CriticalThought
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Per videos released recently, the Pakistani Nasr missile is a high precision, tactical ballistic missile. The videos show the missile being fired at a slant of 45 degrees, and hitting designated targets in the presence of stiff wind conditions with pin point accuracy.
What is confusing is the videos show the rocket motor being completely spent by the time the missile strikes the target. Now, guidance of a missile is achieved through either carefully controlled thrust vectoring, or through control surfaces. Open source pictures show the presence of stabilizing fins at both the front and rear of the missile. The question is, what role do they play in terminal guidance?
My speculation says that the frontal fins should be connected with actuators, allowing in-flight course correction. The missile uses the high speed airflow available at speeds between Mach 4-5 to aerodynamically fine tune its trajectory, achieving the astounding accuracy seen in the videos.
Which leads to a surprising conclusion. Along with the other attributes cited in the official release, I believe it would be logical to conclude that Nasr is an all-weather missile. This capability, although not officially recognized, makes Nasr highly reliable against enemy threats that may emerge spontaneously.
Finally, what about the terminal seeker? We don't see any IR/Visual sensors, and the warhead portion seems too small to carry any sort of radar guidance. Similarly, no laser sensors seem visible either. At most, the missile may be GPS guided, which would means it is prone to jamming by the enemy. At the very least, some type of inertial navigation must be present within the missile which seems to be more than enough at the small ranges for which the missile is designed.
Nasr represents a very judiciously selected set of characteristics that achieve a very potent effect using very simple components. This makes it ideal for mass production, and thus, a nightmare for advancing enemy columns. Even without a nuclear warhead, salvos of Nasr fired in tandem would see enemy fighting units decimated very quickly. No current armor is able to protect from strikes by warheads at Mach 4 - 5 speeds.
But the versatility of Nasr doesn't just end here. The videos merely show the missile disintegrating upon impact. But what would be the effect if a material with very high hardness is placed in the warhead? Tungsten Carbide is well known for both its hardness, and its brittleness. This means, it would shatter into fragments of extreme hardness if paired with a small explosive at impact. The resulting rain of extremely hard fragments at Mach 4 - 5 would have a meat grinder effect on the enemies.
It should be obvious that Nasr is a highly lethal, and extremely versatile tool at the disposal of Pakistan Armed Forces and can serve very well in both conventional and non-conventional roles.
@The Deterrent please point out any inaccuracies.
What is confusing is the videos show the rocket motor being completely spent by the time the missile strikes the target. Now, guidance of a missile is achieved through either carefully controlled thrust vectoring, or through control surfaces. Open source pictures show the presence of stabilizing fins at both the front and rear of the missile. The question is, what role do they play in terminal guidance?
My speculation says that the frontal fins should be connected with actuators, allowing in-flight course correction. The missile uses the high speed airflow available at speeds between Mach 4-5 to aerodynamically fine tune its trajectory, achieving the astounding accuracy seen in the videos.
Which leads to a surprising conclusion. Along with the other attributes cited in the official release, I believe it would be logical to conclude that Nasr is an all-weather missile. This capability, although not officially recognized, makes Nasr highly reliable against enemy threats that may emerge spontaneously.
Finally, what about the terminal seeker? We don't see any IR/Visual sensors, and the warhead portion seems too small to carry any sort of radar guidance. Similarly, no laser sensors seem visible either. At most, the missile may be GPS guided, which would means it is prone to jamming by the enemy. At the very least, some type of inertial navigation must be present within the missile which seems to be more than enough at the small ranges for which the missile is designed.
Nasr represents a very judiciously selected set of characteristics that achieve a very potent effect using very simple components. This makes it ideal for mass production, and thus, a nightmare for advancing enemy columns. Even without a nuclear warhead, salvos of Nasr fired in tandem would see enemy fighting units decimated very quickly. No current armor is able to protect from strikes by warheads at Mach 4 - 5 speeds.
But the versatility of Nasr doesn't just end here. The videos merely show the missile disintegrating upon impact. But what would be the effect if a material with very high hardness is placed in the warhead? Tungsten Carbide is well known for both its hardness, and its brittleness. This means, it would shatter into fragments of extreme hardness if paired with a small explosive at impact. The resulting rain of extremely hard fragments at Mach 4 - 5 would have a meat grinder effect on the enemies.
It should be obvious that Nasr is a highly lethal, and extremely versatile tool at the disposal of Pakistan Armed Forces and can serve very well in both conventional and non-conventional roles.
@The Deterrent please point out any inaccuracies.
