Enjoy , my source will give your correct and most update info. Pakistan get missile technology straight from China , first introduced Chinese missile in Pak army inventory was SILKWORM.
Introduction
Beginning in the 1950s, Egypt determinedly pursued an indigenous missile production capability. Historically, this desire for ballistic missiles grew out of the country's adversarial relationship with Israel. Yet difficulties in obtaining parts, loss of suppliers, and the departure of key scientists from the country interrupted development of Egypt's missile program. By the time of the 1967 Six-Day War, the program had come to a virtual standstill. Lacking indigenous production capabilities, Egypt turned to the Soviet Union for help. Moscow provided a small number of Scud B short-range ballistic missiles, subsequently used to minimal military effect by Egypt during the October 1973 Arab-Israeli War.
Egyptian leaders continued to believe that ballistic missiles would play a significant role in any future regional conflict, and therefore remained committed to developing strong indigenous capabilities. From the 1970s to the 1990s, Egypt initiated missile technology partnerships with the USSR,
North Korea,
Argentina, and
Iraq. The projects yielded mixed results, and although Egypt was able to make some key improvements to its arsenal, pressure from members of the
Missile Technology Control Regime (MTCR) succeeded in largely ending Egyptian ballistic missile development efforts in the 1990s. Since abandoning its ballistic missile ambitions, Cairo has focused on improving its air and sea defense systems, primarily through U.S. military technology transfers, and has cooperated with
Russia to improve its satellite capabilities.
Capabilities
Table 1 shows the design characteristics—or intended characteristics for those systems never successfully produced—of Egypt's ballistic missiles. Indigenously, Egypt attempted to produce the al-Zafir, al-Kahir, and al-Ra'id. The al-Zafir and al-Kahir were single-stage, liquid-fueled, unguided rockets, derived from earlier German V-2 designs. Both missiles used rudimentary guidance systems, combined with a V-2 wire guidance package and control vanes in the exhaust flow.[1] Yet by the time Egypt used the al-Kahir in the October 1973 war, the missile no longer possessed its original—World War II era—inertial guidance system. Its direction could be controlled only by the elevation and azimuth of its launching rail and the al-Kahir was therefore fired as a large artillery rocket.[2] While the al-Zafir and al-Kahir received at least limited deployment, the al-Ra'id was most likely never tested.
The Soviet Union provided Egypt with its first Scud B missiles. After a falling out between the two countries, Egypt entered into a partnership with North Korea to reverse-engineer the Scud B into a variant called the
Hwasong 5. Egypt subsequently began production of an indigenous version of the Scud B and currently possesses approximately 100 operational missiles.[3] Egypt's Project T—and possibly a Scud C program—derive from this system.[4] Project T is a Scud B variant with an extended range of 450km, while the Scud C could potentially fly up to 550km— a distance capable of hitting targets throughout Israel.[5] Unconfirmed reports estimate that Egypt may have deployed as many as 90 Project T missiles, [6] yet the status of the Scud C program remains unclear.
The Vector project fizzled without producing a missile, thus its listed statistics represent the program's ambitions rather than an achieved reality. Various reports from the late 1990s until 2001 claimed that Egypt attempted to acquire
Nodong-derived missiles or parts from North Korea.[7] However, whether North Korea actually transferred any Nodong technology to Egypt is unknown.
History
Decades of Failure: 1948 to 1970
Following its defeat by
Israel in the 1948 Arab-Israeli War, the Egyptian government initiated a number of programs to modernize and strengthen its military. Missiles were an integral component of these efforts.[16] Lacking indigenous expertise the Egyptian Ministry of War contracted Wilhelm Voss, a German national who had been actively involved in the Nazi regime, to oversee the missile development program. Asked to develop a small, apparently solid-fueled, tactical missile with a range of several kilometers, Voss hired a small number of German missile experts. By March 1952, the team had made progress designing the assigned tactical missile and began discussing development of a longer-range guided missile.
These discussions proved premature, as efforts to progress from design to development of the tactical missile soon encountered significant problems, including difficulties acquiring sufficient quantities of quality steel, propellants, and fuses.[17] Sometime during 1952, the first test flight of the new tactical missile produced unsatisfactory results.[18]
While Voss was working on the missile program, a group of young army officers, angry with what they considered a corrupt and ineffective military establishment, plotted the overthrow of King Farouk. In July 1952 these "Free Officers" ousted the King from power in a coup d'état. While the senior revolutionary officer, General Muhammad Naguib, nominally headed the new Revolutionary Command Council (RCC), the real power lay with RCC chairman Lt. Colonel Gamal Abdel Nasser. By early 1954, Nassar had ousted Naguib and seized power.[19]
The new government looked with suspicion upon many of the officers and programs of its predecessors. President Nasser therefore dissolved the missile program, resulting in the departure from Egypt of Voss and other key German scientists. [20]
Following dismal showings by Egypt's air force against the Tripartite Alliance (Britain, France, and Israel) in the Suez War of 1956, Nasser realized the vital role of air power in his continued conflict with Israel. Nasser doubted the ability of his bombers to penetrate Israeli air defenses, however, which gave renewed strategic and tactical importance to Egypt's abandoned ballistic missile program.[21] In 1958, Nasser restarted the missile program, the same year he launched an ambitious domestic transformation plan and a drive for leadership of the Arab world.
In this spirit of Pan-Arabism, Egypt and Syria partnered to form the short-lived United Arab Republic (UAR), embarking upon an ambitious military industrialization program. The primary objectives of the program were dramatic expansion of Egypt's fledgling aeronautical industry and the development of ballistic missiles.[22] Egypt once again turned to unemployed West German scientists and technicians to spearhead its missile efforts, most significantly Eugen Sänger, Wolfgang Pilz, and Paul Goercke.[23] The trio arrived in 1960 armed with designs based on the German V-2 and Wasserfall rockets.[24] By 1960, Egypt had constructed a missile test and launch site at the
Sakr Factory (Factory 333).
On 6 July 1961, Israel launched its first solid-fuel sounding (a.k.a. research) rocket, the Shavit II, reinforcing Egypt's desire to rapidly advance its missile program. However, the Israelis learned of Factory 333 and applied diplomatic and covert pressure on the West German scientists to halt their participation in the Egyptian program.[25] Although Israel and West Germany did not have formal diplomatic relations, in 1957 West German Chancellor Konrad Adenauer and Israeli Prime Minister David Ben-Gurion had formed a secret partnership and begun trading arms.[26] Israel leveraged this relationship to request the withdrawal of West German scientists from Egypt. Mossad's intelligence chief, Isser Harel, also set in motion a campaign of subversive actions against West German scientists called Operation Damocles. The campaign of abductions, letter bombs, and assassination ultimately killed five people between 1962 and 1963.[27] Another key Israeli success occurred in late 1961, when Eugen Sänger succumbed to pressure, resigned his position at Factory 333, and returned home.[28]
Although Sänger's departure resulted in a loss of expertise, Egypt's missile program had already succeeded in developing a prototype prior to his departure. [29] Thus in early 1962, Egypt's first missiles entered the prototype test phase, and on 21 July 1962 the government announced that it had successfully test-fired four missiles, striking targets several hundred miles away. Egypt identified the two missiles as the al-Zafir (Victor), and the al-Kahir (Conqueror).[30]
The next year, during its 23 July 1963 military parade, Egypt displayed a new mobile erector launcher for the al-Zafir based on a six-wheeled Soviet ZIL truck chassis. The implications of this development for Israeli security were profound, as the newly mobile missiles could be moved closer to the Israeli border and would also be more difficult for Israel to locate and destroy.[31] Also during the 1963 military parade, Egypt displayed four two-stage al-Ra'id (Pioneer) missiles.[32] Egyptian officials described the al-Ra'id as a "space research rocket," but most observers properly identified it as a surface-to-surface missile. Egyptian officials claimed that the al-Ra'id had been successfully tested several times. However, the U.S. intelligence community concluded these Egyptian claims were largely propaganda. The Egyptians never showed footage of an al-Ra'id launch, publicly tested the missile, or deployed it on a working transporter-erector-launcher (TEL).[33]
While Egyptian propaganda claimed the missile program had attained great successes, instead of producing 900 missiles as planned (400 al-Zafir missiles and 500 al-Kahir missiles), [34] the program produced only a few missiles of low quality. The Soviet Union refused to supply modern guidance technology to Egypt, and the expert West German scientists upon which the project was built departed.[35] The departure of the scientists between 1963 and 1965 left behind unskilled and semi-skilled Egyptian personnel incapable of advancing the research. In addition, the German scientists' World War II-era missile designs made the Egyptian program technologically backward and reliant on foreign components which could only be imported covertly and at great expense. Compounding these factors, severe monetary crises in 1962 and 1965[36] precipitated the gradual and secret phase-out of the Egyptian missile program.[37]
Still, Egypt was a powerful state in the Middle East, possessing the regions largest population and army. By standing up to "foreign aggression" during the 1956 Suez crisis, Nasser had become a political hero in the Arab world. Nasser used his mass appeal as a strategic asset, and once said, "The main weapon of the Revolution is its masses, the conviction of the masses and the mobilization of those masses to defend themselves against any danger."[38] But Nasser's personal magnetism made him a prisoner to his peoples' passions and his own public declarations.[39] Even though the missile program was in shambles, Nasser was forced to continue promoting its effectiveness. Egyptian threats of missile use would remain a cornerstone of the state's anti-Israeli propaganda until the 1967 Six-Day War.[40]
The Six-Day War exposed Nasser's missile ruse, as the al-Zafir and al-Kahir missiles played no role in the conflict. While Egypt may have launched some missiles during the early stages of the war, they proved to be of no military consequence.[41] Egyptians considered the failure to employ either the al-Zafir or the al-Kahir as scandalous. Years later the Chief of Staff of the Egyptian Armed Forces, Lieutenant General Saad el-Shazly, described this situation as a "sordid tale," involving "wasted millions, the secret suspension of work, [and] the deception thereafter by authorities afraid to admit the truth."[42] Following the war, Egypt dropped any pretense of a continued ballistic missile program and officially canceled funding sometime in 1967.[43]
Soviet Assistance Jumpstarts the Program: 1971 to 1978
Prior to the October 1973 war, General el-Shazly ordered that the al-Zafir and al-Kahir missiles be taken out of storage and test-fired. The initial test launches in September 1971 were disappointing, with both missiles proving to be quite primitive.[44] Recognizing the limitations of the al-Kahir and the al-Zafir, Egypt sought to expand its missile capabilities. In 1972, Moscow agreed to train Egyptian technicians in guidance technology and later shipped unguided FROG-7A missiles to Egypt that could fly up to 70km.[45] Then, in March 1973, Moscow agreed to provide Egypt with the equipment and training required to deploy two Scud B brigades of 12 TELs. With the arrival of the Scud TELs came a small number of Soviet advisors and technicians to assist in the formation of the 65th Artillery Brigade.
Analysts speculate that the newly arrived Scud capabilities may have acted as a precipitating factor in President Anwar Sadat's decision to go to war against Israel on 6 October 1973.[46] Egyptian rockets and missile systems performed with mixed results during the October (or Yom Kippur) War. In the early stages of the war, Cairo fired its complete supply of al-Kahir and al-Zafir missiles, with no indication that they succeeded in their limited fire suppression role.
On 16 October, President Sadat gave a speech to the Egyptian People's Assembly in which he threatened to employ ballistic missiles against Israeli cities if the Israeli army continued its pushback into the Sinai Peninsula—territory taken by the Egyptians during the early stages of the war. Following this threat, Sadat received Soviet permission in the waning hours of the war to fire three Scuds, which apparently missed their intended targets.[47]
These tactically unsuccessful launches demonstrated the questionable military value of Egypt's Scud Bs. A missile with a 450m circular error probability (CEP)[48] and a 1,000kg warhead had less than a few percent chance of hitting its intended target. In addition, without a long-range sensor, accurately targeting dispersed and mobile military targets was nearly impossible.[49] Yet Egyptian policymakers recognized that although the Scud provided limited military utility, its launch made a strong political statement. If extended in range, somewhat inaccurate ballistic missiles would still effectively threaten sprawling and densely populated Israeli cities. Sadat, therefore, believed that threats of their use would provide a future strategic deterrent against Israeli aggression.[50]
Egypt Turns to North Korea, Iraq, and Argentina: 1979 to 2001
In 1979, Egypt signed a peace treaty with Israel, presumably ending the primary motivation for the continuation of its ballistic missile efforts. Both countries agreed not to deploy or ready their forces for a potential conflict, and began cooperating militarily. Nevertheless, some military rivalry between Egypt and Israel continued, with each state prepared for the possibility of renewed hostilities should peace fail.[51] Egypt also prepared for potential military confrontation with Sudan over the Nile and conflict with Libya.[52] The ongoing risk of war with one or more of its neighbors, and the desire to achieve strategic parity with Israel even while bolstering the bilateral peace process, kept the question of ballistic missiles on the minds of Egypt's military planners.[53]
Sadat therefore attempted to extend the range of his missile arsenal. However, declining Egyptian-Soviet relations following the 1973 War soon frustrated Egypt's efforts to procure new missiles, as Moscow refused to supply Cairo with Scud and Frog parts. Therefore, Egypt approached
China and North Korea for assistance. While China showed little interest in cooperation, Cairo and Pyongyang formed a partnership to reverse-engineer Egypt's Soviet-supplied Scuds.[54] In 1979 or 1980, Egypt provided North Korea with the first examples of its Soviet R-17E (Scud B) missiles.[55] North Korea reverse-engineered the 300km range missiles and provided Egypt with significant access to its technologies, sending technical specialists to Egypt and allowing Egyptian technical teams to visit North Korean production sites. North Korea also provided technical documentation and engineering drawings for the missiles.[56]
In 1986, North Korea began production of the new Hwasong 5 (Scud B variant), and by the next year exported the missile to Egypt.[57] In 1989, Egypt test fired its version of the 300km range Scud B.[58]
Shortly after it began working with North Korea, Egypt hedged its bets on another secret program. In cooperation with Argentina and Iraq, Cairo initiated a plan to produce an 800 to 1,200km range ballistic missile; it was called Condor II in Argentina, Badr-2000 in Iraq, and Vector in Egypt.[59] The three countries planned to develop the missile in Argentina and then to pass the design plans to Egypt and Iraq. The project began in 1982, with Egypt promising to supply technology and Iraq paying the bills.[60] Production was supposed to begin in the
Abu Zaabal area outside of Cairo, at Military Factory 90.[61]
However, in 1989 the United States arrested an Egyptian-born rocket scientist attempting to smuggle restricted military supplies from the United States to Egypt, including missile nose cones and the heat resistant carbon fiber required for the Condor II missiles. Wire taps also implicated Egyptian Defense Minister Abdel Hamil Abu Ghazala in the scandal. Following these revelations, U.S. President George H.W. Bush personally contacted Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak regarding American concerns.
Under pressure from the United States and other MTCR members, Egypt withdrew from the Condor II program.[62]
This setback did not deter Egypt from continuing research into medium-range ballistic missiles, possibly in response to the 1991 Gulf War. During the war, Saddam Hussein launched ballistic missiles at Israeli cities, frightening the Israeli populace. Egyptian decision-makers and strategists therefore saw the potential strategic impact of ballistic missiles.
Although Egypt remained at peace with Israel, the potential for future conflict could not be ruled out and this likely reinforced interest in ballistic missiles as a strategic deterrent to the dominant Israel Defense Forces.[63]
Consequently, Egypt independently continued development of the Condor II technology under its "Vector" missile program.
A 1992 Pentagon report said that the Vector had a potential 1,200km range.[64] In a 1998 report to congress, the CIA indicated that "Egypt continues its efforts to develop and produce...the two-stage Vector short-range ballistic missile."[65] Since the 1998 CIA report, there have been no additional public reports released on the Vector program, and it remains unclear if the program progressed beyond the research stage.
Egypt also continued to collaborate with North Korea in the 1990s. A leaked CIA report indicated that North Korea, in March and April of 1996, provided Egypt with materials and resources to build a Scud C.[66] Delivery of the material was part of a licensing agreement reached between Pyongyang and Cairo in the 1980s.
North Korea sent at least seven shipments of materials for Scud C missiles to Egypt, including steel sheets and support equipment.[67] In May 1997, Egypt asked North Korea to provide guidance, control spare parts, and similar equipment for its Scuds. North Korea also repaired special gyroscope measuring equipment and pulse-code modulation equipment in North Korean-supplied missiles based in Egypt.[68] These materials and assistance enabled Egypt to begin large-scale production of the Scuds under Project T.[69]
Also in 1997, two senior North Korean officials defected to the United States. They exposed an Egyptian program to develop a medium-range ballistic missile system based on the North Korean Nodong.[70] A United Press International article in June 2001 cited one U.S. intelligence official as stating that there were between 50 and 300 North Korean missile technicians in Egypt, and also reported that Egypt might be close to acquiring Nodong technology from North Korea.[71] Egyptian officials have repeatedly denied these claims. When interviewed in 2001, then Egyptian ambassador to the United States Nabil Fahmy said, "The allegations that we are developing a joint project with the North Koreans are false."[72] To date, speculation that Egypt ever acquired Nodong technology or missiles remains unconfirmed, and there is no evidence to suggest that Cairo is currently pursuing Nodong missiles.
Recent Developments and Current Status
Egypt's security situation steadily improved in the late 1990s and early 2000s, as relationships with states such as Israel, Sudan, and Libya became less adversarial.[73] These objective improvements to Egyptian security, combined with pressure from the United States and its allies, convinced Egypt to end its ballistic missile cooperation with North Korea. In 2005, U.S. nonproliferation expert Joseph Cirincione wrote that Egypt had abandoned its programs to develop long-range or medium-range ballistic missiles.[74]
Moreover, by the end of 2001 U.S. missile threat assessment reports no longer included Egypt; the last report to cite Egyptian attempts to acquire ballistic missiles comes from mid-2001.[75]
Egypt has since refocused on upgrading its air and sea defense systems, and cruise missile capabilities. Since 2009, Cairo has cooperated closely with the United States to acquire new technologies.
The U.S. Department of Defense approved the sale of a variety of systems including 32 Patriot-3 missiles, 25 Harpoon cruise missiles, 414 AIM-9M-2 Sidewinders, 25 Avenger air-defense missile launchers, and 139 RIM 116B Block 1A Rolling Airframe Missiles (RAMs) with MK-44 Guided Missile Round Packs.[76] Egypt remains interested in procuring U.S. missile technology. In 2009, Egypt requested 450 AGM-114K3A Hellfire II anti-armor missiles and 20 RGM-84L/3 Harpoon Block III cruise missiles, with all related support equipment and personnel training.
Pending U.S. congressional approval, Boeing would be the principal contractor for the multi-million dollar deal.[77] Egypt has also worked closely with Russia to improve its space satellite capabilities, cooperation that led to the successful launch of Egypt's MisrSat-1 satellite into orbit by Russia in April 2007. The MisrSat-1 is reportedly intended for remote sensing of Earth and scientific research.
