India to Upgrade Army With Futuristic, Modular Tanks
Design competition's ideas could be used to help replace aging Soviet machines.
India is looking to upgrade its army’s hardware with a call for completely new tank designs. Eventually, the country wants to develop a design for at least 10 different variants of modular weaponry, including not just its proposed Future Ready Combat Vehicle but light tanks and trawls as well. To that end, it’s putting out a call for competition to the country’s tank designers, with the winner working with the country through production.
The new tank development effort is largely predicated on the idea of modular weaponry. Essentially, India wants to be able to go to Playmobil war, snapping whatever pieces it needs onto an endlessly iterating cavalry. This idea may make more sense in India, with its geographically varied borders, than in other countries, but has nonetheless come under fire from the subcontinent’s military industrial complex because the machines may not be quite rugged enough. That ain’t nothing when it comes to war machines.
India’s soldiers have been driving around in Soviet-era tanks for a while now, so a change is definitely due. But the timeline for introduction on the FRCV doesn’t put the newly designed model to work until at least 2025.
Anyone who wants to get involved in a land war in Asia better get on it now.
