The War Room

The participants in the Chieftain replacement trials in 1987. (Left to Right: the Chieftain with Stillbrew, the Challenger, M1A1, Vickers Mk. 7, Leopard 2A4)

In 1987, Britain planned to procure 600 MBTs to serve alongside 420 Challenger MBTs in the British Army. To determine the MBT to be procured, Sir Peter Levene held the Chieftain replacement programme. Tank manufacturers were skeptical that such a competition would be fair. Nevertheless, General Dynamics Land Systems and Kraus-Maffei sent in their proposals. The former proposed the M1 Block 2 Abrams (which would eventually be known as the M1A2) and the latter proposed an improved Leopard 2A4 (which would eventually be known as the Leopard 2A5). These were vehicles intended to fulfill Staff Requirement (Land) 4026 which set the requirements for the new MBT serving in the British Army.

Other entrants were Vickers Defense Systems, which already won a contract to upgrade the Challenger MBT to the CHARM 3 standard, and GIAT which proposed their upcoming Leclerc MBT. However, GIAT dropped out of the programme early on due to the cost of the Leclerc and the reluctance of the British Army to switch to autoloaders and three-man crews.

Eventually, none of the entrants were chosen and the Vickers Defense Systems prototype Challenger 2 was procured.

Infrared Search and Track sensors for the JAS 39 Gripen and JA 37D Viggen.

The IR-OTIS was a planned IRST sensor for the Gripen and the Viggen in the late 90s. However, due to the Cold War drawdown of the Swedish military, the project no longer fulfilled the needs of a post-Soviet Swedish military and was canceled but not after being fitted onto one JAS 39 Gripen "39150" and JA 37D Viggen "37301" as test platforms.

This makes the Gripen the only 4.5th Generation Eurocanard not to have an IRST sensor. The Rafale has the OSF or the Optronique Secteur Frontal similar to the F-14's TCS but can double as IRST, the Eurofighter Typhoon has the PIRATE IRST.

Had the Gripen been fitted with the IR-OTIS, it would have provided the Gripen with an avenue of detecting enemy threats and delivering missile payload without the use of radar.

EDIT: The Gripen-NG is now incorporating the Skyward-G IRST system.

Vasily Arkhipov - The Man Who Saved The World

Today is the 60th Anniversary of the Cuban Missile Crisis that began on October 16, 1962.

Before his involvement in the Cuban Missile Crisis, he was executive officer of the famed Russian Submarine K-19. The K-19 incident occurred when the nuclear reactor powering the submarine was discovered to have a critical leak in its coolant system. With coolant quickly draining, nuclear meltdown was imminent. The submarine was saved when engineers exposed themselves to high levels of radiation in order to build a secondary coolant system to prevent the meltdown. All the engineers died within a month and 15 more within a year.

On October 27, 1962, after President John F. Kennedy established a naval blockade of Cuba, aircraft carrier USS Randolph detected submarine B-59 and dropped signaling depth charges to force the submarine to surface and identify itself. Because the submarine was too deep to receive radio communication, they had no contact from Moscow for days and they had no idea whether war had broken out. The captain of B-59 assumed the worst and decided to launch a nuclear torpedo. However, regulations dictate that all three officers unanimously had to agree before a nuclear torpedo was launched. This stipulation was only applicable to the B-59 as other submarines only required the Captain and the Political Officer for a nuclear torpedo launch. But Vasily Arkhipov was also Chief of Staff of the Flotilla hence he held greater power over the captain and political officer

While the captain and political officer tried to convince Arkhipov to launch, an argument broke out but eventually, in part due to Arkhipov's position as Chief of Staff of the Flotilla, the submarine surfaced and waited orders from Moscow.

On return to the USSR, they were met with disgrace, with one admiral preferring the submarine to have been sunk rather than identify themselves. Arkhipov did not like recalling the events due to the backlash it received from Soviet authorities. He did not lose his position and rank, however, and continued to command submarines until he became a rear admiral in 1975 and vice admiral in 1981. He retired in 1984 and died in 1998.

The Tiger II's highly revered frontal plate armour.

Let's not forget that one time Marshal Vasily Chuikov pressed the premature 115mm into service over the improved 100mms just because the M60 had a 105mm gun and 105 is bigger than 100.

The Leopard '2A0'.

With the development of the Leopard 2, it was always intended to utilize the EMES 15 fire control system with forward-looking infrared, a laser rangefinder, and various ballistic computers and crosswind sensors. However, by the time the Leopard 2 was ordered into production, the forward looking infrared was not ready. Thus, around 200 Leopard 2s utilized the PzB 200 Low Light Level Television system which was essentially an image intensifier rather than an actual infrared sight. This, paired with the earliest armour array on the Leopard 2, constituted what is often referred to as the Leopard 2A0 series. As the EMES 15 became available, this eventually became the Leopard 2A1, and when new armour arrays were available, it became the Leopard 2A4 that we know to this day.

Iraq's attempts at indigenous upgrades.
Iraq was the fourth largest military in the world by 1991. However, unlike its peers Russia, China, and the United States, Iraq had basically little to no arms industry. The Iraqi Armed Forces were supplied by the Soviet Union, Warsaw Pact nations and Yugoslavia. Nevertheless, they tried to jumpstart their arms industry by upgrading their existing tanks.
The T-55 Enigma was a local upgrade by Iraq to mount applique armor on their T-55A and Type 59 tanks. This was in the form of nonreactive and non-explosive laminate armor. This proved useless against the Armor-Piercring Fin-Stabilized Discarding Sabot rounds utilized by the United States and the United Kingdom during Operation Desert Storm.
The Asad Babil was an attempt to assemble Polish T-72M1s locally using knockdown kits. This allowed more tanks to be shipped over and used by the Iraqis. However, there is little evidence that this progressed beyond a single prototype and the bulk of the T-72-type tanks Iraq used were pre-built tanks from Yugoslavia and Poland.
The last photograph is a Type 69 in Baghdad in 1990. The special trait about this Chinese export tank is that Iraq apparently upgunned it to fire the 125mm 2A46 smoothbore gun. A similar upgrade would be undertaken by the USSR under the name T-55M6.

Bruce W. Carr - Left in a P-51D, returned in an Fw 190

Colonel Bruce W. Carr was a flying ace that served in World War II, Korean War, and Vietnam War. He was credited with 14 and a half aerial victories. His most famous exploit was his capture of a German Fw 190A-8.

On November 2, 1944, he led a mission to attack a German airfield in Czechoslovakia. After intense anti-aircraft fire, Carr's P-51 was struck and he was forced to bail out. Initially he decided to go on his own to friendly lines. But days of no food or shelter forced him to decide to surrender to the Luftwaffe. He found his way to the nearest airfield and upon arrival, he spied on a ground crew servicing an Fw 190A-8 fighter-bomber. Once the ground crew had refueled the aircraft and left, Carr sneaked inside the cockpit of the plane and started figuring out the controls, as they were in German. With great luck, the aircraft's engines roared to life in the early hours of dawn. He was able to take off before the soldiers in the airfield could get him.

Flying back to Allied lines, he was fired upon as he was flying a German aircraft with German markings. Narrowly avoiding another shoot-down that had taken his P-51 just a few days before, Carr was able to land safely by flying at low speed just over the canopy. As he approached to land with wheels down, AA guns slowly trained on him. As he landed, Military Policemen surrounded him and refused to believe that he was a pilot of the 354th Fighter Group. As the situation grew tense, his Group Commander Colonel George Bickell looked into the cockpit and said, "Carr, where the hell have you been?"

Carr went on to become highly decorated throughout the war and became an F-80 Shooting Star pilot in the Acrojets, the Air Force's first jet-powered aerobatic demonstration team.

He then flew 57 combat missions in the F-86 Sabre with the 336th Fighter-Interceptor Squadron in Korea before being transferred as commander of Misawa Air Base in Okinawa in 1956. As Colonel of 31st Tactical Fighter Wing, he flew 286 missions in the F-100 Super Sabre before retiring in 1973 as a highly decorated pilot. He passed away in 1998.

Cessna A-37 Dragonfly - Cessna's contribution to the Vietnam War

The Cessna A-37 Dragonfly is a subsonic twin engine close air support aircraft developed from the Cessna T-37 Tweet trainer aircraft that was already in service with the United States Air Force. Among the upgrades that the T-37 Tweet received upgrading to the A-37 standard was the replacement of the Continental-Teledyne J69 turbojets with the General Electric J85 turbojet outputting a lot more thrust, thus helping in acceleration. The A-37 was fitted with the 7.62mm GAU-28 minigun on the nose as well as provisions for 7.62mm gunpods SUU-11/A under the wings. The wing stores could also carry stores of 8 bombs or rocket pods.

The Dragonfly served extensively with great success in Vietnam under the USAF, with all but two of the twenty-five initial A-37A batches being lost to enemy fire after thousands of sorties. This led to the USAF signing a contract with Cessna for an improved A-37B Super Tweet to be delivered for the Republic of Vietnam (South Vietnam) Air Force in 1968. 254 A-37Bs were delivered to the RVNAF until 1975 during the Fall of Saigon when the North Vietnamese Army took over Da Nang Airbase and captured many intact examples of the A-37B. 92 of these were recovered by the US and bolstered their own Air National Guard fleet. The A-37B also served in small numbers in small-scale conflicts in Central America.

The 1948 Arab-Israeli War - When Israeli Spitfires fought fellow Spitfires.

The 1948 Arab-Israeli War started during the end of the British Mandate of Palestine. Israel declared independence on the same night and the year-long tension of the Palestinians and Israelis culminated into the invasion of Arab forces from Egypt, Syria, and others.

Israel in 1947 procured its first fighter aircraft, the Czechoslovak Avia S-199, a license-built Bf 109G-10 with Jumo 211F engines. In Israeli service, this aircraft was known as Sakin or "Knife". Egypt was the only capable Air Force among the five Arab States and operated ex-RAF Spitfire Mk. V and Spitfire LF Mk. IX aircraft.

The first Egyptian Air Attack came in a week after the initial invasion, when the Royal Egyptian Air Force attacked the Ramat David Airfield where an RAF detachment was stationed to cover the British retreat. Egypt mistook the aircraft on the ground for Israeli Aircraft and as a result, two Spitfires and a Douglas Dakota were destroyed. As the Egyptians reared for a second attack, the RAF stood in patrol, resulting in five Egyptian Spitfires shot down.

The first Israeli Air Force and Royal Air Force incident came in November of 1948 when the RAF, poised to keep an eye on developments in the region, flew reconnaissance missions over Israel. One of such missions involved a Mosquito PR34 callsign Graphic III. A volunteer pilot from the US Air Force, Wayne Peake, flew one of the newly-obtained P-51D-20 NA Mustangs to intercept. The Mosquito was at 28,000 ft (8500 m) when the P-51D opened fire, hitting the Mosquito where it eventually veered off into the Sea of Galilee and crashed at Ashdod, killing both crew members.

In this time, new aircraft arrived from Czechoslovakia in the form of the Spitfire LF Mk. IX. It was the same in every way from the Egyptian Spitfires and even bore very similar markings which made the IAF, REAF, and RAF standoffs common.

The second incident occured on the 5 January 1945 when the Egyptian Government failed to inform the British of a ceasefire brokered between the Arabs and the Israelis hence the RAF prepared two Mosquito PR34s and four Spitfire FR18s for another reconnaissance flight over Israel. Among these were formation leader Geoff Cooper and wingman Frank Close. Earlier that day, Egyptian Spitfires had attacked an Israeli Armored Column. As the RAF Spitfires dived to assess the damage, Israelis returned fire, thinking these were Egyptian Spitfires. Cooper's Spitfire was lightly damaged, but Frank Close's Spitfire was set on fire and he was forced to bail out. As this occurred, two IAF Spitfires entered the scene. The first IAF Spitfire LF Mk. IX was flown by Canadian Volunteer Pilot John McElroy. He was a veteran of the second World War as part of the 249 Squadron of the RAF in Malta. He shot down five German aircraft over Malta and was awarded the Distinguished Flying Cross. He also scored kills over Normandy and France, totaling his kill count to 13. He was assisted by American pilot Chalmers Goodlin. Goodlin had a remarkable career in the RCAF but he was most well-known as the test pilot for the Bell X-1 supersonic aircraft before the legendary Chuck Yeager took over.

The RAF formation, distracted by the loss of Frank Close's Spitfire, did not see McElroy and Goodlin descend upon them. Ron Sayers' Spitfire was first to go, controls being damaged resulting in a 3-mile power dive into the desert below. McElroy pursued another aircraft at his two o'clock and lined up behind him, firing a four second burst from the Sptifire's guns. Goodlin was engaging Cooper's aircraft. Goodlin outmaneuvered Cooper and both McElhaw and Cooper bailed out safely.

The third incident was perhaps the most popular one as it involved Ezer Weizman, future President of Israel and Israeli Air Forces commander. Another Spitfire formation was sent out to search for the missing aircraft of the previous incident but this time they requested support from a squadron of Hawker Tempest fighters from 213 Sqn and 6 Sqn. However due to them having just landed, they were unprepared to fully es**rt them until frantic calls were made and the rest were scrambled. The four RAF Spitfires were at 500 ft when the Tempest es**rts at 10,000 ft saw four IAF Spitfires above them. One of them was flown by the aforementioned Ezer Weizman. His wingman was Alex Jacobs, born in Palestine, and ex-RAF pilot. The other two were volunteer Bill Schroeder and Caesar Dangott, ex-US Navy pilots.

One of the Tempests was shot down by Ezer Weizman. A new and greenhorn pilot, Pilot Officer David Tattersfield, was killed instantly. Weizman's Spitfire was damaged by Lt. Spragg's Spitfire, but the IAF Aircraft retreated as more Tempests arrived and the damage to Weizman's Spitfire was immediately repaired.

Source:http://web.stanford.edu/group/tomzgroup/pmwiki/uploads/3229-Spyflight-a-JHS.pdf

The 1942 War Games - How Japan predicted Midway, and then didn't.

The Battle of Midway on 4 June to 7 June 1942 was a catastrophic and devastating blow to the once-considered invincible Imperial Japanese Navy. In one day the Japanese lost 4 carriers, Akagi, Kaga, Soryu, and Hiryu, along with a heavy cruiser Mikuma. This decisive victory against the Japanese fleet would finally put a halt to the Japanese advances and the Japanese would be on the defensive until the end of the war.

However, it is a persistent rumor that a month prior, when planning for the Midway attack, on 1 May to 5 May 1942, the Imperial Japanese Navy held war games on the Yamato, participated by Yamamoto, Ugaki, Nagumo, and other principal participants in the Japanese Navy in Midway. The mess hall of the Yamato was to be Midway and each cabin represented a portion of the fleet and runners acting as radio communications. Admiral Matome Ugaki was an umpire and held power to decide the outcome of the war games.

The most interesting point of the war game was a scenario in which the Red Force (representing the US Navy) sailed towards the fleet during the invasion of Midway. This scenario included the US' reaction of meeting the attackers head-on instead of being on the defensive against the Japanese. This was to be the US strategy on Midway. The end of the simulation ended in the IJN losing three fleet carriers (four in the actual battle).

As devastating as these results were, the IJN, especially Admiral Ugaki, overruled the resulting defeat. Stating that this strategy was highly unlikely, it was not in the realm of simulation to consider reworking the plans to accommodate this eventuality.

So why did the IJN think in such a way? The most probable answer was that the IJN believed that the US could not crack their secret objectives and are working on a reactionary level rather than a planned attack. Second of all, it was considered more of a rubber stamp and a formality for Yamamoto's Midway plans to be put into action.

To quote the book Shattered Sword, "The games had served as a monologue. There had been no intellectual discourse, no learning; the entire affair had been a mockery of professional staff work. The net result was that Nagumo would go to battle armed with practically nothing in the way of realistic contingency plans. Whatever difficulties arose would be his to handle, alone."

Yakov Dzhugashvili - Stalin's son

Yakov, a lieutenant in the Red Army, specifically in the 14th Howitzer Regiment of the 14th Tank Division. He was captured during the Battle of Smolensk and offered to the Red Army in a prisoner exchange, asking for Field Marshall Friedrich von Paulus, who recently surrendered. Stalin refused this. Hi**er then later offered Yakov once again for his nephew Leo Raubal, but was once again denied.

Yakov was never returned to the Soviet Union before he died on April 14, 1943 in the Sachenhausen Concentration Camp.

Chengdu J-7 - Wait, that's illegal.

The Chengdu J-7 is a fighter developed by the Chengdu Aircraft Corporation heavily based on the Soviet MiG-21 fighter. While based heavily, the J-7 differs in many ways to the MiG-21 and becomes more evident with the modernization programs the J-7 underwent, with production lines closing as late as 2013.

The Chengdu J-7 traces its origins as far back as early 1960s during the development of the MiG-21. China and the Soviet Union shared a massive berth of military technology, with all of Chinese military aircraft in service up until then were either license-built aircraft or direct transfers from the Soviet Union. The Chinese aimed to continue this trend with the advent of the MiG-21, an inexpensive fighter that could match the technologically-advanced western fighters.

The J-7 program was hampered by the Sino-Soviet Split, a political freeze of relationships between the Soviets and the Chinese. But when Nikita Khrushchev wrote a letter to Mao Zedong offering a MiG-21 technology transfer, a wary China accepted the deal, but made preparations to reverse engineer the aircraft in case the Soviets failed to honor the deal. When MiG-21 aircraft were delivered to China after five months, as well as disassembled kits and documents, the Chinese set about producing the J-7. However, most of the parts were unusable, and the documents delivered were incomplete, forcing China to study the aircraft intensely, and in doing so, solved 249 issues with the aircraft. These included the fuel tanks, ejection seat, and hydraulics.

The first J-7 model went into service in 1964 but the Cultural Revolution caused problems with mass production and these problems were only fully rectified in the 1980s, when more efficient and powerful aircraft like the F-16 Fighting Falcon were already entering service in the United States Air Force.

The J-7 nevertheless was modernized in the 80s as the J-7E, a double delta wing aircraft with more modern avionics, and the J-7G, which entered production in 2002. These variants were exported under the name F-7E and F-7G to many nations and overlapped with MiG-21 users. Bangladesh and Pakistan were the biggest customers of the F-7, a trend which will continue to the JF-17 to this day.

VFC-13 "Fighting Saints" - Top Gun.

The VFC-13, or Fighter Composite Squadron 13, is a US Navy Squadron stationed in Naval Air Station Fallon in Western Nevada as an adversarial squadron to train pilots. It is home to the Naval Fighter Weapons School, more popularly known as TOPGUN. Adversarial squadrons generally act as the opponents to pilots undergoing air combat training.

Formed in September 1, 1973 as "VC-13" or "Fleet Composite Squadron 13", they were originally stationed in NAS New Orleans flying the F-8 Crusader before moving on to the A-4 Skyhawk. It was not until 1976 that the squadron was converted into an adversarial squadron followed by a move to NAS Miramar in California using the A-4 Skyhawk in adversarial squadron combat.

In 1988, they were redesignated VFC-13 and in 1992-1993 they utilised the F-18 Hornet as adversarial aircraft. They were then reassigned to NAS Fallon in Nevada as part of the Naval Strike and Air Warfare Center. They then transitioned to their current aircraft, the F-5 Tiger II. They are very notable for the red stars emblems emblazoned on their aircraft rudders, signifying that they are adversary aircraft.

Every aircraft of VFC-13 was featured on Top Gun. The A-4 Skyhawk was in the TOPGUN training sequences in the film, the F-5 Tiger II portrayed the fictional MiG-28, and the F-18 Hornet is featured in the upcoming sequel, Top Gun: Maverick.

The Sverdlovsk Anthrax Leak - The Biological Chernobyl

Sverdlovsk, now Yekaterinburg, in Russia was home to a soviet military industrial complex that produced various munitions that included tanks, missiles, and bombs. A biological weapons factory was also present in Sverdlovsk, developing and researching biological weapons using documents captured from Unit 731, the Japanese biological warfare program.

The factory was testing aerosol anthrax powder in its premises, with only a large dust filter separating the air in the exhaust pipes. The night before the incident, a technician removed the dust filter and wrote a note, however the supervisor neglected to log this in a logbook. The next shift's supervisor saw nothing noted on the logbook and therefore proceeded with the tests as usual. It had already been a few hours before someone saw that the filter was missing and had reinstalled it. The military was informed but local officials were not informed. Boris Yeltsin, future president of the Russian Federation and then-communist party member, covered up the incident.

Workers at the nearby ceramic plant fell ill and died within the week. The estimated death toll had been 66, but no definitive proof or records could attest to this as the KGB had destroyed hospital records in an attempt to cover up the incident. The incident was covered up as the development and research of biological weapons had been outlawed by the Biological Weapons Convention that took into effect in 1975, which the Soviet Union was a signatory. When Boris Yeltsin admitted that the anthrax leak was due to a military development, Sverdlovsk's Communist Party Chief and Wall Street Journal's Peter Gumbel interviewed affected families and victims of the anthrax leak to ascertain the extent and nature of the leak.

It was not until 1986 that a team of western experts were granted entry to investigate the incident, but the findings revealed a consistent and clear indication that anthrax was indeed the cause of the deaths in Sverdlovsk.

In 1992, Compound 19 was officially demilitarized, however the work it undertook continued, with 200 soldiers still stationed at the compound until this day.

Pia Vesta - How western cash fueled Communism

In 1982, Erich Honecker found that East Germany would be insolvent. East Germany had been sinking under the weight of its expenses and debt while maintaining a socialist economy and the embargoes set upon it by the Western Allies. As a response, Erich Honecker, General Secretary of the SED, tasked Alexander Schalck-Golodkowski to bring in revenue to East Germany.

The Pia Vesta was a Danish cargo ship that was most notorious for transporting western weapons to countries under an arms embargo. How western arms manufacturers found a way to sell to countries under arms embargoes were simple: an arms dealer named Georges Starckmann would strike a deal with an East German company called IMES, a company run by KoKo or the Kommerzielle Koordinierung set up by Alexander Schalck-Golodkowski, the deputy trade minister of East Germany. IMES was staffed entirely by Stasi personnel, Stasi being the German Secret Police. Once a deal was struck, the Danish freighter Pia Vesta would be sent to deliver the goods, often traveling indirect paths to the intended destination to confuse maritime observers. It was a win-win for both East Germany and the Arms Manufacturers. The Pia Vesta delivered to countries like South Africa and Nicaragua during their isolation from the international community. East German arms also found its way to Angola and Iran. Although Iran's deal is a different topic we'll cover later, it's well to note the extent of East Germany's arms trade as a preface.

Another aspect of how East Germany pumped money into its system was through antiques and art. The rich history within East Germany and the culture it raised always caught the eye of the most discriminating collectors. East German antiques found its way to the United States through auctions and private collections. However as soon as the antiques started drying up, Golodkowski turned to dirtier tactics such as levying taxes on private art collections that forced collectors to pay up otherwise art would be confiscated and sold.

When antiques could no longer sustain the East German economy, East Germany looked to forced labor. By utilising prisoners for unpaid labor, the prison system contributed more than half a billion East German marks to the economy. From pantyhoses to beddings, East German prison labor was the backbone of the East German economy until the fall of the Berlin Wall and the dissolution of the SED.

East Germany was once touted as the forefront of microelectronics technology in the 1980s. This was not brought about by their own actions. This was brought about by a secret deal they had with Toshiba for 75 million USD where Toshiba would sell trade microelectronic secrets to East Germany. However when the whistle was blown on the deal, the United States condemned and shamed Toshiba into reversing the deal and sent representatives to burn all documents pertaining to the trade secrets. Toshiba, however, did not anticipate that East Germany would just make copies of the documents, allowing East Germany to retain the secrets and save the remaining 25 million USD.

East Germany also had deals with Bofors of Sweden. However, even neutral countries could not directly trade with Eastern Bloc countries, hence KoKo arranged a furtive plan. Sweden would transport the gunpowder to Austria where it will be sold to a ghost company in Finland set up by East Germany. The train would pass through East Germany and the cargo would simply disappear. However the Swedish police caught wind of this deal and forced Bofors to cut the deal. In a twist, East Germany was able to acquire the gunpowder again under its civilian designation. Sold as a civilian product, it had no embargoes and could go to East Germany without a hitch. These gunpowder comprised the ammunition East Germany would sell to both Iran and Iraq during the Iran-Iraq War.

In the fall of the Berlin Wall and the end of the Soviet Union, these deals East Germany made to keep itself afloat was proof that a coalition of communist powers under the Marxist-Leninist ideology could not be sustained on a scale of an entire region of the Iron Curtain. East Germany's allies could not afford to pay and their enemies would not let them trade. It was an inevitability that something like KoKo, IMES, and Alexander Schalck-Golodkowski would turn up sooner or later.

HAL HF-24 Marut - Kurt Tank's Final Stand

The Hindustan Aeronautics Limited HF-24 Marut is an Indian fighter-bomber aircraft designed by German aircraft designer Kurt Tank, known best for designing the Fw 190, Ta 152, Ta 154, and Hi**er's personal transport plane, the Fw 200 Condor. It is considered the first jet fighter of asian origin to go past test phases into active service and the first jet fighter of Indian origin.

With the conclusion, albeit unfortunately, of Kurt Tank's IAe 33 Pulqui II project with the Argentine government, Kurt Tank sought different opportunities. On the Indian side, HAL was a middling corporation, only able to produce trainers that did not amount to anything for the Indian Air Force. A new Air Staff requirement included was Mach-2 capability of a new fighter. As HAL lacked the experience to develop supersonic, let alone Mach-2, capable aircraft, it was clear that Kurt Tank was needed for this project to extend.

Indian Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru authorised this development, hoping it would jumpstart the aerospace industry in India. The first phase of the design involved the creation of the necessary airframe required to sustain supersonic flight. The second phase was to design an engine capable of providing the thrust. A twin-engine configuration was emphasised, stating the need of the aircraft to go Mach 1.4 to 1.5.

in 1959, HAL quickly built a full-scale wooden glider mockup of the design, named the HAL X-241. This glider successfully achieved 86 test flights before being severely damaged in a landing accident when the front landing gear failed to deploy. By 1961, the prototype Marut flew. Powered by the Bristol Siddeley Orpheus 703 engines that were produced by HAL at the time, it was unable to achieve Mach 1, let alone the goal of Mach 2 flight.

In the end 147 aircraft were produced before the project was cancelled. Participating in the Indo-Pakistani Conflict, it was the only war it ever served as it was rendered obsolete by 1980. Part of the criticism of the plane was that it was too expensive for no significant difference from the Hawker Hunter India currently had. Most of the design issues fell squarely on Kurt Tank, who refused to bend to ideas that weren't his and presented a very rigid stance in his design work.

Ultimately, this would be Kurt Tank's final aircraft design, as he would take up a job under W***y Messerschmitt in the newly-formed Messerschmitt-Blokow-Blohm aircraft company.