Project Gulmohar — Longer lifespan for T-55 tanks

PUNE, Oct 14: The 512 Army Base Workshop will soon complete overhauling of the 1955 Russian made T-55 tanks. The target to complete the 1...

PUNE, Oct 14: The 512 Army Base Workshop will soon complete overhauling of the 1955 Russian made T-55 tanks. The target to complete the 1000th overhaul will be achieved soon and signal the end of the Project Gulmohar’. The focus will then shift on the overhaul of the BMP-1 infantry combat vehicle. The workshop hopes to complete the overhauling of atleast 60 BMPs this year under Project White Lily’.

Not in a position to discard these tanks and replace them with new versions due to acute resource crunch, the services have to overhaul the old ones and increase their life span by another 15 to 20 years. The T-55s cost around Rs 4 crore and the overhauling cost comes to around Rs 10 lakh. The cost of overhauling a BMP-1 is around Rs 10 lakh. After overhauling, these tanks will last till the year 2015.

Brig R Gossain, Commandant of 512 ABW was speaking to mediapersons on the eve of the 56th anniversary of Corps of Electrical and Mechanical Engineers (EME) on October 15. The EME provides repairs and maintenance support to various army units in forward locations within the theatre of operation as well as in depth to overhaul the complete weapon system in the Army Base Workshop.

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Although Brig Gossain admitted that spares were not easily available, he maintained that they had succeeded in establishing a good rapport with the local industries for various components. Another 100 tanks will be overhauled under Project Gulmohar following which attention will be focussed on the BMP-1. Around 740 BMPs will be subjected to an overhaul in the first phase. The newly established facility at the workshop has the capacity to overhaul 110 BMPs this year.

The EME had played a stellar role in the recent Kargil conflict where the workforce had succeeded in repairing more than 906 assemblies. Brig Gossain said that the threat to the border was still consistent and hence the Raising Day celebrations this year would be very low key.