New Delhi: Amid rising new challenges at China and Pakistan Border – the Indian Army on Thursday issued the Request for Information (RFI) to finalize the specifications for acquiring 1750 Futuristic Infantry Combat Vehicles (FICVs).
According to the official statement “The Indian Army wants to deploy the FICVs in places like Eastern Ladakh along with desert and amphibious terrain”
The Indian Army plans to buy the new FICVs under the Make in India initiative and its capable enough to destroy enemy tanks and carry troops.
The Indian Army is also looking at the prospect of acquiring 350 light tanks in a phased manner, along with performance-based logistics, niche technologies, engineering support packages, and other maintenance and training requirements.
The Indian Army in its statement said “The Light Tank is planned to be procured under the ‘Make-in-India’ ethos and spirit of the Defence Acquisition Procedure (DAP) – 2020.”
“The advancement in technology also facilitates that the ‘Light Tank’ is having weapon systems and protection of adequate capacity and is equipped suitably to operate in current/future threat spectrum, to support combat operations as a weapon system,” the RFI issued on April 23 said.
The Army plans to procure around 2,000 gun-towing vehicles also (GTVs) to move its 155mm/52 calibre towed gun systems through rough mountainous and desert terrains.
The vehicles, it’s learnt, will replace the Kraz and Scania GTVs that are currently in use for the Russian-era 130 mm towed medium guns and the Swedish Bofors guns respectively. They will serve for a decade after induction.
The decision comes amid the Army’s long-term artillery modernization plans picking up pace in the last decade. The Bofors gun and the indigenously-built Dhanush guns are among the medium guns in the Army’s inventory.