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At the recent Pakistan National Day military parade, China's weapons and equipment once again made a big show and became the highlight of the parade, including VT-4 tanks, SH-18 howitzers, J-10CE fighters, and a series of new weapons and equipment were unveiled publicly, attracting people's attention. It is worth mentioning that almost all of the anti-aircraft missile systems exhibited by Pakistan at the parade originated from China, including Hongqi-7B (FM-90), Hongqi-16 (LY-80), Hongqi-9 (Hongqi-9P) and Hongqi-9BE missiles, which constitute the complete long-range, medium-range and short-range air defense and missile defense system of the Pakistani army. Today we will talk about the origins of Pakistan and China's Hongqi-7B.
Pakistan is armed with continental Hongqi-7B anti-aircraft missiles
The Pakistani air defense forces, like the Pakistan Air Force, at the beginning, attached great importance to Western anti-aircraft missile systems. By summing up the lessons and lessons of the three Indo-Pakistani wars, at the end of the 70s of the last century, Pakistan reached an agreement with France on the purchase of the "Krotal" short-range mobile air defense system.
In the 90s of the last century, Pakistan carried out a large-scale upgrade of "Krothal". In addition to the French company Thomson, Chinese specialists are also involved in this project. This is due to the fact that at that time China had fully mastered the technology of "Krothal". Almost at the same time as Pakistan purchased the "Krotal" system (1978-1979), China introduced the same anti-aircraft missile system, which was subsequently copied and named "Hongqi-7".
The Hongqi-7 air defense missile system is an all-weather, low-altitude, and short-range air defense missile system developed by the mainland, which was successfully developed in 1988 and began to be equipped with troops in batches after 1990.
The Hongqi-7 air defense missile system is an all-weather, low-altitude, and short-range air defense missile system developed by the mainland
The Hongqi-7 air defense missile adopts a canard aerodynamic layout, a conical warhead, four canard rudders in front of the bomb body, four fixed wings in the rear, and a high-strength magnesium-aluminum alloy thin-shell structure. The power plant is a single-stage solid rocket engine, using photoelectric composite/radio guidance mode, with a maximum speed of Mach 2.4, a combat altitude of 30 meters ~ 5.5 kilometers, and a combat radius of 0.5 ~ 12 kilometers, which can attack various aircraft, helicopters, air-to-ground missiles and cruise missiles, and its single hit rate is between 80% and 90%.
The whole system consists of a search command unit and a launch unit, both of which are mounted on semi-off-road 4×4 wheeled armored vehicles, and the search command vehicles are connected by communication and data transmission cables between the search and command vehicles and the launch vehicles. The search and command unit is mainly composed of a search and command radar, an identification device or foe, a data processing system, a communication and data transmission system, and the launch unit mainly includes a Ku-band single-pulse radar, an infrared guidance system, and four missiles sealed in the launch canister.
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Later, Continental developed and improved the Hongqi-7B (foreign trade model FM-90) on the basis of the Hongqi-7. Compared with the Hongqi-7, the two have considerable changes in appearance. First of all, the chassis was changed from the 4×4 wheeled chassis of the Hongqi-7 to the 6×6 wheeled chassis. The new chassis is low-profile, with the commander and driver side by side at the front, and a large area of bulletproof glass viewing window installed on the front upper armor, which is conducive to helping the driver keep abreast of the situation outside the car when driving at high speeds. Judging from the arrangement of tires and the position of the hatches for occupants, the new chassis adopts the rear layout of the engine, which makes the interior space more orderly and convenient for the arrangement of missile launches and radar system operating stations. Moreover, the vehicle length of the new chassis is much longer than the original 4×4 chassis, so the interior space is definitely much more spacious, which can integrate more advanced equipment and improve the degree of modernization. In addition, the new chassis has a stronger load capacity and cross-country ability, which greatly improves the vehicle's maneuverability.
The Hongqi-7B is the latest modification of the Hongqi-7 missile, and the two are very different
Another significant change of the Hongqi-7B compared with the Hongqi-7 is the change of the search radar, the radar antenna has been changed from the original "parabolic" antenna to a "flat plate" antenna, which increases the elevation range of the search airspace, and at the same time greatly improves the detection capability of ultra-low-altitude targets and hovering helicopters. The detection distance of high-altitude aircraft is 25 kilometers, and the tracking distance is 20 kilometers; For cruise missiles, the detection distance of air-to-surface missiles is 16 kilometers, and the detection distance of hovering helicopters is 8 kilometers, and the error correction and reaction capabilities of the radar have also been greatly improved compared with before.
In addition, the anti-aircraft missiles carried by the Hongqi-7B have also been improved, such as replacing them with new solid-fuel engines and increasing the guidance methods of the missiles. There are four types of guidance for the new anti-aircraft missile: radar, television/radar, infrared imaging/radar, and television or infrared imaging manual tracking, which can simultaneously deal with targets in three directions with three different guidance methods. The missile is guided by radio commands throughout the whole process, the warhead is a high-energy fragmentation focused type, the warhead charge is TNT-Hesokin-glass fiber mixed explosive, the missile has an effective launch altitude of 15 to 6,000 meters, an effective range of 0.7 to 15 kilometers, and a flight speed of Mach 3. After the new engine and guidance system were replaced, the length of the missile became longer and heavier, so the chassis of the missile vehicle was also replaced with the 6×6 chassis.
Radar car of the "Red Flag"-7B anti-aircraft missile system
The appearance of the Hongqi-7B, which aroused the interest of Pakistan, quickly seized the market share of the French under the name "FM-90", entered the Pakistani market, and was publicly demonstrated at a military parade on March 23, 2015.
According to Indian estimates, the Pakistani air defense forces have largely replaced the French "Krothal" system with the Chinese FM-90 system, and the number may reach at least 120 launchers.