That makes no sense..
Neither can you really strip down a 48 ton tank into a light 30+ ton tank with an under powered engine.
Such a tank would be canon fodder..
It makes no sense to you because you don't understand it and are putting words into my mouth I haven't said like "a 30+ ton tank".
Its like saying the T-72s in Indian service will be canon fodder.
Its easy to say "this doesn't make sense" but it is more productive to argue with evidence and insights rather than bash people with random scarecrows like "30 ton tank" (something I never said at all).
It makes perfect sense for a country having trouble with its tank budget and having very low production rates to build an Al-Khalid Lite. A simplified tank that gets rid of some of the complexities and builds a tank that can be equal to a good chunk of Indian tanks. A tank which gets rid of expensive foreign parts for either
1) local parts or
2) cheaper foreign parts.
Such a tank would be useful not only against the giant hoards of Indian tanks which has one of the largest tank forces in the planet, but also to the very large number of armoured vehicles it is more recently procuring and building locally. These are projected to number 15000+.
The intelligent question is where would the sacrifices in costs be made?
Here are some places it could be made (open to debate):
1. Materials (is DU really needed?)
2. Transmission (does it need a gold-plated French system?)
3. FCS
4. Engine (lower HP or cheaper engine)
All these could potentially reduce costs by 50%
In addition, the enemy would never know who it is fighting, as both the Al Khalid Lite and the regular AKs would look externally the same. A strategic advantage.
Another advantage is that during wartime, rapid production of this variant would be possible. This is why the T-34s beat the Tigers - fast production. Here on the other hand we have a tank that is only being produced 18 units a year, while the country looks to import a foreign tank like the Oplot which is very close weight and capability wise.
