Powerful Tanks of Pak Army

Al-Khalid

AL-Khalid

The Khalid literally "The Immortal Tank"is a main battle tankjointly developed by Pakistan and China during the 1990s. The original prototype was known as the MBT-2000. Around 300 Al-Khalid tanks were in service with the Pakistan Army as of 2009 with unconfirmed reports mentioning 500 tanks in 2009.^]The Bangladesh Army ordered 44 MBT-2000s in 2011. The tank is also used by the Royal Moroccan Army. It was trialled by the Peruvian Army for possible acquisition, but was not purchased due to financial problems.^]

Operated by a crew of three and armed with a 125 mm smooth-bore tank gun that is reloaded automatically, the tank uses a modern fire-control system integrated with night-fighting equipment and is capable of firing many types of anti-tank rounds as well as anti-tank guided missiles.^] Al-Khalid is named after the 7th-century Muslim commander Khalid bin al-Walid (592–642 AD).

Al-Khalid Tank

Al-Khalid is designed with a 125 mm bore, 48 calibre long smoothbore, auto-frettaged and chrome-plated gun barrel which is manufactured from highly stiff electroslag remelting steel. The gun is then put under stringent quality control process to ensure standard barrel life of 1,100 rounds EFC; barrels that cannot pass this test are rejected. This gun provides very high internal chamber pressures for APFSDS, HEAT FS and guided missiles. The gun can also fire the following types of conventional ammunition: APFSDS, HEAT-FS and HE-FS. The gun is a modified variant of both the ZPT-98 and KBA-3 series of 125 mm smooth bore gun for Al-Khalid MBT which provided compatibility with Ukrainian ATGMs such as Kombat. The gun retains qualities of both Chinese and Ukrainians mated with indigenous design for better and accurate firepower on stationary and moving targets alike. The Gun-launched, laser-guided anti-tank guided missilescan also be launched.

Al-Khalid also fires a Pakistani depleted uranium round, the Naiza 125 mm DU round which gives an armour penetration of 570 mm RHA at 2 km). It is equipped with a muzzle reference system and dual-axis stabilisation system. Elevation and azimuth control is achieved by electro-hydraulic power drives. The automatic ammunition-handling system for the main gun has a 24-round ready-to-fire magazine and can load and fire at a rate of eight rounds per minute.

The tank is also equipped with a 7.62 mm-coaxial machine gun, a 12.7 mm externally mounted air-defence machine gun that can be aimed and fired from within the tank, and smoke grenade launchers.