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Pakistan Army Armoured Corps
Pakistan Army's staff corps for mechanized warfare From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
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The Pakistan Army Armoured Corps is a military administrative and combined arms service branch of the Pakistan Army.[3]
Headquartered in Nowshera, Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa in Pakistan, the corps is commanded by its director-general, Major-General Zafar Marwat as of 2023.[2]
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Overview
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The Pakistan Army's armored corps was commissioned as an administrative corps from one-third of the personnel and assets of the British Indian Army's Indian Armoured Corps– there were six regiments that formed the basis of the Armoured Corps.: 156 [5][6]
During the early years, the British Army officers played a crucial role in running the military operations from the Nowshera Cantonment which remains till this day Armoured Corps' headquarter.: 83 [7] Until 1956, the training and field manuals were based on British Army but later adopted U.S. Army's field manual and training, which is continue to be practiced by armoured corps' training school.[8] The School of Armor and Mechanized Warfare trains cadets and officers to be a part of the Armored Corps at the Nowshera Cantonment.[9] The Armored Corps is commanded by the director-general who is usually at two-star active duty rank, Major-General, working directly under the Chief of the General Staff at the Army GHQ in Rawalpindi.[8]
The Armoured Corps only has an administrative control over its combat strike brigades and such brigade teams are employed in numbers of strike maneuver corps to defend the national borders of Pakistan from the foreign threats.[10][11][12][13]
Until 2001, the armoured corps was focused towards opposing Indian advances in the east but later stationed its interests in western border to prevent foreign threats coming from Afghanistan.[14]
In 2012, the CIA used satellite imagery to estimate that there were 32 armoured regiments in Pakistan Army, including two armoured reconnaissance regiments.[15] Most of these units were operating near the border with India.
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Regiments in the Corps
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At the time of independence of the country in August 1947, Pakistan Army inherited six armoured regiments from the British Indian Army, as follows:
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Equipment
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Early days
During World War II, the British Indian Army received low priority for equipment, and the surplus American tanks and vehicles obtained afterward were mostly outdated. The Indian Armoured Corps operated a mix of obsolete Churchills, Shermans, Stuarts, and armoured cars. This same mix was inherited by the Pakistan Armoured Corps (excluding the Churchill tank), which struggled to keep them operational in the difficult years after independence.[39] After the independence, Pakistan got 135 light armoured vehicles consisting of M3 Stuarts, Humber armoured cars and Daimler armoured cars along with some Universal Carriers, 2 AEC armoured command vehicles and 162 Sherman medium tanks from the division of assets.[40]
Current Inventory
Armoured Corps regiments are equipped with the following:
- The VT4 is a Chinese third-generation MBT specifically made for export.
- The Al-Khalid main battle tank is a joint Sino-Pakistani production with a 125 mm smoothbore gun.
- The T-80UD is of Ukrainian origin with a 125 mm smoothbore gun.
- The Al-Zarrar is a heavily upgraded version of the Chinese Type 59 tank equipped with a 125mm smoothbore cannon, ERA, and many more modern equipment.
- The T-85III is an upgraded version of the Chinese T-85AP with a 125 mm smoothbore gun.
- The Type 69 tank is a Chinese MBT with a 105 mm gun.
- The Haider Main Battle Tank has been designed by using the design of the Chinese VT4.
See also
References
External links
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