Pakistan Air Show | Seamless Transition

Prasun K. Sengupta

The 11th International Defence Exhibition and Seminar (IDEAS), organised by Pakistan’s Defence Export Promotion Organization (DEPO), was held at the Karachi Expo Centre on November 15-18. Alongside local military and private-sector original equipment manufacturers (OEM), companies from Türkiye, China, Europe, the Middle East and Central Asia showcased their products at the expo. From Europe, three countries–Austria, Romania and Hungary–participated in the expo for the first time.

Clockwise from Right FFG PNS Taimur; CETC ground-based EW jammers; Al Khalid-1 MBT

Although OEMs from both the US and Russia participated, by far the largest foreign presence at IDEAS 2022 came from Türkiye and China, two of Pakistan’s biggest suppliers of military hardware. Some 28 leading defence manufacturers from Türkiye, ranging from aviation and naval sectors to firms specialising in military electronics, AI and firearms participated in the expo. Strangely, the expo was inaugurated by Pakistan’s foreign minister Bilawal Bhutto Zardari, and not by defence minister Khwaja Asif.

Army Developments

On March 22, 2020, when the Sindh provincial government imposed a Covid induced 14-day lockdown throughout the province, the Pakistan Army’s (PA) Rawalpindi-based General Headquarters (GHQ) was unperturbed, since it was expecting the lockdown to end by April 2.

But 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 ‘Haider’ main battle tanks (MBT) was due to arrive at Karachi by sea by May 10 from Guangzhou, southern China, and required unloading.

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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 unveiled at the EUROSATORY International Defence Exhibition in June 2012. In August 2012, NORINCO hosted diplomats, military officials and military-industrial contractors from 44 countries 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 Cen