Commander: Iran’s Zolfaqar Tank Much Advanced than T-72

Commander of the Iranian Army Ground Force Brigadier General Ahmad Reza Pourdastan said that Iran’s newly unveiled optimized home-made tank has higher capabilities compared with Russian T-72 main battle tanks.

“Today, Zolfaqar has outpaced T-72 tanks in some specifications after it was optimized in various aspects,” Pourdastan said in a ceremony to unveil two optimized versions of home-made tanks.

Today, the army unveiled an optimized version of Zolfaqar and Samsam tanks on the occasion of the Ten-Day Dawn ceremonies, celebrating the victory of the Islamic Revolution back in 1979.

Pourdastan further announced that modern systems, including the fire control system has been mounted on both tanks.

Samsam is said to be an upgrade of the M-60A1 battle tank.

Zolfaqar is a second generation of Iran’s main battle tank (MBT). The test prototypes of the tank were evaluated in 1993. Six semi-industrial prototypes of the tank were produced and tested in 1997. The tank has a distinctive box-shaped, steel-welded turret of local design. Zolfaqar combat weight is reported to be 36 tons and has a 780 hp diesel engine; the tank has a 21.7 hp per ton ratio.

Zolfaqar is operated by a crew of three personnel. The automatic loader is believed to be the same one from the T-72 tank.

The Zolfaqar-1 uses a fire control system which enjoys a ‘fire-on-the-move’ technology. The Zolfaqar mounts a laser-warning pod on the turret. Its design enables the tank to use an Iranian-made package of reactive armor.

Zolfaqar-2 is a prototype tank used as a test bed. The Zolfaqar-3 also features considerable upgrades to the fire control system, chassis, engine and main gun, with a 125mm autoloader.