Know facts about India's main battle tank T-90 Bhishma

New Delhi: The T-90 is a Russian third-generation main battle tank that is a modernisation of the T-72 (it was originally to be called the T-72BU, later renamed to T-90). It is currently the most modern tank in service with the Indian Ground Forces. T-90 uses a 125mm 2A46 smooth bore tank gun, 1G46 gunner sights, a new engine, and thermal sights. In all, India plans to have 310 T-90S and 1,330 T-90M tanks in service by 2020 (total of 1,657 tanks by 2020). Here's 10 interesting facts about the main Indian battle tank: 1. T-90S Bhishma is originally derived from Russia. Bhishma is a dubbed name just for T-90S. Russian Ministry Of Defence found that it could no longer afford to manufacture two war tanks in parallel. The one being T-80U which was of better quality and another being T-72B which was cheaper. Therefore they started giving small orders along with improvised features in hope for improving exportation to other countries. 2. Initially India never built the T-90S tanks. In 2001 around 310 T-90S tanks were imported from Russia. Out of which 120 were delivered completely, 90 in semi knocked down kits and 100 in complete knocked down kits. 3. The sole purpose of purchasing T-90S was that it had features almost similar to the T-72 which were then used by Indian Army.4. It has a new engine, jamming system, laser warning receivers. These Tanks can be used for more than 3 decades with little or no mid-life improvement. The tank has a Fire Control System which includes day and night sighting system mounted at the commanders' station which allows the detection of a target between the ranges of 700m to 1100m during night.5. The tank includes one 125mm 2A46M smoothbore gun which is stabilized and has a thermal covering.6. It is built in with both passive and active defenses and the shielding is done by traditional armor plating with explosive reactive armour.7. It has an improvised mobility factor. The tank has a deep snorkel that can carry 5m of water with tools which can be deployed in 20 minutes to avoid 5m deep water obstacles. 8. After a series of imports from Russia, finally India got the licence to manufacture the T-90S. A T-90S Bhishma tank was thus manufactured by the Heavy Vehicles Factory at Avadi, Tamil Nadu on January 7, 2004. 9. On November 2012, The Tribune reported that the Army had placed an order of around 250 T-90S tanks which has improved electronic devices.10. The current contract for manufacture of 347 T-90S Bhishma, which are to be built in India under licence, will lead India to the largest force of modernized tanks in South-Asia.