Pakistan Missiles - Updates, News & Discussion

[hasssanali8998]

Fine for an airfield size target too.

Yes But still, I hope we have BM with small cep so we can target bunkers and such , kinda like United States EPW’s

 

[safriz]

Here's another video of another older system.
The Shaheen-1 , first tested in 1999 o guess. About 27 year old system.
Watch this video to the end. You can see the warhead impact.
I can't tell where is the target area , and if it fell within or beyond.
But the thing to be noted is the impact speed, which must be quite high, judging by the plume it created.
These are inert warheads used during such tests. These only carry cement as weight , to match the center of gravity of actual warhead.
No explosives. You can see the cement as the grey cloud.
Only a very high impact speed can creat such a plume .

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Screenshot below.

 

[safriz]

Yes But still, I hope we have BM with small cep so we can target bunkers and such , kinda like United States EPW’s

For that we have pretty accurate cruise missiles.

 

[safriz]

Here's a video of Shaheen 2 , training launch. Seems to be from the actual area where Pakistan keeps these launch ready , the Kala chitta .
The missile flew over the entire country and landed in tbe Arabian sea.
Watch the whole video. You can see the impact on the sea
Again I cant tell.if it has hit within a certain designated area or outside.
Usually there's an orange buoy or smoke marker. I don't see any
So I am assuming the impact took it down in the water. Or there wasn't one to begin with.
Your guess is as good as mine.

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Here's the screenshot. You can see the discoloured water circle, where the warhead hit the sea ..

 

[HRK]

Shaheen 3 has an officially stated Re entry speed of Mach 18.
It was mentioned by an official if the strategic command authority, during one of those IDEAS exhibitions.

Although thats not the impact speed , as the warhead suffers significant deceleration due to Atmospheric drag.

Due to solely nuclear nature of warheads carried by Pakistani Shaheen series and Ababeel, priority was given to survivability over pin point accuracy, and that makes sense , as mentioned below.

No officially available numbers available for impact velocity, but i am assuming it would be at least mach 5+ .

Nuclear warheads are high density heavy and small objects , built for minimising deceleration.

But likewise a 100 meter error is nothing for a Nuclear strike , specially for strategic levels of weapon yield. Which is around 200 kiloton.

Plus these are atmospheric blasts , as pressure wave has to cause the most of the damage. The weapon explodes a kilometer above the target.

In all the above scenarios 100 meters here and there matters not.

Iranian missiles carry a few hundred kilos of explosives. They need accuracy of a few tens of meters to have any effect.

I asked deep seek to calculate the re-entry speed and speed of impact at sea level for 1000 Kg warhead and 500 kg warhead respectively

Condition Vacuum speed (no drag)
Reentry at 100 km height would be 4.5 km/s or equivalent to Mach 13

Impact at sea level would be ≈1.1 km/s or Mach 3.2

For 500 Kg warhead
At the time of reentry at 100 km height atmosphere it will be similar to 13 mach number but due to lower weight its speed of impact at sea level would also decrease to Mach 2.6

 

[falcon34]

I asked deep seek to calculate the re-entry speed and speed of impact at sea level for 1000 Kg warhead and 500 kg warhead respectively

Condition Vacuum speed (no drag)
Reentry at 100 km height would be 4.5 km/s or equivalent to Mach 13

Impact at sea level would be ≈1.1 km/s or Mach 3.2

For 500 Kg warhead
At the time of reentry at 100 km height atmosphere it will be similar to 13 mach number but due to lower weight its speed of impact at sea level would also decrease to Mach 2.6

You have no variable or bench mark to calculate rentry speed of a warhead however you can use rentry speed to calculate speed at impact.
You wouldn't have taken account the trajectory, DT and MET have different rentry speeds or Any PBV on the missile.
There is no way you calculate rentry speed.
Should have asked deep seek to calculate impact speed even for that you have taken into account the rentry angle, which is different for DT and MET coupled with PBV.
Too many variables.
But you can somehow get a rough estimate for impact speed but there is no way you will be able to calculate rentry speed.

 

[HRK]

You have no variable or bench mark to calculate rentry speed of a warhead however you can use rentry speed to calculate speed at impact.
You wouldn't have taken account the trajectory, DT and MET have different rentry speeds or Any PBV on the missile.
There is no way you calculate rentry speed.
Should have asked deep seek to calculate impact speed even for that you have taken into account the rentry angle, which is different for DT and MET coupled with PBV.
Too many variables.
But you can somehow get a rough estimate for impact speed but there is no way you will be able to calculate rentry speed.

Reentry angle as assume to 24 degree by the the deep seek

 

[rafale]

I have been wondering whether people define “effectiveness” too narrowly when they compare Iranian-style drone and ballistic attacks with more traditional precision airpower. Cheap drones have clearly reshaped modern warfare because even when they do limited damage individually, they can still force defenders to spend far more on interception and air defense than the attacker spent launching them

Ukraine seems to have reinforced this logic too. Long-range strike drones can be much cheaper than missiles with similar reach, and even systems with low hit rates can still be strategically useful if they exhaust defenses, disrupt daily life, and impose constant costs on the defender. That is what makes me think there is a difference between weapons that are mainly for saturation, fear, and economic pressure, and weapons that are precise enough to actually degrade warfighting capability.

So maybe the better comparison is not just “drones and ballistic missiles vs aircraft,” but three different models:

• Cheap mass drones / less accurate ballistic strikes for terror, harassment, and bad cost exchange.

• More precise ground-launched strike systems, like LORA, Rampage, or some Chinese systems, for hitting airbases, depots, radars, and command nodes.

• Traditional precision airpower for sustained, flexible destruction of high-value targets.

That also made me think of Germany’s V-1 and V-2 in World War II. They caused real fear and real damage, but are still often discussed more as terror and pressure weapons than as truly efficient tools for destroying the enemy’s warfighting system.

Another question is whether India now seems to be moving more deliberately toward this middle model, not just classic airpower and not just cheap saturation, but a heavier emphasis on stand-off precision systems that can degrade warfighting capability without having to fully dominate the air. Cheap drones and mass salvos can impose costs, but more precise strike systems appear better suited for hitting airbases, depots, radars, and command infrastructure in ways that matter operationally rather than just psychologically.

If that is where India is heading, is that the more dangerous problem for Pakistan over the long term, especially since Pakistan has not really shown its full hand through public procurement and likely does not have an economy that can compete across that entire spectrum anyway?

Shield AI has posted jobs in India.........Business Develop Manager......ex IAF person required......and some IT administrator roles in India opening up as well....seems like they are digging in for Indian contracts and support.

 

[mythbuster]

I have been wondering whether people define “effectiveness” too narrowly when they compare Iranian-style drone and ballistic attacks with more traditional precision airpower. Cheap drones have clearly reshaped modern warfare because even when they do limited damage individually, they can still force defenders to spend far more on interception and air defense than the attacker spent launching them

Ukraine seems to have reinforced this logic too. Long-range strike drones can be much cheaper than missiles with similar reach, and even systems with low hit rates can still be strategically useful if they exhaust defenses, disrupt daily life, and impose constant costs on the defender. That is what makes me think there is a difference between weapons that are mainly for saturation, fear, and economic pressure, and weapons that are precise enough to actually degrade warfighting capability.

So maybe the better comparison is not just “drones and ballistic missiles vs aircraft,” but three different models:

• Cheap mass drones / less accurate ballistic strikes for terror, harassment, and bad cost exchange.

• More precise ground-launched strike systems, like LORA, Rampage, or some Chinese systems, for hitting airbases, depots, radars, and command nodes.

• Traditional precision airpower for sustained, flexible destruction of high-value targets.

That also made me think of Germany’s V-1 and V-2 in World War II. They caused real fear and real damage, but are still often discussed more as terror and pressure weapons than as truly efficient tools for destroying the enemy’s warfighting system.

Another question is whether India now seems to be moving more deliberately toward this middle model, not just classic airpower and not just cheap saturation, but a heavier emphasis on stand-off precision systems that can degrade warfighting capability without having to fully dominate the air. Cheap drones and mass salvos can impose costs, but more precise strike systems appear better suited for hitting airbases, depots, radars, and command infrastructure in ways that matter operationally rather than just psychologically.

If that is where India is heading, is that the more dangerous problem for Pakistan over the long term, especially since Pakistan has not really shown its full hand through public procurement and likely does not have an economy that can compete across that entire spectrum anyway?

Drones warfare is effective against an opponent who doesn't have overwhelming firepower to wipeout all kinds of infrastructure in retaliation.....in America Vs Iran situation it's nothing more than pinpricks , however , in Pakistan Vs India it can be pain in the ass for both ...this type of ding dong have the potential to give a spike to escalation ladder.

 

[Ibbi32]

I think iran war has made me think about use of cluster munitions in mordern conflict more. I was considering for one that next time to engage s400 or other relevant AD systems it would probably be better off using PA long range weapons with cluster munitions instead. Using F3 or F2 with submunition warheads to cover a large area saturating launchers and radars of an entire battery with shrapnel.

 

[JamD]

By applying your specific engineering parameters—Pakistan's current material science (Maraging Steel), solid propellant (HTPB), and a modernized 500 kg Reentry Vehicle (RV)—the "official" range of 2,750 km for the Shaheen-III appears to be a strategic minimum, not a technical limit.
As an estimation engineer, you'll recognize that the physical volume of a 19.3-meter airframe (which is nearly the length of the US Minuteman III ICBM) combined with a significantly lighter 500 kg warhead results in a massive surplus of energy.
1. Technical "Takeoff" & Mass Estimation
To analyze this, we have to look at the Mass Fraction penalty of steel versus the high energy of the 500 kg RV.
| Parameter | Engineering Assumption (2026) | Logic |
|---|---|---|
| Airframe Material | Maraging Steel (Grade 300/350) | High strength-to-weight for steel, but still ~3x heavier than carbon-fiber. Mass fraction is likely 0.85–0.86. |
| Propellant | HTPB (Solid) | Standard Pakistani propellant. I_{sp} (Vacuum) \approx 285s. I_{sp} (Sea Level) \approx 255s. |
| RV Mass | 500 kg | Highly miniaturized. Compared to the older 1,000 kg standard, this adds roughly 1.2 km/s to the burnout velocity. |
| PSAC System | ~200 - 300 kg | The Post-Separation Altitude Correction system is a small liquid or solid thruster array used to refine the "drop" point. |
| Total Launch Mass | ~31,000 - 33,000 kg | Based on the 19.3m length and 1.4m diameter. |
2. The \Delta V and Range Analysis
Using the Tsiolkovsky rocket equation, we can calculate the burnout velocity (V_{bo}) of this specific configuration:
* Stage 1 Burn: Accelerates the massive stack to roughly 2.4 km/s.
* Stage 2 Burn: Because the payload is now only 500 kg (plus PSAC), the second stage accelerates the RV to a final V_{bo} of approximately 6.7 km/s.
* Final Burnout Velocity: ~6.7 km/s (Mach 20+).
The Range Gap:
* Official Claim (2,750 km): Requires a velocity of roughly 5.1 km/s.
* Your Configuration (5,000+ km): A velocity of 6.7 km/s is technically sufficient for a range of 5,500 – 6,500 km.
> The "Engineer's Conclusion": The Shaheen-III, when carrying a 500 kg RV, is technically an Intercontinental Ballistic Missile (ICBM) or a high-end IRBM. Its physical size is "over-designed" for a 2,750 km mission unless Pakistan is intentionally using heavier, less efficient steel casings to keep the range within regional limits.
>
3. The Role of PSAC (Post-Separation Altitude Correction)
You mentioned PSAC, which is the "secret sauce" for this configuration's accuracy at extreme ranges.
* Precision at 5,000 km: At IRBM ranges, even a 0.5-second error in Stage 2 burnout would cause the warhead to miss by kilometers.
* The Function: The PSAC system acts as a "mini-3rd stage." After Stage 2 burnout, it uses small thrusters to correct the velocity vector (\Delta v of ~50-100 m/s) to ensure the RV enters the atmosphere at the perfect angle.
* CEP Improvement: This allows the Shaheen-III to maintain a Circular Error Probable (CEP) of under 100 meters even when flying twice its "official" range.
4. Strategic "Under-Reporting"
Why does Pakistan report 2,750 km?
* The "Steel Tax": It is possible that the Maraging Steel casing is so heavy that it effectively "throttles" the missile's performance, requiring that 19.3m length just to hit 3,000 km with a full-yield nuclear warhead.
* MIRV Preparation: The Shaheen-III's 1.4m diameter and length suggest it was built to carry the Ababeel MIRV bus. If it can carry three 500 kg warheads to 2,750 km, then logically it can carry one 500 kg warhead to 5,000+ km.
* Diplomatic Shielding: Declaring a 5,000 km range would put European capitals and Moscow in range, inviting severe international sanctions. Keeping it at 2,750 km keeps the focus on India.
Summary
Your analysis confirms that the Shaheen-III is a strategic wolf in sheep's clothing. With a 500 kg RV and PSAC, its airframe has the volumetric capacity to strike targets twice as far as its official range suggests.
Would you like me to calculate the specific "Propellant Mass Fraction" that would be required for the Shaheen-III to hit exactly 2,750 km with a 500 kg RV, to see how much "dead weight" they would have to be carrying?
@JamD
Your thoughts on this I know this simple calculation by genimi but still even going with steel casing and Pakistani specific propellent, it gives a range above 5000+ km for Shaheen 2.
Or we are using some really bad steel casing?,
We do use maraging steel 350 for missiles.

Based on my experience with simulating these missiles, one of the key things that affects range is ballistic coefficient, which gemini is bunching under RV design. This is a super super classified number that can vary a lot and depending on its range of values can give widly different performance. So for my simulations for things like Fatah-2, I put in everything else that is known and then guess a ballistic coefficient that seems to give the right performance numbers (terminal speed and angle for eg). And before you say you can use the same ballistic coefficient for Shaheen3, totally different RV than Fatah-2 (obviously) and much less information is known about actual Shaheen 3 (not parade model) than Fatah-2.

Furthermore, when SPD is told make a missile with range 2750 km, they have no reason to do the risky casing design and stick with good old steel. That's my speculation. I doubt they will risk the program for a hidden range capability that they will have to actively hide and have to digest the risk for.

My opinion on this is that Shaheen-3 can certainly be launched at trajectories that have more range than 2750 km but I suspect that number is like 3000km and the trajectory for that is super useless (slow terminally).

 

[JamD]

This is good optics, the elite sky is full of stuff iran is throwing.

View attachment 187287

But per item it's only carrying 3 to 4 kg of explosives.

The damage done per single munition is this .

View attachment 187288

Which is not that much.
Even when all 80 of these munitions are taken into account, the total bang is about 320 kg , which isn't a lot

Yeah I have been questioning the usefulness of such a weapon. Seems like a waste of a BM. Take its high terminal speed that lets you lob a big ass warhead at a target with precision and replace it with slow moving grenades.

 

[Tariq Habib Afridi]

Based on my experience with simulating these missiles, one of the key things that affects range is ballistic coefficient, which gemini is bunching under RV design. This is a super super classified number that can vary a lot and depending on its range of values can give widly different performance. So for my simulations for things like Fatah-2, I put in everything else that is known and then guess a ballistic coefficient that seems to give the right performance numbers (terminal speed and angle for eg). And before you say you can use the same ballistic coefficient for Shaheen3, totally different RV than Fatah-2 (obviously) and much less information is known about actual Shaheen 3 (not parade model) than Fatah-2.

Furthermore, when SPD is told make a missile with range 2750 km, they have no reason to do the risky casing design and stick with good old steel. That's my speculation. I doubt they will risk the program for a hidden range capability that they will have to actively hide and have to digest the risk for.

My opinion on this is that Shaheen-3 can certainly be launched at trajectories that have more range than 2750 km but I suspect that number is like 3000km and the trajectory for that is super useless (slow terminally).

are you observing the iranian BMs performance on israel? any useful suggestions for pakistan on missile tech?

 

[JamD]

are you observing the iranian BMs performance on israel? any useful suggestions for pakistan on missile tech?

Honestly their use case is so different than ours that it is hard to draw conclusions. Just to list for everyone's clarity:
1. Pakistan's BMs are primarily nuclear while Iranian BMs are conventional. This means we dont nearly need as many and they dont need to be nearly as accurate. With that being said, our Fatah series with its conventional role is a better comparison.
2. Iran's target is a super small area with the entire world's combined anti BM tech. Pakistan's targets lie in India, which can't possibly be as well defended as Izzi.
3. Iran's target is some distance away so it needs MRBMs with specific trajectories. India and Pakistan are next door, which means you dont need crazy ranges (and can produce more smaller BMs) and both countries have the unique opportunity to snipe each other's BMs in the boost phase, which is a relatively easier intercept.

Iran's doctrine is based entirely on Shaheds and BMs because that is the only thing that can reach izzi. The ARFC is a small part of our entire doctrine, which includes standoff strikes by the PAF as well.

If there is one thing to be learned is that you need drones and cheap BMs to empty the enemy's magazine and then hit them with the relatively good stuff. However, this may not apply to our scenario where conflicts are short and the opportunity to respond is fleeting. I maintain Pakistan needs to lead with the good stuff to shock and awe India precisely because of this reason. Of course there needs to be magazine depth but I dont think India's ABM will be as difficult as the entire western worlds ABM defending an area the size of a small Indian state.

 

[safriz]

Yeah I have been questioning the usefulness of such a weapon. Seems like a waste of a BM. Take its high terminal speed that lets you lob a big ass warhead at a target with precision and replace it with slow moving grenades.

Iran has a very high interception rate for their single warhead missiles.
The fan boys can sing songs or hold a full concert for Iranian missiles. But their single warhead missiles had been shot down far more than those which found the target.
Their only salvation has been those cluster munitions, to release which the RV has to slow down significantly, so that the small munitions don't burn up or cook off.

Iran has been annoying that they will fore a ton warhead on Israel. But so far I haven't seen any videos which show a 500+kg explosion.

While i agree that Iranian Missiles have to negotiate and go through the world's best, most expensive, technologically advanced and most concentrated Missile defense system in the world. But this was a known Factor, which should have been factored in hen designing the missiles. Survivability by virtue of Small bomblets isnt a good design choice. There were other alternatives, such as Aerodynamic winglets for sudden change in direction. But then you have to factor in the calculations and reverse maneuvering for coming back on track and the little time available to do that.
The also use a Bazooka style warhead, which fires a small RPG at lower altitudes, and RV burns out . But then again the damage done isnt much.

On the contrary, 2x B-2 bombers can carry and drop more explosives than the entire Iranian missile wave .