In the first half of the 80s (1983?-84?, I cannot precise) during a NATO Exercise, the Portuguese Submarine “NRP Barracuda”(S-164), Daphne-type, (currently the sole submarine in service with the PN , until the commissioning of the 2 new U-209PN being built in Germany takes place, in 2010 and 2011), also “sanked” the US Carrier USS Einsenhower (CVN-69)

In 1974 a Pakistan Navy Daphne class sub also ‘sank’ a US carrier: http://www.pakdef.info/temp/Bubbles%20of%20Water.pdf

Regarding Al-Khalid/MPT-2000, according to Rommel (who seems well informed about these developments) and i quote him…‘three regiments are equipped with MBT2000. Other than that School of Armour and Mech. Warefare also has the tanks. Some tanks are given to DEPO for demos and HIT has quite a few for testing new things. BTW, the tanks for the 4th regiment are also almost ready’

If a pakistani tank regiment has 44 tanks, that means 132 already delivered to 3 regiments with others gone to certain places as mentioned above. This leaves another 44 that according to Rommel are almost ready. Once these are handed over the total should be 180+. Last tanks were handed to a regiment sometime in Nov 2005 (?), and if another one is converted this year that means another 44 tanks. Now an army guy could perhaps give us an opinion about the production rate.

That is correct. Currently three Pakistan Army Regiments (31 Cav, Guides Cav and 18 Horse) are equipped with Al-Khalid MBT’s. A fourth regiment will also be equipped with Al-Khalid’s soon – possibly within next one to two months time. Currently the production rate is 50 Al-Khalid tanks per year and this is mainly due to the allocated budget. HIT has a stated production capacity of 100 Al-Khalid tanks per year, and this full capacity might be used in future if budget is increased.
HIT is also busy with upgrading other tanks in PA service (T-59, T-69 and T-85IIAP etc.) and is also producing various APC’s, Armor Recovery and Logistic Vehicles.

Thanks for the article. I have one question though. What is the source of your statement that the Mistral has been exported to Pakistan ??? I would be interested in reading about it as this is news to me (I would be interested in figuring out the dates, quantities…). The fact that Bofors has been exported to Pakistan is know of everyone (you can find it in many publications), but that is not the case of the Mistral.

Mistral is in service with Pakistan Air Force, Pakistan Navy and Pakistan Army. In fact it has been in service for many years now.

Thank You , Usman.
One more if you dont mind , do ‘PAF Shahra-e-Faisal’ and ‘Jinnah International’ share the same runway (are they the same) ?

PAF Faisal and Jinnah Int Airport do not share the same runway.

I’m looking for any team specific information/images for reference, i.e., Names, dates, emblems etc. Generally looking back as far as 1950 – this is a blast.

For info on Pakistan Air Force aerobatics team check this link: http://www.pakdef.info/pakmilitary/airforce/aerobatics/

I’ve just been reading that Denmark have retired their entire Submarine fleet, can anyone confirm this, Terran?

Yes, the last submarine was retired couple of months ago. The Defence Minister didn’t even bother to appear on the decommissioning ceremony, and received lot of flak when he made the comment on the lines ‘I do not need to appear in every ceremony where just some equipment is being decommissioned.’