Russia and India could develop a new generation of armoured infantry fighting vehicle 13009151

Defence & Security News - India
 
Russia and India could develop a new generation of armoured infantry fighting vehicle.
Russia and India are considering co-development of a new generation infantry fighting vehicle at an Indian enterprise, Albert Bakov, first vice president and co-owner of the Tractor Plants Concern, told TASS on Wednesday, September 30, 2015.
     
Russia and India are considering co-development of a new generation infantry fighting vehicle at an Indian enterprise, Albert Bakov, first vice president and co-owner of the Tractor Plants Concern, told TASS on Wednesday, September 30, 2015. Project of Indian-made abhay tracked armoured infantry fighting vehicle
     
"There are plans of joint production of a new combat vehicle implying development and manufacture at their plant of a Russo-Indian infantry fighting vehicle. This is quite realistic, but no final decision on this has been made so far," Bakov said.

"Our countries already have experience of joint work, for instance, the fifth generation fighter project," Bakov added.

He said that there are a few more options of cooperating with India. "The Indians would like to launch the production of some vehicles in their country. At issue is the modernization of equipment in service with their armed forces as well as acquisition of equipment we’ve modernized," Bakov said.

India is on the way to replace its old fleet of Russian-made BMP-1 and BMP-2 armoured infantry fighting vehicle. In 2012 Russia proposed to produce their BMP-3 IFV in India under license, but the idea was rejected in favor of a local development, the Abhay.

The Abhay is an Infantry Combat Vehicle (ICV) being developed in India by the Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO).

In February 2014, India’s Tata Motors, along with Lockheed Martin and General Dynamics, have developed an infantry combat vehicle that could compete for India’s Future Infantry Combat Vehicle (FICV) if the program is relaunched.

Under the FICV program, which has been on the shelf for more than three years, 2,600 combat vehicles would replace about 1,400 Russian BMP vehicles at a cost of more than $10 billion.