We already received a lot of help from the Ukrainians for the Al-Khalid tank. Personally I think the next evolution of Al-Khalid should abandon a carousel autoloader in favor western style autoloaders like French and Japanese tanks use. Ukraine developed prototypes of western style autoloaders.....that may be worth asking about.
True, but with this Russian-Ukrainian war going on, we don't know how much of the technology is in good condition.
Ukrainian defense industry has been on a steep decline since the early 2000s. We haven’t bought anything from them anyways, instead we’ve been having to localize things we bought from them because they’re unable to deliver spare parts even before the war. The war changed nothing for us.
No thanks. I’ve said it before, the oplot is NOT a good tank. It is grossly underpowered, cannot fire modern ammo, has the sillouhete of a skyscraper and isn’t reliable. The only thing in its favor is armor protection. We should be very glad Pakistan stayed away from it and went the VT4 route. The VT4 will help the PA in more ways than one in the coming years.
Thailand made the mistake of buying Oplot over VT4. They regretted it so much they ditched the order after only 1/3rd of the tanks were delivered and went for VT4 because not only was the tank unreliable, Ukraine just couldn’t deliver the tanks or their spares. If Pakistan ordered them, it would have been an order for over 400 tanks at the minimum. We’ve received hundreds of VT4s already, if we went with oplot we’d have about two dozen and then the order would have to be canceled due to the war.
The next generation of Al-Khalid is not coming. Haider is the future. Al-Khalid might still receive incremental upgrades to the existing fleet that trickle down from the Haider, but no new production will take place for now. HIT will shift to Haider production.
What exactly is Haider though?
VT4 is Haider officially.
So no more AK2? No more new AK1’s being added?
My main comment is that next generation of HIT tank production should replace the carousel autoloader with western style ones. The Russian style autoloaders are not safe if the tank is hit. This will require turret redesign. Based on what's going on in Ukraine......active protection systems are also a key advance for HIT. A 50 ton tank with western style autoloader and active protection is probably the global best in class tank and what HIT should strive for, IMO.
No and No, for now.
Now let’s come back to reality. The next generation of tank produced at HIT is the VT4.
carousel autoloader is least of AK's worries, we need to move on and work on a new design
Thanks for your input.
Agreed. New design is required.
The VT-4 has the same basic design as the AK series with marginal improvements. Of course a new design is the best way forward, but it’s not possible with the current funding, supply and logistical constraints. The VT-4 is the best option for the PA and HIT currently, especially if they can get a Top-attack protection capable hard kill APS for it.
Will AK production line be shifted to VT4? Also will there be an extension of HIT to produce more VT4s or the production capacity will remain 50 as was in the case of AK?
