India is currently Russia’s largest arms partner, this country owns a lot of advanced weapons purchased from Moscow
Russia’s Avia.pro, citing an informed source, said that India is intending to order up to 1,770 T-14 Armata main battle tanks from Russia. Accordingly, India’s order request has been sent to Rosoboronexport. However, there is still no information about Russia’s response to the aforementioned giant contract.
Launched in 2015, T-14 Armata was introduced by Russia as a new generation tank model, with a completely different design philosophy compared to previous tanks. The biggest difference is that the entire turret of the T-14 Armata is fully automated. The combat crew will sit in an enclosed compartment in the front of the vehicle. The vehicle control is completely through the computer system.
Despite being advertised as a new generation tank, the current Russian T-14 Armata still uses only a 125mm gun. It is believed that in the future, the tank will be equipped with a smoothbore gun of up to 152mm. In addition, despite the fact that the T-14 Armata has an extremely modern design, the price of this tank is still very cheap, estimated at only $ 4 million each. Compared to the main battle tanks of the West, 4 million dollars is not too much. However, for Russia, this is a big barrier, making it difficult for the T-14 to be equipped on a large scale in a short time.
Currently, it is estimated that only about 25 T-14 Armatas were produced and used by Russia with limited use. If funding is the main obstacle for Russia, India’s desire to buy a very large number of these tanks could very well be the way out for the future of the T-14 tank family. However, the export version of the T-14 Armata has not even appeared, and it is likely that in the future Russia will have to modify this tank a bit, to be more suitable for commercial purposes.
