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Babur’s Flight

China propels Pakistan’s first cruise missile

BY Prasun K. Sengupta

The maiden test-flight of Pakistan’s Hatf VII subsonic cruise missile, also called Babur, on August 11 in a 200km-long overland flight trajectory over Pakistan’s south-western Balochistan province signalled the culmination of a year-long effort by China’s state-owned China National Precision Machinery Import and Export Corp (CPMIEC) to transfer the Babur’s licenced-assembly technology to Pakistan’s state-owned National Development Complex (NDC), located at Fatehgunj, 40km west of Islamabad. And contrary to popular speculation, present plans call for this cruise missile to be armed with only conventional high-explosive and blast-fragmentation warheads.

According to an August 2004 agreement inked between Beijing and Islamabad, one regiment of Babur (comprising 18 road-mobile autonomous launchers each carrying four canister-mounted cruise missiles), Battery and Regimental Command Posts, and missile reload vehicles (each carrying six rounds) are to be inducted by the Pakistan Army between this year and 2008. There are also plans to induct a naval, ship-launched variant of Babur in limited numbers by 2008. This variant will be mounted on twin-inclined quad launchers, thus enabling a principal surface combatant like the four F-22P guided-missile frigates (ordered last year by the Pakistan Navy from the China State Shipbuilding & Trading Corp) to carry eight Baburs.

CPMIEC as prime contractor is supplying all components of the land-based regiment as well as the naval missile variant and its quad launchers in semi-knocked-down condition, with the NDC undertaking their licensed assembly in a phased manner.

Apart from CPMIEC, three other state-owned Chinese companies — missile propellant provider China Great Wall Industry Corp (CGWIC), C3I systems provider China National Electronics Import and Export Corp (CEIEC) and wheeled armoured vehicles provider China North Industries Corp (NORINCO) — are involved with Pakistan’s guided-missile licensed-production effort. These companies’ military-industrial activities are coordinated by the Commission of Science, Technology and Industry (COSTIND), the weapons import-export arm of the General Armament Department of the Chinese People’s Liberation Army. Pakistani companies involved in cooperating with CPMIEC, CGWIC, CEIEC and NORINCO include East West Infiniti Pvt Ltd, Heavy Mechanical Complex-3, and the NDC and Integrated Defence Systems, both of which are subsidiaries of the state-owned National Engineering and Scientific Commission of Pakistan (NESCOM), headed by its Chairman Dr Samar Mubarakmand.