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Al-Khalid tank

main battle tank

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Record originEnglish Wikipedia
Text licenseCC BY-SA 4.0
Source revisionSep 25, 2026
Entity authorityQ429898 ↗
Source-derived summary

The Al-Khalid/VT-1A (Urdu: الخالد ٹینک — Al-Xālid Ṫaiŋk, pronounced [əlˈxaːlɪd̪ ʈɛːŋk], lit. 'The Eternal Tank') is a main battle tank family developed jointly by Norinco of China and Heavy Industries Taxila of Pakistan. The tank is based on the Type 90-II tank and it's predecessor. Approximately 300 Al-Khalid main battle tanks were produced by 2014. The tank has been exported by China to Bangladesh, Morocco and Myanmar. The VT-1A is also marketed as the MBT-2000.

The Bangladesh Army ordered 44 MBT-2000s from China in 2011. The Norinco-made MBT-2000 is also used by the Royal Moroccan Army. It was trialed by the Peruvian Army for possible acquisition, but was not purchased due to financial problems.

Operated by a crew of three and armed with a 125 mm smooth-bore tank gun that is reloaded automatically, the tank uses a fire-control system and night-fighting equipment. Al-Khalid is named after the 7th-century Muslim commander Khalid bin al-Walid (592–642 AD).

Editorial summary

This brief starts where responsible research should: with the source description of “Al-Khalid tank” as main battle tank. Everything that follows is an evidence route, not borrowed authority.

Editorial reviewMost valuable as an event-and-institution map that identifies actors, dates and record creators for deeper historical inquiry. The current lead gives the account dated anchors—2014, 2000, 2011—that can be checked directly. The selected authority fields contribute no independent date. The account is most persuasive where Al-Khalid, tank and main can be independently traced.
Editorial analysis

Why this record matters

The subject matters to the history & society register because the source frames it as main battle tank. Its deeper value depends on whether names, dates, institutions and citations support that framing.

Evidence profile

The record creator and administrative purpose are central evidence, because official documentation reflects both action and institutional priorities. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 25, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q429898. None of the 0 selected statements returned an explicit reference. The first chronological checks are 2014, 2000 and 2011.

Critical limits

Official terminology may obscure informal participation, dissent or communities documented only indirectly. The source lead contains qualifying language; that uncertainty should survive quotation, summary and reuse. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.

How to read it

Compare institutional narratives with records created by participants and affected communities. Dates and formal titles are useful anchors, but not substitutes for context.

Best used for
  • Event chronology
  • Institutional context
  • Locating named record creators
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Contemporary correspondence, government or organizational records, oral histories and cited historical scholarship.

Three-step research path

  1. Establish the record: confirm the title “Al-Khalid tank”, its source revision and the description used here.
  2. Expand the search: follow Al-Khalid tank primary sources, Al-Khalid tank archive and Al-Khalid research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
  3. Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.

Questions for further research

  1. Which source most directly establishes the central claim about “Al-Khalid tank”?
  2. Who created the surviving record, and for what administrative purpose?
  3. Which voices are present, absent or mediated by the institution?
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Source & attribution

This entry incorporates text from “Al-Khalid tank” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.