Playing Catch-Up
Pakistan Army to induct 36 launchers of the 10-barrel, 300mm A-100E MBRL
By Prasun K. Sengupta
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 8x8 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 6x6 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 Nineties 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, General 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 .........................................................................
