Can Pakistan Navy now target INS Vikrant? Range of Islamabad’s new ship-launched ballistic missile SMASH revealed

Pakistan executed the maiden launch of its indigenously developed SMASH (Surface-to-Surface Mach-8 Anti-Ship Ballistic Missile) from a warship, reports claimed. A brief video released by the Pakistan Navy showed the missile being launched from a Type 054A/P frigate and striking a target. SMASH has now reportedly extended Pakistan’s naval strike envelope to an estimated 700–850 km.

The launch was South Asia’s first operational demonstration of a ship-launched Anti-Ship Ballistic Missile (ASBM), reports claimed. The Pakistan Navy said that the locally-developed missiles are capable of engaging both naval as well as ground targets. PNS Tippu Sultan (F-280), often referred to as the Pakistan Navy’s most advanced Type 054A/P frigate, was used for SMASH's maiden launch. The system is reportedly capable of a steep-angle hypersonic re-entry exceeding Mach 8 (~9,800 km/h) before achieving a direct kinetic kill.

Why SMASH is special for Pakistan?

Nations that are known to possess ship-launched ballistic missile strike capability include the United States and China, while some reports indicate that the navies of both Iran and North Korea have also cracked the technological code.

In the simplest terms, SMASH has equipped Islamabad with the capability to carry out a long-range precision strike on targets hundreds of kilometres beyond Pakistan’s coast, Defence Security Asia said in a report. This means, in case of a conflict, it can now challenge enemy naval operations in the wider Arabian Sea.

Indian Navy and SMASH

Elaborating on how it affects the Pakistan Navy's Herculean challenge of challenging the superior Indian fleets, the report said: "While Pakistan has traditionally relied on a combination of anti-ship cruise missiles such as Babur-3, Harbah, and Zarb—along with air-launched stand-off munitions—to offset India’s numerical naval superiority, the introduction of a hypersonic ASBM fired from a surface combatant radically transforms the engagement geometry in Pakistan’s favour." It further claimed that SMASH has the potential to give a hard time to India's air defence systems such as the Barak-8 or SM-6 since they dive onto their target from exo-atmospheric altitudes.

The integration of SMASH is expected to help Pakistan achieve the deterrence goal of “area denial dominance” against India without having to match it numerically, a report said. Much of the SMASH missile’s data remains classified, the Defence Security Asia said, adding that the official video released by the Pakistan Navy confirms its universal vertical launch system (UVLS) compatibility. The induction of the ASBM could offer some solace to the Pak Navy which was under immense pressure to catch up with its Indian counterpart, which had commissioned aircraft carrier INS Vikrant, the development of a follow-on carrier, nuclear submarine constructions and BrahMos-II(K) systems.

The INS Vikrant is typically anchored or homeported at the Kochi Naval Base in Kerala, on the southwest coast of India. According to Google, the distance between Kochi and the Pakistani port city of Karachi is approximately 1,000 nautical miles (or about 1,850 kilometres) in a straight line across the Arabian Sea. During deployment in the North Arabian Sea, the carrier gets significantly closer to the Pakistani mainland, potentially reducing the distance to 500–800 kilometres.