is unclear exactly how much it weighs. The Trophy APS built by Israel, which is among the more widely used APS capabilities, is estimated to add 3.2 tonnes to a US Army M1A2 Abrams, resulting in a CW well over 70 tonnes. Directed Energy Weapons (DEWs) such as lasers and High-Powered Microwave Weapons (HPMWs) can neutralise incoming drone threats. DEWS are generally lighter than KEWS, limiting tank weight, but they require high levels of energy. Other means to increase protection or survivability for the FRCV without adding weight will include Electronic Warfare (EW), as well as a whole range of sensors, as the QRs mandate. For the FRCV to retain optimal mobility, which is comparable to tanks such as the German KF-51 built by Rheinmetall and the South Korean K-2 built by Hyundai Rotem, it requires a mixture of non-metallic and metallic protective armour, which augments protection without adding weight. Enhanced mobility for the FRCV will need an engine that can power it over diverse terrain. The DATRAN-1500 engine, designed for both the Arjun and the FRCV, is currently undergoing testing and has yet to demonstrate consistent and reliable performance. While this author shares the cautious optimism of some analysts that India’s successful experience with the development of a hydro-pneumatic suspension system and its effective integration into the Arjun augurs well for the future of the FRCV’s mobility, the IA in its quest for more protection/survivability must be careful about not impairing mobility even if it renders the FRCV somewhat organically vulnerable to anti-tank threats, which should be tackled by other platforms accompanying the FRCV in battle as part of India’s emerging combined arms Integrated Battle Groups (IBGs).

Kartik Bommakanti is a Senior Fellow with the Strategic Studies Programme, Observer Research Foundation.

• Defence and Security
• Indian Defence
• India
• active protection systems
• future ready combat vehicle for indian army
• future ready combat vehicle india
• light battle tank india
• light tank zorawar
• project ranjeet
• zorawar light tank
• zorawar tank

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