Determined to maintain its already commanding lead in the arena of long-range field artillery over its Indian counterpart, the Pakistan Army is gearing up to induct into service two Regiments (or 36 launchers) of the 10-barrel, 300mm A-100E multi-barrel rocket launcher (MBRL) and its related ground-based fire-control systems from China’s China Precision Machinery Import-Export Corp (CPMIEC) and CETC. Also being acquired are approximately 90 SH-1 155mm/52-calibre motorised howitzers from NORINCO of China, plus three Regiments of the CPMIEC-built HQ-9 long-range surface-to-air missile (LR-SAM) system (these being acquired by the Pakistan Air Force, or PAF), while from Ukraine the Pakistan Army will be acquiring about 400 T-84U main battle tanks (MBT) off-the-shelf.
It was during the visit last October to China of Pakistan’s Chief of Army Staff, General Ashfaq Parvez Kayani that Islamabad and Beijing inked the contracts for the initial 36 A-100Es and two CETC-built SLC-2 passive phased-array weapons locating radars (WLR), plus the SH-1s. This followed the round of competitive evaluations conducted by the Pakistan Army of the A-100E and the competing NORINCO-built AR-2, another 300mm MBRL also of Chinese origin. The A-100E comprises a launch vehicle, and reloading vehicle and command-and-control vehicles, all of which are mounted on the WS-2400 8 x 8 wheeled chassis (the same truck also tows the launcher for the Babur multi-role cruise missile). All 10 rockets, each equipped with a 200kg warhead, can be fired within 60 seconds out to a range of 100km, and it can be reloaded in 20 minutes. The NORINCO-built AR-2 MBRL, on the other hand, has 12 launch tubes from which rockets armed with a wide variety of warheads are fired. The warhead options for the A-100E include fragmentation sub-munitions warhead, anti-tank mine scattering warhead, shaped-charge fragmentation submunitions warhead, separable HE-fragmentation warhead, fuel-air explosive warhead, and HE-fragmentation warhead. The target acquisition and fire-control system elements include the CETC-built 702D meteorological radar station and SLC-2 WLR.
The NORINCO-built SH-1 motorised 155mm/52-calibre howitzer underwent extensive mobility and firepower trials in December 2007 in Pakistan’s Northern Areas, and underwent similar field trials last June in the Thar Desert. The SH-1 can fire rocket-assisted V-LAP projectiles out to 53km, as well as laser-guided projectiles like NORINCO’s ‘Red Mud’ and KBP Instrument Design Bureau’s Krasnopol-M2. The SH-1 can also fire base-bleed 155mm rounds out to 42.5km, and its truck chassis houses a fibre-optic gyro-based north positioning-cum-navigation system, battlespace management system, autonomous orientation-cum-muzzle velocity radar, gun loader’s display-cum-ramming control box, ammunition box housing 25 rounds (of seven different types) and their modular charges, and a network-centric artillery fire direction system. A complete SH-1 Regiment comprises 24 SH-1s, four Battery Command Post vehicles, one Battalion Command Post vehicle, one road-mobile CETC-built JY-30 C-band meteorological radar, four 6 x 6 wheeled reconnaissance vehicles, and an S-band CETC-built Type 904-1 artillery locating-cum-fire correction radar. Earlier, on September 9, 2007 the Pakistan Army accepted at its Nowshera-based School of Artillery the first of twelve 18-tonne T-155 Panter 155mm/52-calibre towed howitzers from Turkey’s state-owned Machines and Chemical Industry Board (MKEK). The Panter was co-developed in the late 1990s by MKEK and Singapore Technologies Kinetics. For producing the 155mm family of munitions, Wah Cantonment-based Pakistan Ordnance Factories (POF) has teamed up with South Korea’s Poongsan and on April 12 last year, Gen Kayani symbolically received the first lot of licence-assembled K-307 BB-HE and K-310 155mm BB dual purpose improvised conventional munitions (DPICM) Ammunition from POF Chairman Pakistan Lt Gen Syed Sabahat Hussain.
The three HQ-9 LR-SAM Regiments are being procured for the air defence of static strategic targets that may be targetted by India’s BrahMos supersonic multi-role cruise missiles. The HQ-9 was jointly developed by CPMIEC, the China Aerospace Science & Industry Corp (CASIC), and the Shaanxi Tianhe Industry Group. Series-production of the 100km-range LR-SAM rounds is being undertaken at the Gui Yang-based Guizhou Aerospace Industry Company Ltd, while the TWS-312 engagement control centre (ECC) and its SJ-231 missile guidance system and the TWS-312 Air Defence Command System’s Battery Control Centre (that includes the C-band HT-233 passive phased-array tracking-cum-engagement radar from which the SLC-2 WLR is derived) are series-produced by the Xi’an-based Shaanxi Tianhe Industry Group. All elements of the HQ-9 re mounted on TAS-5380 8 x 8 heavy-duty cross-country vehicles. The HT-233 radar carries out airspace search, target detection, target track, identification, missile tracking, missile guidance and electronic counter-countermeasures (ECCM) functions. The HT-233 radar is automatically controlled by a digital weapons control computer housed within the ECC, and cable link is used to connect the SJ-231 to the TWS-312, which is the only manned station in a HQ-9 Battery and it provides the human interface for control of all automated functions. The ECC communicates with all HQ-9 Fire Units as well as with higher-echelon command headquarters, and has on board an Air Situation Display console and Tracking Display console that adopts customised BITE technologies, and has embedded simulated training software for engaging more than 100 airborne targets in various flight profiles, all of which can be used for operational training in peacetime. The HT-233, operating in the 300MHz bandwidth, has a detection range of 150km and tracking range of 100km. The radar antenna has 4,000 active ferrite phase shifters. It can detect targets in azimuth (360°
and elevation (0° to 65°. It can simultaneously engage more than 50 targets when used in conjunction with a Brigade-level ECC (which can handle automatic command-and-control of three subordinate HQ-9 Regiments). In some cases a HQ-9 Fire Unit receives early warning of hostile ballistic/cruise missile launchs, along with direction and time-of-arrival data. Target engagement can be carried out by the HT-233 in manual, semi-automatic or automatic mode. When the decision has been made to engage the target, the ECC selects the Launch Battery or Batteries to be used and pre-launch data is transmitted to the selected missile via microwave line-of-sight data links. The target position data is downloaded to the missile to aid the missile’s target acquisition.
After launch, the missile is acquired by the HT-233 radar. The missile’s track command up-link and down-link between the missile and the HT-233 allows the missile’s flight to be monitored and provides missile guidance commands from the ECC’s weapons control computer. As the missile approaches the target, the active radar-based terminal guidance system on the missile is activated and the missile is steered toward the target. As the missile’s closest approach to the missile is reached (50 metres), a RF proximity fuze detonates the directional high-explosive blast fragmentation warhead. The missile’s engagement zone is between 300 metres and 50km in terms of altitude, while it has a slant range of between 7km and 100km, and a maximum speed of 1,600 metres/second. The HQ-9 Fire Unit can deploy in three ways: the vehicle mode, the trailer mode, and the stand-alone mode. It carries four ready-to-fire missiles, and is capable of remote operations. The two-stage LR-SAM is ‘cold-launched’ vertically from a tubular launcher. The missile’s first stage has a diameter of 700mm while the second stage has a diameter of 560mm. The total launch mass is 2 tonnes, while the missile’s length is 9 metres. It is armed with a 180kg HE fragmentation warhead and has a maximum speed of Mach 4.2. The missile’s guidance mechanism comprises initial inertial navigation, radio command mid-course correction, and active terminal guidance. When in range for an effective lock-on with the on-board X-band monopulse radar, the terminal guidance phase, lasting 20km, gets underway. For long-range target acquisition and tracking, the Jiangsu Province-based Nanjing Research Institute of Electronic Technology (NRIET, but also more commonly known as the 14th Institute) has co-developed with CETC the road-mobile YLC-2V S-band 3-D airspace surveillance radar (six of which are being acquired by the PAF), which has a maximum range of 450km, a maximum resolution of 0.5 metres, and can scan a 0-120-degree arc in azimuth and 0-90 degrees in elevation.
In all its deployment patterns, the HQ-9 LR-SAM offers a multi-target and multi-directional area air defence capability. All its ground-based and airborne components are integrated in a plug-and-flight architecture under which the software-based integration of all hardware-based elements permits the autonomous management of various functions such as programmable surveillance, target detection, target acquisition, target identification and tracking, threat evaluation, threat prioritisation, interception assignment and target engagement. Depending on the operational scenario—whether to defend a vulnerable area or vulnerable point—up to four HQ-9 Batteries (with 96 ready-to-fire missiles and four SJ-231 stations) can function together seamlessly even when deployed over a wide area and are linked to a Regiment-level ECC by CETC-built secure microwave line-of-sight data links as well as TS-504 mobile troposcatter communications terminals. When an entire Regiment of HQ-9 is deployed, use is made of a YLC-2V radar to provide a single integrated airspace picture to the Regimental ECC. The YLC-2V and up to four SJ-231 stations can be networked with a Sector Operations Centre (SOC) via a CETC-built DA-6 tactical internet controller using either underground fibre-optic links or land-mobile broadband, multi-channel, beyond line-of-sight, TS-504 terminals. This same type of systems architecture using the above-mentioned tools can be employed to develop an integrated, hierarchical air defence network that seamlessly integrates the LR-SAM, E-SHORADS and VSHORADS into one monolithic guided-missile-based air defence system. To make the HT-233 radar virtually invulnerable to hostile electronic jamming, a number of ECCM features have been incorporated, including narrow transmit and receive beams, very low sidelobe antenna, automatic frequency selection mode, interference analysis and mapping, and randomness in frequency, space and time.
The T-84U MBTs and related Atlet armoured repair-and-recovery vehicles being acquired from Ukraine have been developed by the state-owned Kharkov Morozov Machine Building Design Bureau (KMDB). Series-production of these vehicles will begin later this year at the Malyshev Plant in Kharkov. Each T-84U MBT will have on-board a commander’s panoramic sight incorporating a laser rangefinder, daylight and thermal imagers (this being the high-resolution MATIS-STD from France’s Sagem Défense Sécurité, which is also on board the Arjun Mk1 MBT), a smoothbore 51-calibre 125mm KBA-3 gun (containing a muzzle reference system) housed within a welded turret that will also house a laser warning system, a bustle-mounted autoloader, separate crew and blow-out ammunition compartments, new-generation non-explosive reactive armour plates based on a new principle of defeating kinetic and chemical energy attacks (with special focus on increasing the hull’s sides and turret’s protection levels to enhance the MBT’s survivability), Kontakt-5 explosive reactive armour plates on the frontal hull, environment-friendly 1,200hp 6TD-2E two-stroke, multi-fuel, liquid-cooled 6-cylinder diesel engine, a new steering wheel and an upgraded digital panel equipped with GPS-based land navigation system and a digital battlespace management console for the driver and commander, new radio equipment, and a 10kW auxiliary power unit.
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The raw power and noise it produces when it fires along with earth trembling and dust all around it when it goes off, makes your heart skip a beat.. i just cant imagine to be at the recieving end of this this monster.... 
