Iran Military Forum

I see a Zolfaghar I ! 

Catsoo

i mean these tanks will be gone within 20 minutes if any one attacks they belong to 70s and 60s.

 LOL

These tanks are outdated even with the upgrades the interior looks very basic.

Iran can continue using these tanks till it finishes up making the Zulfiqar-3 or Zulfiqar-4 or whatever the mass production model is called in the end.

These chieftains were Saddam's gift to Iran..They came fresh out of the box when Iranian troop captured them - brand spanking new..lol..I see it's gone through some upgrades...

I heard he even "gifted" free fighter jets to Iran too during the first Persian Gulf war...

i mean these tanks will be gone within 20 minutes if any one attacks they belong to 70s and 60s.

Iran's defense doctrine is asymmetric warfare not classic warfare i.e Kursk style classic tank battle. Specially when a small county is facing a much stronger adversary who's favorite tactic is to destroy the air defense as well as other vital defense assets with "unstoppable" cruise missiles and then bomb the rest of the country for awhile before it's ground forces even get into action.
Regardless of this fact, Iran or any country for that matter, still needs armor in it's army to discourage local threats (such as Taliban incursions against Iranian border towns and the murder of 10 Iranian diplomats and one Iranian reporter after the capture of the Mazari Sharif city in northern Afghanistan in 1998 which resulted in deployment of 70,000 Iranian troops to stop the Taliban advances).

Cheers.

Is the turret of chiftain bigger than zulfaqar3 ?

iran documentary tank

Comments by former Iraqi officers comparing both sides armor during the war.

http://www.ndu.edu/inss/docuploaded/saddams-generals.pdf

Hamdani: During the Iran-Iraq War, the Iranians had far fewer American M-60 tanks than other types of tanks. Their British Chieftain tanks  were deployed at the divisional level. They placed the M-60 tanks in battalions to support infantry divisions. They also had American M-113 armored personnel carriers and British Scorpion reconnaissance vehicles.The armor of the Soviet tanks was superior to that of the tanks the Iranians possessed. We had experience fighting this equipment because our armor had fought the Israelis on the Golan in 1973. Initially, Iranian tanks and armored  vehicles could not hold up against us; their French and British  tanks were soon destroyed. In one battle alone, my command seized five M-60 tanks and several M-113 armored personnel carriers. We had (Soviet-made) T-55 and T-62 tanks; one brigade had T-72 tanks. We were victorious because Iraqi tanks were superior to theirs.

Woods: In a war this large, foreign liaison officers like to visit the battlefield. For instance, after some of the early battles between the Iranian Chieftain tanks and the Iraqi T-62 tanks, the British were eager to see how their tanks worked. This was all in the context of the Cold War, NATO, and US-Soviet relations. Were there other examples of countries sending liaison officers to Iraq to observe and learn from the Iraqi experience?

Hamdani: We had many delegations after the war, the largest one was American. I do not have any information about delegations that visited during  the war. The press reported comparisons between Russian and British weapons. British weapons were not very good. The 90th Iranian Armored Division had Chieftain tanks; they had a lot of problems and did not fight effectively. The 16th Iranian Armored Division, which was equipped with Chieftain tanks, lost a battle against the 10th Iraqi Armored Brigade with T-72 tanks. It is hard for an armored brigade to destroy a division in 12 hours but it happened; it was a
disaster for the Iranians. Kuwait was another disaster. It is hard to compare the Kuwaitis with us, but the result was that the British weapons quickly lost the war. There was a problem with British manufacturing. An order was issued that every tank had to carry two types of ammunition: the first was effective against heavy armor and the second was used against infantry and light armor. We were ordered not to inflict heavy casualties when we entered Kuwait, so we armed our tanks with the less effective ammunition, so the Kuwaiti tanks would be knocked out when we fired on their tanks, but their soldiers would survive. When we fired upon them using this less effective ammunition, I realized that even this ammunition destroyed the Kuwaiti Chieftains.

Makki: He was a good division commander, but he had no intelligence background. He could not do the job of the director of intelligence. He refused to pass along the information in order to please the new chief of staff. 

Let’s get back to the battle at Susangard. Some of the Iranians deserted their tanks while their engines were still running. We put the tanks we captured in an exhibition area in Baghdad. Our armor sabot round pierced a Chieftain on one side and the round went through the front armor and came out the backside.

At this time the British approached us to sell us tanks. Salah Askar, director of armor, told me that when the British called and offered to sell him Chieftains he had remarked, ‘We don’t want your stupid tanks!’

Mobarez (Persian: مبارز) meaning Warrior is an upgraded version of British Chieftain Tank by Iran.
Changes:
The chasis of the tank is changed in back and sides. The fuel tank is replaced by a new repairable one. The gear box is changed so the tank can have 360 degrees turret turn. Also additional anti shock systems are added to protect the internal sensitive electronic tools. They also added a laser targeting system to the tank. The engine is replaced by a more powerful one. And also night vision and infra-red systems are added.
Production:
Iran upgrades its chieftain tanks in Shahid Kolahduz Industrial Complex along with its T-72 tanks.
http://military.wikia.com/wiki/Mobarez_Tank

This video is much more suited here:

Catsoo

I think the chief engineer who introduces the tank is also involved in the design of the Z-3
I refer to a video posted a while ago showing ht same person presenting as one of the Z-3 designers!