Main Battle Tanks and Armour Technology

[Damian]

Nope..i am now sure this is all about your hate for muslims and pakistanis.but leave this

And culture and mentality has nothing to do with this.

Well it seems that you people in your part of world, any critical view, understand as hate, pity.

It is not a useless modernization.as i said earlier it has got a 125mm smoothbore,and the electronics upgrade i mentioned before.
the difference between the Older t55 is as much huge as much the difference between t-72 and t-90

Ok, now think economically, how much more money you could spent on purchase or production of a much newer tanks to phase out T-54/55 and htier Chinese clones?

Al khalid chasis is only based off type 90 IIM.which was china's first 3rd generation mbt..but over a span of 1 decade it was through modified and tested with different engines,fcs,electronics and the best out of them was chosen

Al khalid is our work horse.i dont know why you cant get this into your mind.it will have short comings.i agree but Al khalid has helped us alot in tank industry.today we can even take our own new tank design or upgrade the basic Al khalid on our own.

Al khalid has shaped the tank industry of pakistani into new level.we are close to sign a deal with sri lanka for 22 al khalid export.

It is domesticaly produced and hence must not only be cheaper but offer experience to pakistan tank industry and so does our engineers.
Today our industry is now even into developing a new APS for Al khalid.

Al khalid I is successfully developed and is in mass production

Ok, and now think what benefits you would get, if Pakistan would sign a deal with Ukraine, for licence production of T-80UD or it's further development the T-84 series?

You could save much more money by just making a unified tank fleet composed from a single tank type.

Single logistics, single training system, single production system, it all makes it cheaper than manufacturing one tank, and also using several other type of tanks, that neither share any commonality on components level, which increases these costs.

Economy is something very important, and many nations reduce their tank fleets, but also unify them to a single type of tank, or max two types of tanks.

Oplot and yatagan both are very Good tank.i personal like yatagan the most of all the soviet philosphy light weight tanks.

But Al khalid is the work horse of pakistan.With the passage of time.the machine will get better and better and in long run will make the pak tank industry independent of any foriegn help

A slight inferior product is accepted if the product is manufactured within the country and is to prove much better in long run for the local tank industry

Benefits for industry are understandable, but there is also such thing as quality and performance. If Pakistan would choose Ukrainian tanks, you would have a much better start in terms of quality and performance.

I can give you example. Poland also want to have our own tank industry, we had relatively good modernization of T-72M1, the PT-91, however both are considered as not meeting requirements of today and future battlefields by our army, thus MoD are making two things.

First we are purchasing German Leopard 2A4 and Leopard 2A5 tanks, we will have approx 250 of them. Then we will modernize them to a single standard dubbed Leopard 2PL. Thank to this modernization we will create our industry based on German technology, we will have some ToT, we will gain cooperation links to big manufacturers etc.

Second step is to develop our own modular tracked platform, as a basis for IFV, SPH and in a bit longer distance, also our own new tank. This platform won't be however developed on our own, but in cooperation with world wide manufacturers that are invited to the program, like BAE, KMW, Rhinemetall or KMDB, these foreign companies or design bureaus, can then find their partners among our military industry, and with them start development of vehicle for later competition.

This is a win-win situation for everybody.

In case of Pakistan however, there is no good partner really. Look at Chinese, the Typ-90-IIM is just export tank, Chinese will never share with you their newest technology, and don't be fooled, lesser developed countries always will have problems with technology development without foreing support of the more capable ones.

And Pakistan had a chance for such cooperation with Ukraine, which after some time could share more technology, and provide a licence production in Pakistan, giving you chance to learn and later based on these design solutions, start your own development.

Such solution is cheaper and faster than trying to build everything from zero, and fighting with all these problems along the development route, while other solved these many similiar problems decades ago.

You should reconsider the decisions which were made, by thinking about possibilities, different options.

 

[The Last Stand]

The armour was probably removed after the tank was damaged. That was done with M1A1s during ODS too:

Thanks methos, but was it necessary?

 

[The Last Stand]

if your judging my post toward the indians..than i do so because they do so with me.i troll them and call them a inferior race to the rest of humans only because of there history of slavery and being ruled by minority always when the minority is less than 1% of the total population sometime.but i do so with them because they abuse my country as well.
over all i dont hate any country.

Who is going OT here? Really, Pakistan which has no history before 1947 is talking about us? You were Indians once, Pakistanis, and you converted, whether you like it or not.

@Damian, as one good book (http://www.bharat-rakshak.com/EBOOKS/pfs.pdf) says,

India chose to define itself by its people. Pakistan chose to define itself by its religion.

 

[The Last Stand]

do you know the complete situation behind this incident?

how many hit it has taken?including from RPG

beside this the pic is old.and after this many other changes would had been made.

As i said earlier if we exclude t-90 and arjun(used now only for training purpose) rest of all are worth the match for indian inventory
but at certain level such as electronics and firepower.since it can fire naiza DU round as well.it will be a tough job for even your arjun and may be t-90 as well.

though i dont think arjun will ever be used against pak because of its nature of being a tank of problems

Al-Zarrar could have taken several old PG-7 clones with no problem. I agree. Stop trolling about the Arjun being a training tank

I don't like laughing

 

[The Last Stand]

And of course there are educated people, reasonable people, but they are not capable to make any difference with majority that have intelect of insect. Good example is what Keshav Murali says about other forum he participates.

It is not so bad as you make it out to be, I daresay you would experience the same if you waltzed into a slightly ill-informed Russian forum and said "T-90A is not as good as Western tanks in both armament and armour"

It was a new experience, to get flooded with information unrelated to topics on which I posted sometimes.

 

[Damian]

Back to Al Khalid, I found another interesting weakness in case of Chinese designed tanks.

Look at the TC cupola, it is large bulge on turret roof, exposed and weakly protected, which means that hit there with weapon capable to perforate what seems to be cast armor, might be very well possible, and can end up with TC killed and tank disabled.

IMHO a modern 40mm APFSDS can make through such armor, which is probably max up to ~200mm thick.

As you can see, Al Khalid somewhat shares this feature, but is slightly reduced to the PERI pedestal and lowered cupola.

 

[farhan_9909]

Well it seems that you people in your part of world, any critical view, understand as hate, pity.



Ok, now think economically, how much more money you could spent on purchase or production of a much newer tanks to phase out T-54/55 and htier Chinese clones?

Well the upgrade would cost many times less than manufacturing a new al khalid and replacing them or importing t-80ud

Ok, and now think what benefits you would get, if Pakistan would sign a deal with Ukraine, for licence production of T-80UD or it's further development the T-84 series?

we bought more than 300 t-80ud and we didnt got any TOT.beside this even if we get TOT we wont be allowed to develop a new variant of oplot neither would we be allowed to export the tank

But incase of Al khalid we are promoting it for export in middle east as well as other countries,also we are upgrading the tank and has already successfully developed a new variant of Al khalid as AK1

this is not possible with getting a TOT of a tank.russian license produced t-90 in india is a example.you need the manfuacturer permission for everything.
when A country like russia cant agree for a complete TOT in armour,gun and other parts to india which it has a trade worth more than 20billions.than i am sure ukraine wont do the same with us as well.

other than this in 2011 ukraine again has offered its help in upgrading the Al khalid

You could save much more money by just making a unified tank fleet composed from a single tank type.

Single logistics, single training system, single production system, it all makes it cheaper than manufacturing one tank, and also using several other type of tanks, that neither share any commonality on components level, which increases these costs.

very true.but PA requirement in 2001 were of 1200 Al khalid tank in different variants.hence it will outnumber the T-80ud by 3 time.
Beside this AK and t-80ud share almost same ammo,has similar training for 3crew based off soviet tank philosphy.and there are many more similarities

Economy is something very important, and many nations reduce their tank fleets, but also unify them to a single type of tank, or max two types of tanks.



Benefits for industry are understandable, but there is also such thing as quality and performance. If Pakistan would choose Ukrainian tanks, you would have a much better start in terms of quality and performance.

performance will get better and better with the passage of time.
at the moment i agree the turret of Ak has some serious design flaws.but as mentioned above Ak is economical in interest of pak

I can give you example. Poland also want to have our own tank industry, we had relatively good modernization of T-72M1, the PT-91, however both are considered as not meeting requirements of today and future battlefields by our army, thus MoD are making two things.

First we are purchasing German Leopard 2A4 and Leopard 2A5 tanks, we will have approx 250 of them. Then we will modernize them to a single standard dubbed Leopard 2PL. Thank to this modernization we will create our industry based on German technology, we will have some ToT, we will gain cooperation links to big manufacturers etc.

Second step is to develop our own modular tracked platform, as a basis for IFV, SPH and in a bit longer distance, also our own new tank. This platform won't be however developed on our own, but in cooperation with world wide manufacturers that are invited to the program, like BAE, KMW, Rhinemetall or KMDB, these foreign companies or design bureaus, can then find their partners among our military industry, and with them start development of vehicle for later competition.

This is a win-win situation for everybody.

poland is a rich country and is also not at war with any country.may be not in future as well.we not only need quality but quantity as well
best of luck for your tank industry

In case of Pakistan however, there is no good partner really. Look at Chinese, the Typ-90-IIM is just export tank, Chinese will never share with you their newest technology, and don't be fooled, lesser developed countries always will have problems with technology development without foreing support of the more capable ones.



And Pakistan had a chance for such cooperation with Ukraine, which after some time could share more technology, and provide a licence production in Pakistan, giving you chance to learn and later based on these design solutions, start your own development.

CHinese share anything with pak.if pak is able to provide the money.
ukraine is already into AL khalid project.they are helping us in the upgrades
but they wont offer us complete TOT such as in the case of russia and india

Such solution is cheaper and faster than trying to build everything from zero, and fighting with all these problems along the development route, while other solved these many similiar problems decades ago.

You should reconsider the decisions which were made, by thinking about possibilities, different options.

Faster indeed but not helping in long run.
Pakistan requirement for tanks will increase further in future.and we need to get independent.we already are manufacturing almost everything.now this is the time to work on the quality of the manufacturing.

Pakistan just cant stick to importing or license manufacturing forever

 

[farhan_9909]

Back to Al Khalid, I found another interesting weakness in case of Chinese designed tanks.

Look at the TC cupola, it is large bulge on turret roof, exposed and weakly protected, which means that hit there with weapon capable to perforate what seems to be cast armor, might be very well possible, and can end up with TC killed and tank disabled.

IMHO a modern 40mm APFSDS can make through such armor, which is probably max up to ~200mm thick.

As you can see, Al Khalid somewhat shares this feature, but is slightly reduced to the PERI pedestal and lowered cupola.

first of all this pic is posted on pakdef.org as well and is as old as 2003

i have seen a exactly similar on Arjun as well

 

[Kunal Biswas]

I think its the CITV bulge is more visible..

Peru version..

Back to Al Khalid, I found another interesting weakness in case of Chinese designed tanks.

Look at the TC cupola, it is large bulge on turret roof, exposed and weakly protected, which means that hit there with weapon capable to perforate what seems to be cast armor, might be very well possible, and can end up with TC killed and tank disabled.

IMHO a modern 40mm APFSDS can make through such armor, which is probably max up to ~200mm thick.

As you can see, Al Khalid somewhat shares this feature, but is slightly reduced to the PERI pedestal and lowered cupola.

 

[The Last Stand]

first of all this pic is posted on pakdef.org as well and is as old as 2003

i have seen a exactly similar on Arjun as well

2003, doesn't mean turret was redesigned to remove this.

And the picture?

 

[Damian]

Well the upgrade would cost many times less than manufacturing a new al khalid and replacing them or importing t-80ud

Yes, but you must consider if upgrade is worth the money. Especially that this is still just improved T-55 in it's escence.

we bought more than 300 t-80ud and we didnt got any TOT.beside this even if we get TOT we wont be allowed to develop a new variant of oplot neither would we be allowed to export the tank

But incase of Al khalid we are promoting it for export in middle east as well as other countries,also we are upgrading the tank and has already successfully developed a new variant of Al khalid as AK1

this is not possible with getting a TOT of a tank.russian license produced t-90 in india is a example.you need the manfuacturer permission for everything.
when A country like russia cant agree for a complete TOT in armour,gun and other parts to india which it has a trade worth more than 20billions.than i am sure ukraine wont do the same with us as well.

other than this in 2011 ukraine again has offered its help in upgrading the Al khalid

It all depends on making a proper deal. You do not know if Ukraine would deny you to make more "Pakistanized" version of BM "Oplot" or any other Ukrainian tank.

very true.but PA requirement in 2001 were of 1200 Al khalid tank in different variants.hence it will outnumber the T-80ud by 3 time.
Beside this AK and t-80ud share almost same ammo,has similar training for 3crew based off soviet tank philosphy.and there are many more similarities

I would be carefull with saying that T-80UD and Al Khalid shares a lot of components, which is not very truth, what they only share is ammunition and engine really.

performance will get better and better with the passage of time.
at the moment i agree the turret of Ak has some serious design flaws.but as mentioned above Ak is economical in interest of pak

We will see.

CHinese share anything with pak.if pak is able to provide the money.
ukraine is already into AL khalid project.they are helping us in the upgrades
but they wont offer us complete TOT such as in the case of russia and india

You believe too much the Chinese. They only share with what they want to share, not matters how much money you will gave them.

If in their interest will be to backstab you, they won't hesitate to do so.

Faster indeed but not helping in long run.
Pakistan requirement for tanks will increase further in future.and we need to get independent.we already are manufacturing almost everything.now this is the time to work on the quality of the manufacturing.

Pakistan just cant stick to importing or license manufacturing forever

Oh I agree with this, however you must answer if you will not have problems with "reinventing wheel syndrome".

I think its the CITV bulge is more visible..

It's design makes a good projectile catcher.

 

[p2prada]

No, proof pressure is 612 MPa. The gun has "partially autofrettaged to a pressure of 800 MPa.
It's all written there.

Thanks for the correction. You are right.

That's not realistic. First of all the 2A46 tank gun has no proof pressure of 670 MPa... so I think "proof pressure" is not the right term for what they want to describe.

This info I can guarantee it is correct. It came from OFB. The online link is dead however. My dumb self failed to keep the pdf. I tried searching for it again and failed. The document was uploaded in this website and the lack of a search function makes it difficult. Anyway, the website itself is an official website.

::: Defence Division - CII ::::::::::::::::::::

They seem to rather have changed the definition of EFC. If they use the value 250 EFC for the 2A46, then they refer to APFSDS (which equals to 3 - 5 HE-FS or HEAT-FS), else they are contradicting with the Russian and German sources available about the 2A46 tank gun.
For 1,700 EFC the definition had to be changed so that EFC equals HE-FS/HEAT-FS

Hmm, no. The document I talked about specifically stated and compared the two EFCs, like previous and after. Of course, as you said EFC does not corroborate to shots fired. However that is taken into consideration depending on the type of shell fired.

It also states that the Russia supplied 2A46 does have an EFC of 250. So yeah, with the old 2A46, a shell rated at 1 EFC can theoretically be fired 250 times. With the 2A46 MAPLE, the same shell can be fired 1700 times.

Even Arjun documents claim that the Arjun's gun has twice the EFC as that of the gun on the T-72. 250 X 2 = 500. Claim matches.

There is no source claiming the 2A46M-5 has a proof pressure of 800+ MPa. That the barrel life was increased has officially be stated in the T-90MS flyers.

Nope, but this is my own speculation. At least according to Fofanov, max pressure is 6500 bars, 650 MPa for 2A46M and later, 5100 bars for older guns like 2A46. Proof tests are conducted at 25-30% of max chamber pressure. That's roughly over 8000 bars.

At 5100 bars in Fofanov, proof pressure at 25% is 6375 bars. At 5500 bars, as claimed by OFB, proof pressure at 25% would be 6875 bars. That nearly matches what OFB claimed for 2A46. So you can say the proof pressure test was conducted at roughly 22% to arrive at 6700 bars. If we say max chamber pressure was increased to 6500 bars on 2A46 MAPLE, then proof pressure at 8000 bars would be 23%. Similarly, 2A46M2 figures of 6500 bars and proof pressure of over 8000 bars would be quite valid.

This figure roughly compares to the more powerful L-55 at 7600 bars max pressure and 9500(?) bars proof pressure. Roughly comes up to 25%. Hence the above figures are quite valid. Since you claimed L-55 is proofed at greater than 1000 bars, that gives it 31%+, which means even the 2A46M-2 may be proofed at 25-30% or 30%+ instead of the 23% figure I arrived at, which would mean proof pressure is greater than 8000 bars.

 

[The Last Stand]

This figure roughly compares to the more powerful L-55 at 7600 bars max pressure and 9500(?) bars proof pressure. Roughly comes up to 25%. Hence the above figures are quite valid. Since you claimed L-55 is proofed at greater than 1000 bars, that gives it 31%+, which means even the 2A46M-2 may be proofed at 25-30% or 30%+ instead of the 23% figure I arrived at, which would mean proof pressure is greater than 8000 bars.

Supposedly, the L/44 gun itself is partially autofrettaged to 10000 bars twice and proof pressure of 7100 bars. Not to mention that the younger and slightly longer LLR 47 gun is partially autofrettaged to 11000 bars and achieves similar proof pressure (new tech perhaps?)

 

[methos]

Hmm, no. The document I talked about specifically stated and compared the two EFCs, like previous and after. Of course, as you said EFC does not corroborate to shots fired. However that is taken into consideration depending on the type of shell fired.

Then the Indian tanks were fitted with the oldest export 2A46 from the T-72. In terms of quality this version is worse than even the earliest Soviet ones, being only capable to fire 81 - 87 APFSDS rounds prior the accuracy dropped significantly due to excessive barrel wear. But that would be 300 - 350 EFC and this gun should not be able to fire "modern" APFSDS ammunition like the Isreali M711 or the 3BM-17 Mango round from Russia.

Nope, but this is my own speculation. At least according to Fofanov, max pressure is 6500 bars, 650 MPa for 2A46M and later, 5100 bars for older guns like 2A46. Proof tests are conducted at 25-30% of max chamber pressure. That's roughly over 8000 bars.

No. Proof pressure is not 25 - 30% more than the maximum chamber pressure. If the maximum chamber pressure is exceeded, the barrel will deform and/or the chamber will break. Once the maximum chamber pressure is exceeded, the gun cannot be used effectively in combat anymore.

 

[The Last Stand]

Back to the topic:

The success of the Ukrainian tank builders
The first tank "Hold" for Thailand

At the moment, the Kharkiv Malyshev tank plant is premka head tank "Hold" the first batch of Thai customer. Information about this appeared on the Otvaga2004.
Earlier it was reported that the first 5 combat vehicles must be made in May. Delay month is not critical. Given the situation with the tank production in Ukraine made Kharkovites can be regarded as a real feat.

It has been reported that about 50 tanks to be sent to Thailand by the end of 2013. According to military experts, the most likely to occur adjustment of the schedule, and the machine will go to Southeast Asia a little later.

Source: Alexey Khlopotov, and he has added nonsense about "situation with tank production" in his usual inimitable style.
----------------------------------------------------

First export sales of the Oplot?

Congrats KMDB!

-------------------------------------------------------------------

The T-84 sold to Thailand is Oplot or Oplot-M @Andrei_bt sir?

 

[The Last Stand]

IMHO a modern 40mm APFSDS can make through such armor, which is probably max up to ~200mm thick.

I find that pretty hard to believe, are you talking about the telescoped APFSDS for the CTA gun? All Brochures I have seen so far claim ">140 mm RHA", I don't think it is enough. IIRC, APFSDS for the Bofors L/70 managed to achieve 150 mm penetration.

CTA 40mm Cannon Brochure | Think Defence
CTA International - APFSDS-T

I'd say that this bulge is a soft target for our Carl Gustav, Konkurs and Milan-2. Not to mention our APFSDS rounds. Perhaps a longer 40 mm APFSDS for the CTA would be much better?

 

[Andrei_bt]

1-st Thai Oplot rooll out

Almost ready tank on factory -

Notice multy layer ERA on teurret

Тайцы пощупали свой первый «Оплот» - MediaPort

 

[militarysta]

@Andriej
Any posibilities to next Oplot-M exports soon?
Any rumors?

 

[SilentKiller]

Now what has religion got to do with this discussion?or me being pakistani has to do with this?
Ok if you hate muslims/Islam and pakistanis.than atleast keep it off from discussion

well discussio is all about agreeing and disagreeing..everyone is entitled to his own opinions.

Even in my previous post i admitted that Al zarrar is inferior to t-90 and arjun of indian inventory..and can be fairly good against the 2nf generation tanks of india.

well but incase of Electronics.Al zarrar is indeed comparable to t-80ud..such as both share a ukrainian FCS,AZ has a similar gun with almost equivalent firepower,has a much better Catherine FC thermal imagers,has superior ballistic computers hence slight edge over t-80ud in electronics.

And i dont listen to clerics or mullahs.because i myself dont like them..if your judging my post toward the indians..than i do so because they do so with me.i troll them and call them a inferior race to the rest of humans only because of there history of slavery and being ruled by minority always when the minority is less than 1% of the total population sometime.but i do so with them because they abuse my country as well.
over all i dont hate any country.


So please if you hate us muslims or pakistanis..please keep it off from the tanks discussion atleast

Lolz....
Pakistanis were not ruled by british they were not slave before 1947 but rulers as they have not seen any slavery.
please check your DNA and u will find that some people converted because of fear of sword. but u are still not ready to admit.
u say that u came along with invaders and became our rulers...lol...
for me akbar too was great INDIAN king because he considered it as its own country and tried to became part of this land, but u living and having same culture as our but still not ready to accept what were u earlier.
i am from punjab but am india, we sikhs ruled you then to.....check history before you comments such bullshit here.

Sorry guys for distracting from topic, couldn't resist

 

[Akim]

Any posibilities to next Oplot-M exports soon?
Any rumors?

There is a video on which stands ready tank number 03. In the background is completed Assembly of tanks 04 and 05.