Watch Pakistan test new long-range precision strike weapon

ISLAMABAD — Pakistan efficiently test-fired a brand new indigenous long-range precision strike weapon with a variety of about 249 miles, in response to the army’s media department.

This distance is a substantial leap over the present Fatah 1 spherical, which has a variety of about 87 miles.

The Fatah 2 is “outfitted with state-of-the-art avionics, subtle navigation system and distinctive flight trajectory,” Inter Providers Public Relations mentioned in Wednesday’s announcement.” Primarily based on footage of the take a look at launched by ISPR, the Fatah 2 seems to be a two-round guided a number of launch rocket system primarily based on the Chinese language Taian TAS5450 eight-wheel drive chassis.

Its predecessor, the Fatah 1, is manufactured by International Industrial Defence Options. The conglomerate says the Fatah 1 is meant “to exactly assault and destroy enemy’s group and space targets, akin to army bases, large armored troops, missile launching websites, giant airports, harbors and different essential services.”

The Fatah 1 is an eight-round guided a number of rocket launch system primarily based on the identical Taian chassis because the 10-round A-100 a number of launch rocket system in service with Pakistan.

The Fatah 2 take a look at “marks one other step in Pakistan’s efforts to subject a number of precision strike artillery programs with variable ranges to carry adversary targets in danger,” mentioned Frank O’Donnell, a nonresident fellow with the Stimson Heart assume tank’s South Asia Program and a senior analysis adviser on the Asia-Pacific Management Community.

The actual fact Pakistan developed the weapon, he added, demonstrates the nation has realized classes from current or ongoing conflicts.

“When seen within the context of Pakistan’s parallel efforts to subject a equally various arsenal of fight drones, its implementation of sure classes — which the army feels the Azerbaijan-Armenia and Russia-Ukraine wars have bolstered — grow to be clear,” O’Donnell advised Protection Information. “They embrace the benefits of assigning adversary precision floor bombardment missions to comparatively low-cost artillery and fight drone programs, preserving manned fighter plane for higher-end strike missions and interception of their counterparts.”

India’s S-400 air protection system is probably going a key goal of the Fatah 2, he added, as Pakistan may hearth the weapon as a decoy to create “better room for a fight drone to strike the S-400 itself within the midst of the bombardment.”