Pakistan Test-Fires Nuclear-Ready Missile

Pakistan test-fired a nuclear-capable surface-to-surface missile Friday, beginning a new series of tests, the Financial Times reported.

The missile, known as Hatf-III or Ghaznavi, has a range of 180 miles, making it capable of hitting targets inside neighboring India.

Pakistan will maintain the pace of its own missile development program and conduct tests as per its technical needs, the Pakistan army said in a statement. It was not divulged how many more tests were planned in the current series.

The tests came a day after Richard Armitage, the U.S. deputy secretary of state, delayed a planned visit to Pakistan, citing scheduling reasons.

feeds.bignewsnetwork.com...

With Iran and North Korea both inching closer to a weapon, I'd say we're in the midsts of hurrying arms race. I also find Armitage's scheduling conflict more than a coincidence. Will there be a response from India?

Ok,

It is a battlefield missile..

A tactical weapon..

Not a big deal..

Wake me up when they test their first ICBM with range more than 10k KM..

You might not be worried, but I'm sure most of India has taken notice.

Pakistan has been suspected of having such a missle but has never publicly claimed its existence. Its a significant development in their payload capacity.

www.globalsecurity.org...

Yeah..

Like i have allready said on this board many times..

My current stand at the nuclear weapons issues is:

Nobody should have any of those..




This Pakistani missile is 'just' a SCUD.

The Shaheen in that pic is four years old and incapable of carrying a nuke. Also, I think it noteworthy because it appears this new missle has been "home brewed".

Sorry to "bug" you guys and this topic, but....you know .... some days, I feel like just throwing my hands up and saying "Fine .. go right ahead and nuke yourselves off the face of the freakin' planet....!"

But then I realize .. everyone will blame US for allowing it to happen!

Does seem mighty funny that this isn't meant as a diplomatic message aimed for the US, perhaps?
Coincedence that Pakistan's Prime Minister, Zafarullah Khan Jamali, is in the middle of a state visit to the US.......
Perhaps the Saudis financed Pakistan's nuke program? If any other nation had purchased nuclear weapons for an unstable Islamic nation would we have remained silent?!
The world is going WMD crazy and it amounts to perhaps everyone just getting a "grip?"


regards
seekerof

Originally posted by kukla
The Shaheen in that pic is four years old and incapable of carrying a nuke. Also, I think it noteworthy because it appears this new missle has been "home brewed".

1) Shaheen is just a SCUD copy. (A SCUD.. as you can see.. can you?)

2) 'Nukes' can be delivered by any SCUD / variant. (the problems are in the warhead.. not in the missile itself..)

Love the pic!

Indeed Seekerof. With Putin coming out with a new nuclear policy, NK announcing processed rods, and Paki test flying the new SCUD...the MAD mood meter just went up a notch.

www.pakistanidefence.com...&Missiles/MissileProgram_MainIndex.htm
(index)

www.pakistanidefence.com...&Missiles/Pakistani_Ballistic_Missiles.html
(specs)

www.pakistanidefence.com...&Missiles/GhauriIRBM_info.html
(Ghauri IRBM)

All weapons like these are madness..
All weapons are madness..

Some of them just look cool.. (at least to me)

The Ghauri looks like the mobile SCUD in C&C Generals.

Everyone should just give up all the nukes to the un now it would solve a lot of problems.
But no the big guys want to have some power.

Did you notice that:

Claimed ranges..
Shaheen II, 2000km
Shaheen III, 3600km+



And also.. their map..


White for Pak
Yellow for Hindu

Indian missiles can almost reach Japan!!!

And

Pakistani missiles reach most of Saudi and almost to the Israel..

This is not good..

dn:

That's nice work! I had no idea India had that sort of range.Can I ask where you got the map? *edit* nevermind, i found it.

Do you know if any of these new missles are MRV enhanced?

[Edited on 4-10-2003 by kukla]

Originally posted by kukla
That's nice work! I had no idea India had that sort of range.Can I ask where you got the map? *edit* nevermind, i found it.

Do you know if any of these new missles are MRV enhanced?

[Edited on 4-10-2003 by kukla]

Map is from here:
www.pakistanidefence.com...&Missiles/South_Asian_Missile_Targets.html

And i doubt that neither India or Pakistan has the know-how to make missiles with multiple warheads..

At this moment at least..

This will happen in future though..

And they will have ICBMs also..

In future..

Fitz,

I don't know about you but I don't trust the UN to do the right thing.

If the UN had all the missiles then I assume no country would have them, then why have them at all?

it would be the world government waging war on a part of itself? Not sure this makes much sense,

though there could through regionalism be conflict and the nuke could act as a deterrent.

the best approach is to find away to deal with the conflicts but is this possible?

for me as long as the small guys have anything close to a nuke I think the big guys have to have nukes, it would be so easy to knock them down and take them over if they did not have them.

The Pakistan nukes are meant as a deterrant to India and India alone.
Indian conventional forces massively outnumber their Pakistan counterparts and in a conventional war it is likely that the Indians could walk straight in.

The argument that the two countries have centres around the Kashmir region and when you look at it their differences are really no different than those between the Israelis and the Palestinians.

It is highly unlikely that these two countries would ever use nukes though. They have a history of conventional warfare that never really oversteps the mark and is always localised. Although battlefield nukes are agressive weapons any that is deployed at this time are as deterrants rather than attack minded. The region is going through the same Cold War syndrome that the West went through 10 to 20 years ago.

As for being a threat to any other countries? Musharrif is dancing to the US tune. Whilst he is in power there is no threat to the West. The worry is if Pakistan ever has a religious revolution along the lines of Iran. There are enough Muslim fanatics there who wouldn't care about being martyrs and dieing for the cause.

Yeh i understand you point THENEO but i dont see the point in nukes anyone in tehre present stage tehre to clumsy in my opinion in the sense of the radiation and if someone got hold of them who wasent part of a country then a lot of people would die.

Originally posted by Leveller
The argument that the two countries have centres around the Kashmir region and when you look at it their differences are really no different than those between the Israelis and the Palestinians.

Hi, sorry posting on the fly, so don't have time for detailed post.

Frankly, I fail to see any political, historical, legal or ground similiarities between the Israeli-Pal and Kashmir conflicts.

Could you please expand on this statement.

Regards,
Jai

Jai,

good point.

maybe a thread can be started about the subject of Kashmir which to many westerners is very much understood.

All I know is that two countries want to kill each other over a small patch of land. Not that it is worthless or insignificant or that land has not been the subject of many a war but the potential to completely destroy each other for seemingly so little confuses me.

Enlighten us all about a part of the world so few of us know anything about.