Pakistan Navy's First Type-054AP FFG Ready For Commissioning

The Pakistan Navy’s (PN) first of four Type-054AP guided-missile frigates (FFG) is expected to be commissioned early next month at China's Hudong Zhonghua Shipyard in Shanghai, following which the FFG will undertake its voyage to Pakistan, with replenishment-related port-calls being made in Malaysia and Singapore, and possibly in The Maldives and Sri Lanka as well. 

The PN had on June 1, 2019 inked a contract with CSTC for procuring two additional 4,000-tonne FFGs to add to the first two it had ordered exactly a year ago. The signing ceremony took place at Pakistan’s Ministry of Defence Production in Rawalpindi in the presence of the PN’s Deputy Chief of Naval Staff (Operations), Rear Admiral Faisal Rasul Lodhi. All four FFGs will be delivered by mid-2022. Designed by the China International Shipbuilding Corp (CISC) Group’s 701 Institute, the FFGs will be built by the Shanghai-based Hudong Zhonghua Shipbuilding Co.

The 4,000-tonne FFG’s design is derived from that of the PLA Navy’s Type 054A FFG. It will have an endurance of 21 days, length of 135 metres, range of 4,000 nautical miles (when cruising at 18 Knots) and top speed of 26 Knots. It will have 32 vertical-launch system (VLS) cells containing the LY-80N surface-to-air missiles (SAM), one 76mm HPJ-26 main naval gun, two 30mm HPJ-17 30mm Type 1130 close-in guns, a 24-cell FL-3000N point-defence missile system (PDMS), twin ET-52C triple-tube torpedo  launchers, one mast-mounted SR-2410C S-band active phased-array radar developed by the China Educational Instrument & Equipment Corp (CEIEC), twin six-barrel Type 87 240mm anti-submarine rocket launchers (with 36 rockets), twin Type 726-4 18-tube decoy rocket launchers, and eight inclined launchers housing the Harba anti-ship cruise missile (ASCM) variant of the Babur land-attack cruise missile (which itself is a China-developed clone of the Ukraine-developed Korshun cruise missile). However, it is expected that the ASCMs will be inter-changeable with eight inclined launchers of the 290km-range P-282/CM-401 hypersonic land-attack missile.

All four FFGs will be optimised for anti-submarine fleet control missions. Each FFG will be powered by four SEMT Pielstick 16 PA6 STC diesel engines.

The SR-2410C radar can track up to 150 targets per rotation. Limitations include air targets over Mach 3 and at ranges of more than 150km. The radar has a fire-control capability to track anti-ship cruise missiles, but only at a maximum range of 60km. It is also capable of tracking moving ground vehicles and surface ships. This radar has already been installed on the Bangladesh Navy’s first two Type 056 guided-missile corvettes—BNS Shongram and BNS Prottasha.

Overhead View Of PLAN Type-055 DDG

Need To Improve OTH-ISR in North-East India

Although the Indian Air Force is constructing dedicated MALE-UAV hangars (for both its Heron Mk.2s as well as those of the Indian Army) at its air bases at Panagarh in West Bengal, plus at Chabua and Missamari in Assam, and can also make use of Sikkim’s Pakyong Airport and the advanced landing grounds (ALG) of Arunachal Pradesh in Tezu (Lohit), Vijaynagar (Changlang), Pasighat (East Siang), Mechuka (Shi-Yomi), Walong (Anjaw), Tuting (Upper Siang), Ziro (Lower Subansiri) and Tawang (Tawang), there exists a need for additional dual-use airports within both Sikkim and Arunachal Pradesh that will be capable of hosting both combat aircraft and turbofan-powered HALE-UAVs (like the Predator-C/Avenger) that can undertake over-the-horizon ISR missions for monitoring the PLA’s deployments and activities in areas inside the Tibetan Plateau that share borders with Sikkim, Bhutan and Arunachal Pradesh.

It remains to be seen if the greenfield projects calling for the construction of new airports at Hollongi near Itanagar, Anini in Dibang Valley, Dirang in West Kameng—all in Arunachal Pradesh—will make provisions for hosting both combat aircraft and HALE-UAVs.

And shown below is the PLAGF helipad at Sarang (in Gar County) from which helicopters operate whenever they want to fly into Barahoti, Uttarkhand.

Similar helipads are now coming up near the PLA-BDR garrison camps at Kara and Bakah (both in Zanda County) from where PLAGF helicopters are expected to operate whenever they want to monitor Indian Army deployments at both Chumur in southern Ladakh and Kaurik in northeastern Himachal Pradesh.

GCS For Non-Available TAPAS MALE-UAV

Manik Turbofan For Nirbhay LACM

HQ-9P/FD-2000 HIMADS Of Pakistan Army Detailed, Plus Seven New Indian DPSUs Launched

The Pakistan Army (PA) has procured only two Batteries of the HQ-9/FD-2000 LR-SAM, with each Battery comprising four TELs.

The PA has to date procured only nine LY-80E LOMADS TELs, with another six awaiting to be ordered.

Also procured were three FM-90 SHORADS Batteries.

One JY-27 radar is already operational at Skardu.

Pakistan Army personnel were trained to operate the HQ-9P/FD-2000 at a disused air base at Kunming (in Yunnan Province), coming under the PLA Southern Theatre Command.

The PA’s QW-18 and FN-16 MANPADS are designed to intercept low altitude and ultra-low-altitude airborne targets like attack helicopters, low-flying aircraft and unmanned aerial vehicles (UAV) under visual conditions. But most of these systems are handicapped by defective surface-to-air night aiming sights and IFF transponders. Without these, the MANPADS are literally blind. As many 850 FN-16s (out of the 16 launchers and 1,265 missiles procured) have been declared non-functional by the PA. The Chinese OEM, Wuhan Infrared Co Ltd, instead of quickly replacing or repairing the malfunctioning components, has instead appointed an allied firm, Valiant Technologies, to sort out the mess. Equally serious problems afflict 200 QW-18 MANPADS launchers (along with 1,391 missiles) imported from China Precision Machinery Import-Export Corp (CPMIEC) in 2016. Numerous deficiencies were found during biennial functional testing of both these MANPADS at the Army Base Workshops since July 2019. The PA has asked CPMIEC to replace at least 47 of them along with one base control unit and one training simulator. The story of the 300mm A-100E multiple launch artillery systems is quite similar. Manufactured by the state-run Aerospace Long-March International Trade Co (ALIT), the A-100E, incidentally rejected by the PLAGF, was procured by the PA (two Regiments, or 36 launchers) but during various field trials, the PA found the A-100E wanting in many respects. ALIT was apprised of these problems and asked for immediate repair replacement. The representative of ALIT, after a detailed examination, concluded that the defective MLRS had to be replaced as they were beyond repairs.

Seven New DPSUs Launched

Mendhar Forests

Deera ki Gali, Shahdra & Bhata-Dhurian Forests Of Mendhar

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kr1hNsgTSRk

Flawed Policy Of Eliminating Only Terrorists, But Not Terrorism

The recent spate of targetted assassinations of non-Muslim personalities in the Kashmir Valley is yet another direct consequence of the inability of successive Govts of India (inclusive of the present one) since the mid-1990s to invest in the kind of re-radicalisation measures/processes that are imperative for adoption by those communities that have undergone and continue to undergo extensive and systematic religiosity-inspired indoctrination over the past 32 years, as explained in great detail by the following two slides.

It is noteworthy that in all of the world’s Muslim-majority countries that had been afflicted with such religiosity-inspired radicalisation since the early 1990s, especially in Central Asia and Southeast Asia, had by the late 1990s already taken legal measures like the prohbition and dissemination of distorted teachings/preachings within/by Madrassas and mosques, especially during the weekly Friday noon-time ‘Khutbaas’ when provocative, hate-inspiring sermons were delivered. Unfortunately, such measures have yet to be adopted in India and it is for this very reason that the religiosity-inspired targeted killings of minorities within the Kashmir Valley continues. This has not yet been clearly spelled out by most Indian commentators, with only a tiny minority of them now going public, albeit in a very guarded manner, as illustrated by this interview:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_MkhWYcO67U&t=4s

No wonder cinema halls throughout the Kashmir Valley remain closed till this day—a clear indicator of the absence of societal normalcy since 1989.

And for the uninformed, what China has been violating is Taiwan’s ADIZ, not sovereign airspace.