By Ammar Faheem

Saturday, 27th December – 2008

The Al-Khalid tank belongs to the category of Pakistan’s indiginously developed defense equipment which has always been a source of Pride to the Pakistani nation and the Pakistani armed forces. The Al-Khalid is a major achievement of the Heavy Industries Taxila (HIT).

The information presented in this column has been collected from various reliable sources of information available on the internet and aims at giving you an insight into Pakistan’s technological supremacy over the Indian military, which is a recognized fact.

The Al-Khalid is a ‘main battle tank’ (MBT) and its development began as far back as in 1988. The design and manufacturing of the tank was a joint effort of Pakistan and China.

Interestingly, the Al-Khalid is lighter and smaller in size compared to tanks of its class found in the west and is based on the Chinese type-90 main battle tank project.

Weighing around 46 tons, the Al-Khalid is easier to transport as compared to other major tanks in use by strong militaries across the world. The tank has a length of 10.07 meters, a width of 3.50 meters and a height of 2.40 meters. The tank can accommodate a crew of three personnel. The tank can easily pass through water obstacles of up to 5 meters deep, thanks to a built in snorkel system.

The Al-Khalid comes with a 125mm smoothbore gun which can also fire certain missiles. It is also equipped with a 7.62mm-coaxial machine gun, a 12.7mm externally-mounted air-defence machine gun that can be fired with the hatch closed, and smoke grenade launchers. (more…)