First VT-4/MBT-3000 Shipment Bound For Karachi

Back on March 22, 2020, when the Sindh provincial government imposed a 14-day lockdown throughout the province, the Pakistan Army’s (PA) Rawalpindi-based General Headquarters (GHQ) was perturbed, since it then was expecting the lockdown to end by April 2. However, matters came to a head on April 8, 2020, when Sindh Chief Minister Syed Murad Ali Shah decided to tighten the lockdown regime and extend its duration till the first week of May in the province to prevent local transmission of the COVID-19 virus.

A pensive PA now, through its ‘selected’ federal government in Islamabad, began tightening the screws so that by the end of the first week of May, a ‘relaxed’ lockdown could prevail in and around Karachi Port Trust. And why so? Because the first tranche of 24 VT-4/MBT-3000 main battle tanks (MBT) is due to arrive at Karachi by sea by May 10 from Guangzhou, southern China, and require unloading.

Developed by the state-owned China North Industries Group Corp (NORINCO) and series-produced by the Inner Mongolia First Machinery Group Co Ltd, a subsidiary of NORINCO, the VT-4/MBT-3000 was unveilled at the EUROSATORY International Defence Exhibition in June 2012.

In August 2012, NORINCO hosted diplomats, military officials and military-industrial contractors from 44 countries at its proving grounds in Baotau for a mobility-cum-firepower demonstration of the VT-4/MBT-3000. Two years later, at the China International Aviation & Aerospace Exhibition 2014 in Zhuhai, NORINCO showed for the first time a full-scale prototype.

In January 2018, the Royal Thai Army (RTA) conducted in-country mobility-cum-firepower evaluations of the VT-4 at its Cavalry Centre at Adisorn military camp, in Saraburi. Following this, the RTA procured an initial 28 VT-4s in 2016, with an option to order an additional 10 units. The RTA plans to purchase a total of 49 VT-4s in three tranches. The order for the first tranche of 28 VT-4s were delivered in October 2017 and 26 of them were accepted for service in January 2018 with the RTA’s 3rd Cavalry Division in Khon Kaen Province, while the remaining two are operational with the RTA’s Cavalry Centre at Adisorn Military camp in Saraburi, and the Army Armoury Hall. The purchase of a second batch of ten VT-4s costing $58 million was authorised in April 2017.

The PA conducted in-country mobility-cum-firepower trials of the VT-4 between June and December 2018 at its field firing ranges located at the Tilla Jogian Field Firing Range in Jhelum, northern Punjab, and at the Khudai Rang Field Firing Range in Muzaffargarh, central Punjab, following which in July 2019 a contract was inked with NORINCO for the procurement of up to 550 VT-4s and 50 W-753 ARRVs on a fast-track basis. The first tranche comprises 176 VT-4s, with the second tranche comprising 124 VT-4s.

The main reasons for procuring the VT-4s and not the 48-tonne Al Khalid MBTs (licence-built Type-90II/MBT-2000 developed by NORINCO) were, first, the Al Khalid’s 1,200hp Ukraine-origin KMDB 6TD-2 air-cooled diesel engines (similar to the 1,000hp 6TD diesel engines powering the PA’s 320 46-tonne T-80UD MBTs acquired in the latter half of the 1990s) that broke down whenever the MBT was engaged in fording water obstacles; and second, Pakistan’s state-owned Heavy Industries Taxila (HIT) has been unsuccessful in procuring high-quality steel from the bankrupt Pakistan Steel Mills. Consequently, the PA has, between 2004 and 2017, been able to procure only 415 licence-built Al-Khalid MBTs, while the VS-21 ARRVs have been procured off-the-shelf from NORINCO.

In addition to Pakistan, NORINCO also exported 44 MBT-2000s (known also as the VT-1A) and three VS-21 ARRVs to the Bangladesh Army in 2011–2013, totally valued at US$162 million.

The VT-4/MBT-3000 is claimed by NORINCO to be powered by a 1,300hp water-cooled diesel, whose full-scale mock-up was first displayed in November 2018. However, this engine has not yet entered series-production and consequently all VT-4/MBT-3000 units meant for export continue to be powered by 900hp NORINCO-made water-cooled diesel engines.

In mid-April 2020, the Inner Mongolia First Machinery Group Co Ltd rolled out the first 24 VT-4s for the PA, following which they were transported by rail to Guangzhou for shipment by sea.

The PA will deploy its VT-4s with the Gujranwala-based 6 Armoured Division (replacing the existing Al zarrar MBTs), whose principal area of operations include the Ravi-Chenab corridor of the plains of western Punjab (inclusive of the Shakargarh Bulge, the Chicken’s Neck area and the Chammb-Jaurian axis). And like the India Army, the PA too has created Integrated Armoured Battle groups (IABG), comprising the Kharian-based 8 IABG under I Corps, Gujranwala-based 19 IABG under XXX Corps, Chunian-based 3 IABG under IV Corps, Bahawalpur-based 10 IABG under XXXI Corps, Multan-based 14 IABG under II Corps, Hyderabad-based 2 IABG under V Corps, and the 12 and 42 IABGs. These formations were formalised and operationalised between 2013 and 2018 (under the so-called “new concept of warfighting”, or NCWF) as a conventional response to the Indian Army’s Cold Start conventional warfighting doctrine.

This by itself negates all earlier assertions of the Pakistani National Command Authority’s Strategic Plans Division SPD) that had stated that “the Pakistanis see no role for nuclear weapons than to deter India from waging a conventional war”, meaning full-scale high-intensity limited conventional war under a nuclear overhang is well and truly possible across both the Working Boundary and the Line of Control (LoC), if not across the International Boundary.

When it comes to combat-support hardware like combat bridging systems procured by the PA from NORINCO, they are of the multi-span 75-metre long-type (like the Indian Army's Sarvatra), as shown below.

This indicates that just as it was the case in both 1965 and 1971, when the PA crossed the Munnawar Tawi River (where the Indian Army had in 1971 demolished the Mandiala Bridge) while trying to advance towards Jaurian and Akhnoor, in a future round of armed hostilities, the PA will yet again make all-out efforts to repeat history.

Pakistan Army Field Firing Ranges