So indian tanks' firepower and protection is better than pakistan's..?
Nope, india has no “modern” Russian tanks. They use T90S, which is a base model T90 export, a decent tank, id say on Par with original AK (but not AK-1). Half of their T72s are stock, obsolete. Half have been modernized, something similar to Type 85UG. The Arjun MK-1 is a joke. The MK-1A is decent technologically, but has probably the worst gun ever on a modern MBT and very poor side and turret armor, as well as very very high weight.
The biggest issue with Indian tanks is ammo, india only recently started inducting Mango APFSDS in 2019, which is a Russian round from the 80s (having 460mm of pen/0 deg at 2KM). Most of their tanks still use even older APFSDS.
On the other hand Pakistani APFSDS (locally made one at that) had this capability in the early 2000s. Currently Pakistan uses Naiza DU on AZ and AK (550-570mm of pen/0 deg at 2km) and BTA-4 on Type 85UG, T84 and VT4 (600+ mm of pen/0deg at 2km). Far, far superior to anything india has.
BTA-4 is basically the best APFSDS China offers for export (they use 125-III themselves, which is not offered for export and is better than BTA-4, likely a bit closer to modern western/Russian rounds, but I wouldn’t say it’s better than them). BTA-4 is only average by modern Russian and western standards but for the indo-Pak theatre it is best APFSDS in service by far, followed by the Naiza DU. Tanks can always be upgraded to fire better projectiles, something Pakistan will obviously look into once needed, but there’s no need to spend that much money on these upgrades when the adversary is still that much behind.
As for protection, VT-4 is easily the most protected MBT in South Asia with its FY4 ERA. Indian tanks still use Kontakt-5, which is previous gen Russian ERA, despite their claims, they have made No armor changes to their T90S, since they simply can’t without Russian permission, something they have never gotten and often complain about. Our last tank to have previous gen ERA (the T80UD) is getting upgraded right now with Nozh, the next gen Ukrainian ERA, apart from other upgrades. While AK, AZ and Type 85UG would be equipped with Pakistani Aorak MK.2 , which itself is based on FY-3 and Nozh. The T90S likely has better base armor than all but VT-4, and due to its better ERA coverage it’s protection would be comparable to AK, even with its older ERA, but it’s falling behind in basically everything else at the moment.
If we are to classify stuff by generations, Kontakt 5 is second Gen ERA, FY4 and Nozh are basically like 3rd Gen, like Russian Relikt, which they use on T72B3, T90MS, T80BVM etc, while T-14 uses Malachit, which is 4th Gen ERA.
Same with projectiles, Though there are no actual generations for them, if BTA4 and Naiza are hypothetically “3rd Gen projectiles”, then india is still using second Gen, while Germany, USA and Russia use “4th gen” projectiles.
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