Thanks , Very informative ,So what would be the future of NASR in your opinion since Sir Khafee said there was leak of NASR2&3 on Pdf by a guy sometime back
A little bit of history on Nasr.
In 2001, the attack on India's parliament happened. Blaming ISI, India decided to retaliate. The Sundarji doctrine used at that time required their holding corps to prevent any strikes from Pakistan, while sending over strike corps deep into our territory. But Indian Army was a sleeping lumbering elephant. It took them 3 weeks to gather up their strike corps for an attack. We, in the meantime, were prepared and by the 3rd week, yawning and still waiting. Musharraf, in the meantime, went on a diplomatic offensive and effectively emanated a message of sincere condolences from Pakistan. Internationally, India was under pressure to avoid any offensive, and by then, had lost critical time and justification for any aggression.
India then developed the cold start doctrine with the idea being that it could quickly launch an offensive onto us before we could muster our forces and diplomatic support. Essentially India's version of a limited Blitzkrieg. They would aim for minimal but high impact gains by launching an offensive thrust in combination with heavy armor, troops and air support. With this approach, they figured they could swiftly cause us significant damage but with minimal gains - not enough to justify a nuclear response from our end. Nasr was one of our key components to counter this new threat.
Nasr is a low-yield nuclear delivery platform. Low-yield and nuclear being key words. The genius is how we deploy them. Our nuclear missiles are traditionally handled by Army Strategic Forces Command. Nasr, on the other hand, is meant to be deployed by battlefield commanders. Meaning, a single field commander can now decide to launch a limited nuclear strike on Indian advancing forces inside Pakistani territory. The low-yield nature of the blast will limit the radiation fallout and effectively stop any Indian advance. India then gets to grimly decide what to do next. A single limited nuclear attack on attackers within the defender's territory won't be enough to justify escalation to a full-scale nuclear response. India would enrage but can only count its dead from a distance.
So in effect, Nasr nullifies India's cold start doctrine.
Now, why do we need better Nasrs?
India is looking to counter the Nasr - it's always a cat and mouse game. India has deployed mobile Quick Response SAMs (QRSAM) to be used by advancing strike corps which are meant to take down Nasrs. In addition, India can always procure anti-missile systems such as the Israeli Iron Dome to protect against Nasr. New versions of Nasrs will likely be designed to evade these systems and ensure success of a missile hit. In addition, there are always parameters of a missile that can be improved upon such as range, payload, size, launchers, etc.
Now I hope you'll see why it makes no sense to SAMify the Nasr missile. It's designed for a very specific purpose. SAMifying it would essentially mean it's a completely new missile from ground up.
