[🇵🇰-Land] Pakistan Army Armour Corps

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The main reasons for procuring the VT-4s and not the 48-tonne Al Khalid MBTs (licence-built Type-90II/MBT-2000 developed by NORINCO) were, first, the Al Khalid’s 1,200hp Ukraine-origin KMDB 6TD-2 air-cooled diesel engines (similar to the 1,000hp 6TD diesel engines powering the PA’s 320 46-tonne T-80UD MBTs acquired in the latter half of the 1990s) that broke down whenever the MBT was engaged in fording water obstacles; and second, Pakistan’s state-owned Heavy Industries Taxila (HIT) has been unsuccessful in procuring high-quality steel from the bankrupt Pakistan Steel Mills. Consequently, the PA has, between 2004 and 2017, been able to procure only 415 licence-built Al-Khalid MBTs, while the VS-21 ARRVs have been procured off-the-shelf from NORINCO.

 

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The VT-4/MBT-3000 is claimed by NORINCO to be powered by a 1,300hp water-cooled diesel, whose full-scale mock-up was first displayed in November 2018. However, this engine has not yet entered series-production and consequently all VT-4/MBT-3000 units meant for export continue to be powered by 900hp NORINCO-made water-cooled diesel engines.

 

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