Bilal Khan (Quwa)
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As stated by @GriffinsRule, there's no commonality between the AH-1F/S and the AH-1Z. They're from different families, with the AH-1Z being a major upgrade of the twin-engine Super Cobra platform. In conventional war, Pakistan's domestic supply channel of locally sourced spare parts, maintenance and repair services will be critical to keeping the attack helicopters active. The Army is investing to build all that for the T129, so it makes sense (and is likelier) to add more T129s ahead of any other platform, especially the AH-1Z.Diverse platforms ? AH-Z1 comes with 1000 hell fire missiles which we do need , plus AH-z1 is slightly superior in performance compared to T-129 and T-129-2 we don't know how far it from been operational . for Zulu's we might have setup for maintenance and over haul cause of Old Cobra .
Correct number is 12 units , 3 to be delivered by end of 2017, and remaining 9 will be delivered in 2018 .
The only scenario where I would consider adding maybe another handful of AH-1Z (i.e. 3-8) would be for SOF missions.
Basically, raise a Joint SOF Command and hand over the AH-1Z to it along with up to 20 UH-1Y (which has 85% commonality with the AH-1Z). This could be a common asset pool for the SSG, SSG-N and SSW should any of them need air assault inputs for an operation. Throw in some C295 fixed-wing transports with secondary ISR and gunship capabilities and MALE UAVs like CH-5s too.
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