Pakistan becomes one of the first country to hook on to China’s BeiDou Satellite Navigation System for Military purpose: Sources
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ISLAMABAD - Pakistan became one of the first country to hook on to China's BeiDou Satellite Navigation System, a rival to the US Global Positioning System (GPS) which went global recently.
The system was expected to be used for military applications, Media has reported.
The report further said that Pakistan is acquiring 4 state of the art Naval Warships for the Pakistan Navy.
Type 054A is the best frigate in service with the PLA Navy. Military sources said the ship has a fully loaded displacement of about 4,000 metric tonnes and is equipped with advanced radars and missiles. About 30 Type 054As are in service with the PLA Navy.
An insider in China's shipbuilding sector with knowledge of the Type 054AP programme told the Daily that the ship is the largest and most powerful combat vessel China has ever exported.
"Based on pictures circulating on the internet, the ship will have vertical launch cells that can fire Chinese HQ-16 air-defence missiles and other kinds of missiles. Vertical launch cells will bring flexibility to the user in terms of weapons portfolio, thus giving it a stronger fighting capability," he said, adding that the Type 054AP is the best frigate Pakistan can access in the international market.
"The service of Type 054APs will double the combat power of the Pakistani Navy's surface fleet," he said.
Commenting on the ship's construction, Cao Weidong, a senior researcher at the PLA's Naval Military Studies Research Institute, said in the past, the Pakistani Navy would ask its Chinese contractors to use Western radars or weapons on ships constructed by the Chinese shipbuilders because it believed the Western naval technologies were better than Chinese ones.
"But it seems that all weapons and radars on the new ship will be Chinese products, which reflects our progress in the industry and the Pakistani Navy's confidence in our technology and capability," he said.
Cao said there are many nations selling frigates in the market, so Pakistan must have made thorough comparisons in terms of combat capability and costs.
"I believe the reason they chose our type is that ours is one of the few that can carry out all of the air-defence, anti-ship and anti-submarine tasks," he said, expecting the service of the Chinese frigate to substantially boost Pakistan's defence capability.
