Vijayanta
Vijayanta MBT taken outside the Indian National War Memorial (Maharashtra).
Type	Main Battle Tank
Place of origin	India/ United Kingdom
Service history
In service	1965-2008
Used by	India
Wars	Indo-Pakistani War of 1971
Production history
Manufacturer	Vickers-Armstrongs
Produced	1963 (Vickers Mk.I prototype) 1965-1983 (Vijayanta production)
Number built	2200
Specifications
Weight	39,000 kg (43 short tons)
Length	9.788 m (32.11 ft)
Width	3.168 m (10.39 ft)
Height	2.711 m (8.89 ft)
Crew	4
Armour	80 mm (3.1 in) steel (hull and turret front)
Primary armament	1 x 105 mm L7A2 (44 rounds)
Secondary armament	1 x 12.7 mm MG (ranging gun) (1000 rounds) 1 x 12.7 mm MG (pintle mount) (2000 rounds) 1 x 7.62 mm MG(Co-Ax) (500 rounds)
Engine	Leyland L60 Diesel 535 bhp (399 kW)
Transmission	David Brown Ltd. (formerly Self-Changing Gears Ltd.) TN12 semi-automatic gearbox
Suspension	Torsion bar
Operational range	530 km (330 mi)
Speed	50 km/h (31 mph)

The Vijayanta (en:"Victorious"^[1]) main battle tank was built in India based on a licensed design of the Vickers Mk.1. The prototype was completed in 1963 and the tank entered service in 1965. The first 90 Vehicles were built by Vickers in the UK.^[2] Production continued at the Heavy Vehicles Factory in Avadi until 1983 with 2200 being built. A number of the tank hulls were converted to other uses such as self propelled guns after being withdrawn from service.^[3] The Vijayanta has been supplanted by the T-72M1 in Indian service.

[edit] Variants

• Catapult SPA - Self-propelled artillery. A Russian M-46 field gun was mounted on a lengthened Vijayanta hull in an open-topped armoured box superstructure.^[4]
• Kartik AVLB - Armoured vehicle-launched bridge. The same elongated hull used for the Catapult was also used to create the Kartik bridge launching vehicle. The Kartik uses a scissors style bridge of Eastern European design, and was first introduced in 1989.
• Vijayanta ARV - Armoured recovery vehicle based on the Vijayanta hull.

[edit] References

[edit] External links

• Vijayanta @ Bharat-Rakshak.com
• Vijayanta @ GlobalSecurity.org

This military vehicle article is a stub. You can help Wikipedia by expanding it. v • d • e