What tank?
We are talking about the Al-Khalid-1 (Al-Khalid-1) car. This is the modernization of the eponymous tank without a unit at the end… The tank is a representative of the Soviet school of tank construction with its own features, a welded tower and a full-fledged transmission instead of on-board transmissions. The rest of the car has a 125 mm gun with a merry-go-round charging machine and a typical Soviet school item of ammunition.
Most interesting thing is that Al-Khalid is a project called MBT 2000, which was developed in conjunction with China. In China, the same tank is called Type 90-II, has exactly the same features, but it is manufactured in China.
The history of the tank.
Al-Khalid-1 is a modernization machine from the MBT 2000 family. The project itself has such a name for a reason… Development began in 1998 and ended in 2001. The basis was to take Type 96 (Chinese copy of the T-72). It used a new welding tower and an engine from Leopard 1 with a capacity of 1,200 horsepower. In the Type 90-IIA the engine is boosted to 1,300 horsepower.
Al-Khalid is a Pakistani version of a Chinese tank that has been upgraded. The engine was also boosted, but this time the data of 1,280 horsepower appears. But it’s not that important…
Prior to cooperation with China, Pakistan purchased tanks from Ukraine. It was the T-80UD Birch. The funny thing is that India responded to these purchases with a Russian counterpart, the T-90 Vladimir. But what does this have to do with MBT 2000, a.k.a. Type 90-II, a.k.a. Al-Khalid?
During the development of the MBT 2000, there were not only About Type 96, but also the T-80UD Birch. In addition, Pakistan was thinking about buying the T-84, but in the end limited themselves to some work on it. From part due to the influence of the Ukrainian tank, MBT 2000 with all his family received a welding tower and chassis elements, and the opposable engine decided not to borrow, leaving a Chinese, boosted copy of the German MB 838 with a transmission.
| Mass | 46 t (51 short tons) |
|---|---|
| Length | 10.07 m (33 ft 0 in) |
| Width | 3.50 m (11 ft 6 in) |
| Height | 2.40 m (7 ft 10 in) |
| Crew | 3 |
|
|
|
| Armour | Composite armour, RHA, ERA[3] |
|
Main
armament |
125 mm smoothbore gun, 39 rounds |
|
Secondary
armament |
7.62 mm coaxial machine gun, 3000 rds 12.7 mm external AA machine gun, 500 rds |
| Engine | KMDB 6TD-2 6-cylinder diesel 1,200 hp (890 kW) |
| Power/weight | 26 hp/ton |
| Transmission | SESM ESM500 5-speed automatic |
| Suspension | Torsion bar with hydraulic dampers |
|
Operational
range |
500 km (310 mi) combat range |
| Maximum speed | 72 km/h (45 mph) |