RedEffect has come out with a comparison video of Al-Khalid and Arjun. The video is below. He has also done individual reviews on the Al-Khalid and Arjun as well as most other notable tanks.
Arjun vs Al-Khalid - UNBIASED Indian vs Pakistan MBT comparison
Some comments from youtube:
So the advantages are: Al-Khalid: Firepower and mobility. Arjun: Fire control system and protection. Dont they just counter each other?
and
Love that you made the video, but there’s a little thing I’d like to correct (I’m not one of the salty ones, just want to share the little knowledge I have too. I enjoy the content). I have driven the AK and have been around it during Pakistani military exercises. The thing about AKs armor needs some explanation; The Pakistanis have a few hundred AKs that have either Full ERA or Varta+Hull ERA which belong to the “ready” regiments. (Strike regiments as the Pakistanis call them). So they wouldn’t necessarily have to start installing ERA on hundreds of tanks when a war starts, they would have a few ready while they put it on the others, the reason for this is probably costs and availability. So in a fight it would have that ERA. (I have pictures if you want to see them.) All AKs and even the Al-zarrars Pakistan has do have laser warning receivers. LTS786P made by GIDS. (You can find a link to that on their website). Newer AKs (the one in the video when you were talking about it’s mobility) have third generation thermals for the gunner from SAGEM. Pakistan also has the Chinese 125-3 projectiles. Not sure about availability.
it may be unbiased from his side but factually incorrect video .....
The longer comment you showed was by me. I do stand by what I said because it is true after all.
I got into contact with Redeffect (the person who made the video) and talked to him about this, I corrected him where he made the mistakes too, especially with the ERA and the fact that he used an older AK to make the comparison, but it’s not by much fault of his own, numbers for the AK are really hard to find. I also showed him some relevant pictures I have taken personally and he appreciated that, he’s a chill guy.
Also he does agree that the AK is superior to the Arjun (Especially the AK-1, he probably just said they’re equal because…angry Indians disliking his videos, in fact his video explaining why Arjun is the worst tank in the world was copy right striked by a third rate Indian Defence channel which basically spreads lies.)
He is not completely wrong though. The AK compared to any western tank is near average at best. It has a weak engine which is only acceptable due to the tanks small size, nor can a larger engine be fitted to it without changing the shape of the engine bay. The gun can’t fire Any better projectiles than it does already, 550-570mm RHA penetration is the best it’ll do with Naiza DU and Chinese 125-IIM rounds (those are called 125-III sometimes even Though 125-III is different and much more powerful, but too big to fired by the AK, it’s used by the VT4 and type 99.) The concern about the very little amount of ERA on the turret is also correct, but the one about the Hull not having it isn’t since many AKs do have it and older ones are getting it. Hes also right about it not having commanders independent thermals.
He says it doesn’t have a Laser warning receiver, which is again true for older AKs. Not for newer ones, and even after searching for quite a while, I couldn’t find any pictures showing it, that’s why he didn’t find any (I’ve seen them in real life so not much to say). There are however pictures of the Al-Zarrar with the LWR online.
Follow up post (forgive me if I’m not doing this right, don’t use forums a lot except for reading.)
One of the reasons The army likes the engines in the AK (and also the T80UDs they operate, which basically use a smaller version of AKs engine) is because of how well they operate in hot climates. They can handle climates upwards of 55C. Good for the deserts we’ll be using these things in against India. And again, due to its size. It’s acceptable.
All this being said, when compared to the Arjun, literally none of this matters. The weakest spot on the original AKs was the upper plate of the Hull (at the front that is, rear is of course weaker) which had about 300mm of protection without ERA. The Arjun can’t penetrate that. Let alone the newer AKs with ERA. The Arjun is 74 Tons. You could give it 2 engines from an AK and it’d still be slow. On top of all that, it barely exists. AK-1 is Better. Period.
India’s mainstay tank though is the T90, and the newer variants they have are much better than anything we do right now, but the gap is closing fast thankfully.
Below are a couple of pictures I took. I get to visit HIT often. This is the same AK from above. It’s permanently there as a display piece. I believe it doesn’t have any of its sensors, nor is the gun and ERA real (all of that is displayed in the back on those tables.) Parked next to it are all of HITs other products. Including An AZ with Full ERA. I’ll see if I can’t find a picture of that later.
I also quoted some of
@Dazzler s stuff in my discussion with Redeffect, I told him to use this forum as a source next time he needs some information for the AK. He might find relevant information here. He appreciates it.
I do wish there was proper information about Pakistani stuff with numbers and sources on the internet. But I guess for now it’s just a good little buff to the military. Can’t plan for what you don’t know.
