Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO) has developed a new ammunition for India’s main battle tank Arjun. The new ammunition is more destructive than the previous one and was successfully test fired at Chandipur in Odisha. The new Penetration-Cum Blast (PCB) and Thermobaric (TB) Ammunition is specially designed for Arjun. The research was carried out by DRDO’s two labs located in Pashan — Armament Research and Development Establishment (ARDE) and High Energy Materials Research Laboratory (HEMRL).

An innovative chemical composition has been developed by HEMRL after extensive research for the TB ammunition.

What is Thermobaric ammunition?

• The thermobaric ammunition uses oxygen from air for burning as against the conventional one, in which the fuel is mixed with the oxydiser.
• So for equal weight of explosives, thermobaric is far more effective.
• This also means that thermobaric cannot be used under water and in high altitude but in normal conditions as it has high destructive power causing it to burn longer.

During the development phase, this ammunition was evaluated against different simulated targets like armour plates, concrete structures and fortifications. The trials were conducted jointly with Army and were aimed to demonstrate the effectiveness of the ammunition on derelict tanks fitted with instrumentation to measure the shocks, blast pressure and temperature at various locations and on advanced imaging systems.

Arjun Tank

• It is a third generation main battle tank developed by India’s Defence Research and Development Organization.
• The Arjun features a 120 mm main rifled gun with indigenously developed armour-piercing fin-stabilized discarding-sabot ammunition, one PKT 7.62 mm coaxial machine gun, and a NSVT 12.7 mm machine gun.
• The Arjun entered service with the Indian Army in 2004.
• The Arjun project experienced serious budget overruns and repeated delays that resulted in a development time of over 37 years.