Indian Army on Thursday issued the Request for Information (RFI) to finalize the specifications for acquiring 1,750 Futuristic Infantry Combat Vehicles (FICVs) under the Make in India initiative to destroy enemy tanks and carry troops. The Indian Army says it wants to deploy the vehicles in places like Eastern Ladakh along with desert and amphibious terrain.
The FICV project has been in plans for a long time and the need for a modern troops carrier equipped with tank-busting capabilities was felt during the recent Ladakh conflict. Due to the experiences in the Ladakh theatre, 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 package, and other maintenance and training requirements.The Light Tank is planned to be procured under the ‘Make-in-India’ ethos and spirit of the Defence Acquisition Procedure (DAP) – 2020, the Indian Army has stated. The Indian Army specified that it wants its less than 25 tonnes tanks to be used for operations in High Altitude Area (HAA), marginal terrain (Rann), amphibious operations, etc.
“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.
