New Delhi: Providing a further boost to the 'Make in India' initiative of the government in the Defence Sector, the acquisition wing of the Ministry of Defence has on Thursday has signed a contract for Rs 1,075 crore with Bharat Electronics Limited (BEL) for the retro-modification of commander sight of Battle Tanks-T-90. The retro-modification will be carried out in 957 T-90 tanks of the Indian Army.

Commander sight of Battle Tank T-90, India's premier battle tank, is presently fitted with an image converter (I/c) tube-based sight for night viewing. Based on the requirement projected by the Indian Army, DRDO and BEL have jointly designed and developed an advanced Mid Wave Thermal Image (MWIR) based sight as a replacement for the existing IC-based sight.

The new retro-modified commander sight employs a thermal imager capable of detecting the targets at 8 kms during day and night and a Laser Ranger Finder (LRF) to find the ranges accurately up to 5 Kms, thereby enhancing its capability to engage target at longer ranges. With the corrections from ballistic software and LRF, the commander of T-90 can detect, engage and neutralize the targets with phenomenal accuracy. The indigenously developed sight completed extensive evaluations under field conditions successfully.

The successful indigenous development of thermal imager based commander sight will provide further fillip to indigenous R&D and defence manufacturing.

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