India’s armoured future hinges on balancing mobility, protection, and sustainment—where combined arms, not heavy tanks, will decide outcomes.
Image Source: DRDO
In an earlier commentary, this author drew attention to the importance of mobility and why it should be privileged in the design of India’s Future Ready Combat Vehicle (FRCV). However, merely designing the FRCV MBT to accommodate mobility requirements is necessary but not sufficient. The Indian Army (IA) will need to integrate the FRCV, which enables it to be used in cooperation and coordination with other arms of the emerging Integrated Battle Groups (IBGs) of the IA. This may seem like an obvious point, but it cuts straight into the three characteristics on which tank design is based – mobility, protection/survivability and firepower. To these, the factor of maintainability must also be considered. Protection in the form of heavy armour has shown a positive correlation with maintainability, as demonstrated by the Russia-Ukraine war, which has highlighted the benefits of Western armour. This will help contrast it with how India’s manoeuvre warfare-oriented and tank mobility-centric IBGs, capable of combined arms operations, can offset the vulnerability of Indian tanks, serving as an enabler of mobility and offering protection. Maintenance is one key lesson for Indian force planners from the Russia-Ukraine war.
Maintenance is one key lesson for Indian force planners from the Russia-Ukraine war.
As this author earlier contended, while mobility should be prioritised in designing the FRCV, India’s existing armoured forces being medium-weight could come at the cost of protection. This is where combined arms operations are crucial to ensure the survivability and optimal performance of the tank to meet specific mission objectives. Combined arms for the IA will also ensure the operational mobility of the FRCV tank. As part of India’s IBGs, armour will play a crucial role. Two separate types of IGBs are planned or undergoing planning – one for the People's Republic of China (PRC) and the other set for Pakistan. In November 2024, the IA sought government approval for the establishment of IBGs, which is still awaiting approval. The IBG's key constituent arms are mechanised infantry, artillery, armour, air defence, and Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs), and each of them is expected to have 5,000-6,000 personnel. Yet, in late July 2025, the IA decided to raise two Rudra brigades, which are generally in line with the prospective IBGs and represent the conversion of some single-arm brigades with 3,000 soldiers into multi-arm units consisting of UAVs, infantry, mechanised infantry, anti-tank units, tanks, artillery, and Special Forces (SF). These Rudra Brigades will be deployed in select areas along India’s extensive land frontiers, but they are at best transitional or provisional in terms of utility. They could even serve as a test bed for the future IBGs. The IBGs will certainly need to be more enlarged variants of the Rudra Brigades, better equipped and their personnel rigorously trained for combined arms operations capable of executing offensive operations. The Modi government will need to move with more alacrity to establish the IBGs.
Furthermore, the IBGs – a result of India’s Cold Start Doctrine (CSD), which has been acknowledged, but it has not been officially declared. It is geared to mobilising and deploying rapidly. The IBGs are geared to mobilising and deploying rapidly. Under the CSD, IBGs help shrink mobilisation time. This was earlier not the case due to the extended mobilisation time required for the IA's three Strike Corps – which were largely the offensive operational arm of the IA, especially against Pakistan. These land offensives by the IA, in concert with the Indian Air Force (IAF), are geared to pre-empting Pakistan from mobilising its defences as a response to punish Pakistan’s support for cross-border terrorism or geared to seizing Pakistani territory to restore the status quo ante following a Pakistani attack, much like India did in the 1965 India-Pakistan war. On the other hand, the IBGs for the PRC – India’s other hostile neighbour are structured differently. These are likely to have armoured components, such as the two Light Battle Tank (LBT) variants that are under development and the existing fleet of T-90s and the older T-72s. China-centred IBGs are likely to be lighter, with some of them consisting of LBTs and reinforced by air.
Moreover, the IA’s operational experience in the wars it has fought in the past, especially against Pakistan, demonstrated reasonable effectiveness in executing manoeuvre-based operations involving armour. For instance, the Battle of Basantar during the 1971 War, in which the 16 Armoured Brigade, consisting of Centurion tanks, was able to neutralise the superior Patton tanks of Pakistan. The centurion crews were effectively trained and enjoyed close fire support as well as overcoming minefields with the aid of other fighting arms of the brigade, especially artillery and engineer regiments. This is a strong example of combined arms operations, which enhance the effectiveness of tanks while offsetting their inherent weaknesses.
Despite the advantages of heavy armour listed above, India’s experience with it has produced mixed results at best and, at worst, failure.
One way the IA can offset the need for combined arms operations through the Rudra Brigades and future IBGs is by building a heavy battle tank such as the British Army Challenger-3 tank, which—at 66.5 tonnes—weighs over three tonnes heavier than its predecessor—the Challenger-2. The Challenger tanks are heavy battle tanks that weigh approximately the same as the IA’s Arjun MkA1. The Challenger-3 is expected to rely on the Ajax Infantry Fighting Vehicle (IFV) and Boxer fighting vehicles to provide close fire support and achieve mechanised dominance. Once completely operational by 2027, they will also be integrated with advanced sensors, and will be maintainable and modular. The British chose heavy tanks also as a need to protect the tank crew and designed them for attritional warfare, which prioritises protection over mobility. The recovery and repair are easier for heavy MBTs like the Challengers. Greater protection also better preserves the skilled crew, despite damage to the tank. The surviving and unhurt crew could redeploy in a fully functional and operational tank and rejoin battle. Replacement of trained tank crews killed in action or grievously wounded is not easy, as training takes time, and less skilled crews thrusting into battle prematurely could further compound operational setbacks. Operational tempo may suffer due to delays in training new tank crews, and limit the ability to exploit battlefield opportunities, potentially prolonging the conflict or resulting in defeats.
Despite the advantages of heavy armour listed above, India’s experience with it has produced mixed results at best and, at worst, failure. For instance, heavy tanks such as the Arjun are not employed for high-tempo offensive operations against Pakistan. Even if they were, the sustainment and logistical burden would be particularly heavy. The Arjun’s transportation using Heavy Equipment Transporters (HETs) has created considerable challenges for deployment. The IA has no experience in deploying the Arjun in actual combat. In addition, the mobility penalties that the Arjun will impose, if not considerable, will be a challenge even for purely defensive operational missions in the desert terrain of Rajasthan, where it is likely to be deployed. In the case of the Arjun, inadequate logistical support and repairable battle damage may be fraught with challenges, as highlighted in analyses of its peacetime missions that pointed to spare-part scarcity and repair difficulties. Given India’s commitment to high-tempo offensive operations as part of its IBG strategy, the Arjun will have no real role in it. Its role in actual war with Pakistan that involves armoured operations, will be in mobile or blocking defensive action that is logistically sustainable much like the British Challenger and the American Abrams, which are roughly in the same weight class as the Arjun, performed to prevent an Iraqi attack against Saudi Arabia in the run-up to the actual Allied offensive against Iraq that culminated in the liberation of Kuwait. The logistical and sustainment burden—in terms of munitions, fuel, and spares—was significantly higher in magnitude for offensive operations. Moreover, the success of the American and British offensive benefited from limited Iraqi resistance, an advantage India is unlikely to have against Pakistan.
The maintenance and sustainment challenges are very high for the Arjun MkA1, which weighs a massive 68.5 tonnes – two tonnes heavier than the under-development Challenger-3.
Thus, the maintenance and sustainment challenges are very high for the Arjun MkA1, which weighs a massive 68.5 tonnes – two tonnes heavier than the under-development Challenger-3. In any case, India has no choice but to prioritise mobility over protection, especially for the FRCV, to perform effective mobile offensive operations under the terms of its Land Warfare Doctrine (LWD) and the limited military objectives the armour-equipped IBGs will be expected to secure. A key takeaway from the Challenger-3 example clearly shows the importance of maintainability. In an actual war, maintainability would be at least difficult for India’s in-service T-90s and T-72s that form the bulk of India’s armoured corps, which are primarily built for mobility and not protection. Russia’s T-90s in its ongoing invasion have suffered very high attrition, owing in part to a lack of protection from anti-tank threats from the air and the ground and poor maintenance. Yet, being medium-armoured vehicles, they are also logistically more sustainable compared to their heavier counterparts, and none of India’s adversaries – China or Pakistan – are going to field heavy armoured forces, which, as some analyses indicate, could lead to greater losses for the side not fielding them. The only risk is if Pakistan chooses to field heavy armoured forces with Chinese assistance in the long run. Notwithstanding the catastrophic losses Russia has incurred in Ukraine, there is no way India can escape structuring its current and future forces around medium to light armoured forces, including the T-72, T-90, LBT and FRCV. On the other hand, the IA and its development partners in the DRDO may have missed an opportunity or failed to anticipate the benefits accruing from the use of heavy armour in combined arms operations at least against Pakistan, which they cannot now, given the underperformance of the Arjun MBT. This is also one key lesson from the Russia-Ukraine war.
Kartik Bommakanti is a Senior Fellow with the Strategic Studies Programme, Observer Research Foundation.
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Kartik is a Senior Fellow with the Strategic Studies Programme. He is currently working on issues related to land warfare and armies, especially the India ...
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