India’s T-90 main battle tank to be fitted with indigenously developed commander sight

The new thermal image-based commander sight has been developed by the Defence Research and Development Organisation and BEL on the basis of a requirement projected by the Army.

T-90 tanks during the Republic Day Parade dress rehearsal in Lucknow, on January 24.

The Acquisition Wing of the Defence Ministry has signed a contract valued at Rs.1,075 crore with the defence public sector enterprise Bharat Electronics Limited (BEL) for the retro-modification of the commander sight of the Indian Army’s T-90 main battle tank.

BEL will carry the retro-modification on 957 T-90 tanks at its Machilipatnam factory, according to sources. The new commander sight has been developed by the Defence Research and Development Organisation and BEL on the basis of a requirement projected by the Army. The advanced Mid Wave Thermal Image (MWIR)-based sight will replace the existing Image Converter (IC)-based sight.

According to a spokesperson of the Defence Ministry, the new commander sight employs a thermal imager capable of detecting targets at a distance of up to 8 km even at night. It also has a laser range finder (LRF) to identify targets accurately up to distances of 5 km.

Said the spokesperson: "With the corrections from ballistic software and LRF, the tank commander of a T-90 will be able to detect, engage and neutralise targets with phenomenal accuracy. The indigenously developed sight has already successfully completed extensive evaluations under field conditions."