Introduction

The Al-Khalid is a modern main battle tank developed and manufactured in Pakistan by the local company Heavy Industries Taxila (HIT) for the Pakistan Army. The Al Khalid tank is based on the Chinese Norinco Type-90-II Main Battle Tank (MBT). The Al Khalid has been developed in association with China North Industries Corporation (NORINCO), which is also marketing a similar vehicle on the export market called the Main Battle Tank 2000. The Al-Khalid Main Battle Tank (MBT) forms the backbone of the Pakistan Army’s Armoured Corps. The Al-Khalid is a further development of the Chinese Type 90-II tank. The tank is locally produced at the HIT complex, and an estimated 600 vehicles are in service with the Pakistani Army.

Variants: Al-Khalid II: new upgrade armour

Armament

Main battle tank Al-Khalid is armed with a 125 mm smoothbore, auto-frettaged and chrome-plated gun barrel which can fire APFSDS, HEAT-FS and HE-FS conventional ammunition and the Russian-designed 9M119 Refleks ATGM (AT-11 Sniper, produced in China under license). The tank is also able to fire the Pakistani Naiza 125mm depleted uranium (DU) round, which maintains a one-shot kill capability. The main gun is able to fire six to eight rounds per minute. The Al-Khalid also comes equipped with an autoloader, reducing the crew to three, another facet of Russian tank design philosophy which was incorporated into the tank. The Al-Khalud tank is also armed with a 7.62 mm-coaxial machine gun, a 12.7 mm externally-mounted air-defence machine gun that can be aimed/fired from within the tank and smoke grenade launchers.

Design & Protection

The Al Khalid layout is conventional, with the driver’s compartment at the front, turret in the center and the power pack at the rear. In many aspects, it appears to be almost identical to the Chinese Norinco Type 90-II MBT. The turret and hull are of all-welded steel armour construction and an additional layer of composite armour has been added over the frontal arc, to which explosive reactive armour can be added if required. Al-Khalid has modular composite armour and explosive reactive armour, nuclear-biological-chemical defense system, an effective thermal smoke generator, an internal fire extinguisher and an explosion-suppression system. The tank is also equipped with Explosive Reactive Armour (ERA) bricks for added protection. ERA bricks cover the turret front, roof, sides and hull glacis.

Propulsion

The production model Al-Khalid is powered by a 6TD-2 liquid-cooled diesel engine, designed by the Kharkiv Morozov Design Bureau (KMDB) of Ukraine. he suspension of each side is composed by six roads wheels with the with the drive sprocket at the rear, the idler at the front and track-return rollers. Wheels and tracks are protected by rubber hull skirts.

Accessories

The Al-Khalid is equipped with a laser rangefinder and a computerized fire control system, with the main gun stabilized on a dual-axis, enabling it to shoot accurately on the move. The gunner and commander have dual day/night sights with thermal imaging, in order to lay accurate fire on both stationary and moving targets at any time of the day. The commander also has a panoramic hunter-killer sight at his disposal, which is used to designate targets for the gunner. Al-Khalid also comes equipped with a laser warning system, which detects incoming ATGMs and provides the crew with better threat perception. The tank is itself coated in IR (infrared) reflective paint to lower the thermal signature, along with launchers which can launch thermal smoke, chaff and fragmentation grenades. The standard version of the Al-Khalid is equipped with a snorkel. The snorkel system allows the tank to cross water obstacles up to 5 meters deep, after some preparation by the crew. Navigation is assisted by an inertial navigation system (INS) and a GPS satellite navigation system. The tank is also fitted with a collective NBC (nuclear, biological and chemical) system. It incorporates internal fire extinguisher and explosion-suppression systems in order to add to crew survivability. The latest model of the tank is also rumored to be equipped with an Active Protection System (APS), which can defeat incoming anti-tank missiles and rocket-propelled grenades (RPG).

Specifications