The USA government has recently consolidated several next-generation tank, APC, and IFV projects floating around [m: irl] into the revitalized FICV program. Recent shifts in the geopolitical landscape has made creating dedicated MBTs not that good of an idea: conflict is mostly anticipated in the jungles and hills of Myanmar or the plateaus and mountains of Tibet, as opposed to the Pakistanis. In any case, the Pakistanis haven't really done much military expansion, so existing armored forces will be more than sufficient if they ever re-align against us.

This is why high command explicitly ordered the development of the Mehndi-1 AFV. Design and manufacturing will be a joint project between Tata and Larsen and Toubro) It is designed to be low-weight, so it can be transported via aircraft and be maneuverable across all terrain. At the same time, it remains a potent weapon, featuring a rapid fire cannon, 7.62mm machine gun, grenade launcher, and anti-tank missile as standard on frontline vehicles. It will also feature a next-generation active protection system, named Srivatsa, that can finally take a principal role in defending the vehicle against most threats (that don't rain in from the air at least). This will be a combination hard-kill and soft-kill APS that can detect warheads from 180 meters out and intercept them anywhere from 8-20 meters away. Combined with on-board processing for modern machine learning algorithms hooked up to advanced 3d radars and thermal sensors, this APS will have enhanced capabilities and reaction times to intercept RPGs, ATGMs, and tank-fired HEAT and kinetic energy rounds, as well as the capability to signal the direction and location of sources of fire to feed back to the crew or even engage itself with future AI advancements.

This is combined with base-model capacity for 7 infantrymen, who can exit the vehicle at any time and provide infantry support in terrain such as mountain or jungle roads where sending up lone tanks without ambush protection is suicidal.

Additionally, differently armed variants will be developed: combat engineer, ambulance, mortar, command vehicle, and SPAAG (armed with QRSAM). Total development cost of the AFV is set to be around $1 billion. 2000 AFVs, 100 CEVs, 100 ambulance, 100 mortar, 300 command, and 400 SPAAG are ordered. 2 $1.5 billion mega-factories will be constructed in Cholukya and Centre to employ at least tens of thousands with a projected rate of 60 a month each. Development and both factories will be done by the start of 2028 and at this rate, orders will be fulfilled by the end of 2029.

First roll is for development, two more rolls will be done for each factory (higher than 10 will be increased production and size for the same time since it doesn't make sense to have them built any faster and be sitting around doing nothing)