JANE’S DEFENCE WEEKLY – AUGUST 12, 2005
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PAKISTAN TESTS CRUISE MISSILE
Robert Hewson, Editor, Jane’s Air-Launched Weapons and
Andrew Koch JDW Bureau Chief
London and Washington, DC
Additional reporting by Farhan Bokhari
Islamabad, Pakistan
* The Pakistani Babur cruise missile seems to share several basic similarities with the US BGM-109 Tomahawk
* Pakistan’s ultimate aim may be to field this weapon on its Agosta-class submarines
Pakistan has made public the first test launch of a new cruise missile system, the Babur (also known as the Hatf-VII), which was successfully flight-tested on 11 August. The launch is a significant step forward for its strategic arsenal.
Major General Shaukat Sultan, the Pakistan Army’s chief spokesman, said that the weapon has a 500 km range and can be fitted with either a conventional or nuclear warhead. The Babur is described as a high-speed, low-level terrain-following missile, but Shaukat declined to provide specifics on its guidance or propulsion system. Neither is its payload capability known.
Film footage of the test launch shows the Babur being fired from a transporter erector launcher (TEL) by a solid rocket booster fitted to the missile’s tail section. The booster drops away after a short initial phase and the missile transitions into forward flight with the deployment of pop-out wings and a ventral air intake for the main engine.
It is unclear whether the engine is a turbofan or turbojet power plant. However, in 2002 Pakistan announced development of a turbojet-powered aerial target called the Nishan-Mk 2TJ that analysts viewed as a preliminary step to developing a cruise missile.
The Babur test firing occurred at a previously undisclosed test range, Maj Gen Shaukat confirmed to JDW. This is understood to be located along the Baluchistan coast. A US intelligence official noted that additional tests are expected to be conducted using that area.
Pakistani scientist Samar Mubarak Mund, who heads the National Engineering and Scientific Commission that led the Babur programme, told the Pakistani newspaper The News that production of the missile would begin within a month.
The Babur appears to share several basic similarities with the US BGM-109 Tomahawk land attack cruise missile, with the two being roughly the same size and shape and having a similar wing and engine intake design. A Pakistani source with knowledge of the programme said the project began around 1998 and was bolstered by lessons learned from Tomahawk missiles recovered in Pakistan. These US Tomahawks had failed to reach intended targets in an August 1998 strike against a terrorist camp in Afghanistan; Pakistani officials at the time acknowledged that they had recovered at least two missiles. “I’m sure they must have learned from that … they are quite good in reverse engineering,” the source noted.
Additional assistance may also have come from Chinese scientists, who have collaborated closely with Pakistan on other missile developments. Chinese assistance would be especially important in the key areas of miniaturised jet engines and guidance systems and any lessons learned from the Tomahawk are sure to make their way back to Beijing.
There is also reason to believe that Pakistan has been working with Ukrainian engineers for a number of years on several elements of advanced missile capability, while a third element in Pakistan’s opaque missile inventory is South Africa. Air-launched stand-off systems in the class of the Denel-developed Raptor and MUPSOW families are understood to be in Pakistan Air Force service. While these have no direct connection to the Babur, they are another technology source to draw upon.
Ultimately, Pakistani officials said, the Babur is being developed for land- and submarine-launched applications, with a longer-term goal of making it suitable for airborne launch. The Pakistani source said that the intention is to have the Babur deployable on the country’s French-designed Agosta 90-class attack submarines, although he noted it does not appear the missile is small enough to fit into 533 mm torpedo tubes in its current configuration. The Babur’s vertical launch mode also points to a possible ship-board configuration, which would be an obvious first step for such a missile.
The first reports of a possible Pakistan cruise missile emerged in mid-2004 when a test was predicted before the end of that year. None occurred, but just days before the 2005 launch Pakistani President General Pervez Musharraf predicted that more missile tests would be undertaken soon. At the same time Pakistani officials were reported to be working on a new nuclear missile system that would be tested in the near future.
General Musharraf said that the Babur test was a “major milestone” in Pakistan’s nuclear programme.
According to one high-ranking military source within Pakistan’s Joint Staff HQ, the Babur “is an indigenous cruise missile that has been developed and produced in Pakistan”, adding that the missile design “has no ‘lineage’ as such”.
In a related development, JDW has learned that Pakistan is actively negotiating with China and France for the purchase of two or three new submarines. These same sources say that Islamabad aims to develop its first submarine-launched ballistic missile by 2006.
A senior Pakistani official told JDW that “expansion of our submarine fleet” represents the next stage in the development of Pakistan’s strategic weapon capability. The navy will have nine submarines following the induction by next year of the last of three Agosta submarines acquired from France.
Pakistan’s Babur cruise missile on its launcher and being flight tested. The launch of the missile is a “major milestone” in Pakistan’s nuclear programme.
(Source: Empics)
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