Pakistani armoured corps is a fairly strong military arm with a large number of tanks of various types in service. Pakistan Army (PA) doctrine depends upon their tanks to repel or hold any Indian invasion in most non-mountainous sectors south of Sunderbani in Jammu. Pakistani tanks have played important roles in all wars against India since 1947. Additionally, PA has deployed tanks in some skirmishes against hostile islamic terrorist groups too.

Composition

PA has 2 Armoured Divisions, 1st Armoured Division, Multan and 6th Armoured Division, Gujranwala. Former is with II Corps and latter with I Corps. Additionally, there are 9 independent armoured brigades with different Corps. Each brigade has 2 regiments with 42-44 tanks each.One tank is used by CO and 2nd-IC each. Each regiment has 3 squadrons of 14 tanks each with the rest for command and reserves. Each squadron has 3 troops of 4 tanks each.

1st Armoured Division badge

6th Armoured Division badge

The armoured divisions have following structure:

• 2 armoured brigades
• 1  artillery brigade
• 1 air defence brigade
• 1 Signals battalion
• 1 Assault Engineers battalion
• 1 Ordnance company
• 1 EME company.

Artillery elements of armoured formations are listed below:

• Artillery regiments with armoured divisions usually have 2 Heavy Regiments of 8 M110 203 mm SPH + 4 M59 155 mm and one regiment of 18 Type-59 130 mm.
• Certain mechanised armoured divisions (4 in numbers^) each have 1 artillery brigade with 3 regiments each. Each such regiment is a SP Medium with 12 M109 155 mm SPH
• Artillery brigades with Infantry divisions have 4 field artillery regiments with 18 122 mm towed guns.
• Independent armoured brigades (5 in numbers^) have one regiment each of 12 M109 155 mm SPH.

Air Defence brigade usually has 2 regiments of RBS-70 SAM (mounted on M-113 variant) along with Giraffe radar.

6th Armoured Division Orbat

BRIGADES	LOCATION	REMARKS	WEAPONS	LAT	LONG
	Gujranwala			33° 7’22.82″N	73°36’46.04″E
7th Armoured Brigade	Gujranwala		Al-Zarrar tanks^	33° 7’14.65″N	73°36’44.79″E
9th Armoured Brigade	Gujranwala	It’s either 9th or 11th	Al-Zarrar tanks	32°48’50.42″N	73°53’56.50″E
11th Armoured Brigade^	Gujranwala	It’s either 9th or 11th
Army Aviation Regiment^		Wartime holding only
SP Artillery Brigade^
10 Medium Artillery Regiment	Multan		M109A2 155mm SP
33 Heavy SP Artillery Regiment^	Okara		M110A2 203mm SP
173 Medium Artillery Regiment^			M109A2 155 mm
106th Air Defence Brigade^	Faisalabad^	Could be with some other division
144 SP Light AD			RBS-70 SAM on APC, Giraffe
154 Lt AD Regiment^	Faisalabad or Bahawalpur

I haven’t been able to find much useful information about the 1st Armoured Division yet. Only thing I know till now that some of its units operate T-80UD tanks.

Tanks

PA Armoured Corps has a diverse inventory of 2nd and 3rd generation tanks from China and Ukraine. Some of them like Al-Khalid are partially manufactured and finally assembled by Heavy Industries Taxila under technology transfer mode. Bulk of Pakistani tanks like Al-Zarrar and Type-85 are Chinese copies of early Soviet 2nd gen tanks. Some have been upgraded with add-on armour, better sights and other systems. Even then, many of them are still not capable enough to survive frontline combat against a capable army. They are still pretty useful against lightly armed militias and terrorist groups. 

Purchase of 3rd generation T-80UDs from Ukraine was supposed to usher PA into a more modern era. 315-320 were inducted, but issues like problems with serviceability and high operating expenses didn’t allow purchase of more units. T-80’s gas turbine engines provide the flexibility of using almost any type of fuel, but are very fuel hungry. This makes operation of these tanks a strain on logistics.  Al-Khalid tanks (Chinese Type-90, Chinese attempt to match T-72) is another 3rd gen tank and 380-400 of these tanks are in service. Even with mostly local manufacturing and possibilities of upgrades,  PA went for purchase of 300 more Chinese VT-4 tanks. It was necessitated  due to Al-Khalid’s performance and armour strength related problems.   

It is quite likely that many of the Pakistani armoured regiments are still under strength and the new acquisitions will replace the older tanks taken out of service due to combat losses and mechanical failures.

TANK	NUMBERS	REMARKS
Al-Khalid	300	3rd gen
Al-Khalid-I	80-100	3rd gen
Al-Zarrar	500	2nd gen
Type-59	300-400	2nd gen. Upgraded to Al-Zarrar
Type-69 II	400	2nd gen. WIth FC
Type 85-IIAP	268	2nd gen.
T-80UD	315	3rd gen. Gas turbine engine
VT-4	50+	3rd gen. 300 ordered

Pakistani Armoured Regiments

REGIMENT	TITLE	FORMATION	LOCATION	TANKS
4th Cavalry	Valiants		Mir Ali
5th Horse	Probyn’s Horse		Pasrur Cantt
6th Lancers	Fateh Khem Karan
7th Lancers		6th Armoured Div, I Corps		Al Zarrar
8th Cavalry	Izz-ul-Khail		Bahawalnagar
9th Horse	Arabian Horse			Al Khalid I
10th Cavalry	Guides Cavalry	Frontier Force
11th Cavalry		Frontier Force
12th Cavalry	Sam Browne’s Cavalry	Frontier Force
13th Lancers
14th Lancers
15th Lancers	Baloch Horse	1st Armoured Div, II Corps		T-80 UD
16th Horse	al-Mugheerat	6th Armoured Div, I Corps	Multan	Al Zarrar
17th Lancers
18th Horse		6th Armoured Div, I Corps		T-80 UD
19th Lancers		1st Armoured Div, II Corps		T-80 UD
20th Lancers	Haideri			Al Khalid
21st Horse	Murtajiz
22nd Cavalry	Death or Glory
23rd Cavalry		Frontier Force	Lahore	Type-69II
24th Cavalry	Chargers	Frontier Force	Malir, Karachi	Type-69II
25th Cavalry	Men of Steel	Frontier Force	Lahore Cantt	Type-69II
26th Cavalry	Mustangs
27th Cavalry	Ribat-ul-Khail		Kharian	Al Zarrar
28th Cavalry	Chhamb Hunters		Multan
29th Cavalry	Tigers	6th Armoured Div, I Corps	Kharian	Al Zarrar^
30th Cavalry	Bold Till Death
31st Cavalry	Sprocketeers			Al Khalid
32nd Cavalry
33rd Cavalry	Fortunes with the Bold		Lakki Marwat
34th Lancers	Dragoons	6th Armoured Div, I Corps		Al Khalid
35th Cavalry	al-Mubarizun	Gujranwala Cantt
36th Cavalry
37th Cavalry	Ribat-us-Sehra
38th Cavalry	Desert Hawks		Malir Cantt, Karachi	Multan
39th Cavalry	Vanguards			Al Khalid
40th Horse	Scinde Horse			Type-69 II
41st Horse		Frontier Force		Type-69 II
42nd Lancers	Punjab Lancers
43rd Cavalry	al-Zarib
44th Cavalry	Pioneers		Multan Cantt
45th Horse			Gujranwala Cantt
47th Cavalry		6th Armoured Div, I Corps		VT-4
51st Lancers	Silver Eagles
52nd Cavalry	Howal mastan
53rd Cavalry	Golden Eagles
54th Cavalry	Hizbullah
55th Cavalry				Al Khalid-1
56th Cavalry	Raad-ul-Harb		Sialkot
57th Lancers		XII Corps		Al Zarrar
58th Cavalry
President’s Bodyguard			Rawalpindi cantt	Horses
Cavalry Ground
Guides Cavalry		Frontier Force		Al Khalid/Type-69II^
Spearheads		6th Armoured Div, I Corps

Armoured Regiment Badges

President’s Bodyguard	Guides Cavalry (FF)
4 Cavalry	5 Horse	6th Lancers
7 Lancers	8 cavalry
	11th Cavalry	12th Cavalry
13 Lancers		15 Lancers
17 Lancers		18 Horse
19 Lancers	20 Lancers	21 Lancers
22 Lancers	23 Cavalry	24 Cavalry

25 cavalry	26 Cavalry	27 Cavalry
28 Cavalry	29 Cavalry
31st Cavalry	32nd Cavalry	33rd Cavalry
	38th Cavalry	39th Cavalry
		45th Cavalry
		48th Cavalry
		51 Lancers
	53rd Cavalry	54 Cavalry
	56 Cavalry
		63 Cavalry
		66 Lancers