#EXCLUSIVE
Today, we present one of the most secretive and heavily defended nuclear-launch sites in the mountains of #Attock, Pakistan. Roughly 730 KM from New Delhi,
The yellow box represents the facility location, let's call it the Attock Mountain Complex
At first look at this mountain complex, you might not even realize there exists a full-blown nuclear facility inside.
Here is some satellite imagery - before and after marking the sites after a survey. Notice in the left image, how you cannot spot anything unless marked.
Let's start,
Key Observations - 1 - the site has 2 main entrances, one on each side of the mountain complex,
Rough Area - 47.15 km²
Defended by - 7 Air-Defence Sites!
Launchpads - 2 Launch Pads with 2x Launch Pits Each
Observation -2
This facility is heavily defended with Short-Range Area Defense Missiles along with MANPADS sites scattered along the borders, it also has full capability to detect and track incoming, low-flying aerial targets via the deployment of "Giraffe Radar" onsite.
Observation - 3
Every nuclear facility has an adequate garage and Operational Readiness Platform Shelters which are used to house TEL vehicles during peak readiness. This site has 10+ such TEL Shelters/Garages, take a look
Some are in the open, and some are inside the mountains!
Let's take a look at how a launch vehicle is readied in this facility,
Left to Right
From fetching the trailer vehicle from the garage all the way to arming it with a warhead, and sending it to either
- a launch site, or
- TEL Garage
you can look at this here
We will call this the missile-readiness path, notice how in 3 stages, the TEL vehicle can be either deployed for launch, or for ORP readiness.
It is here that on the 15th January post, we spotted a fully-armed TEL waiting for orders, at the launchpad.
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Orbat on #PakistanArmy
It has 9 Regular Corps + Frontier Corps (mostly anti terror role) and Aviation Corps and have seperate Strategic Force Command, Air Defence Command and Special Service Group(like Para SF)
° Will cover FC, aviation and SSG some other day.
I Corps is one of the 2 strike corps of Pak Army and is based at Mangla, POK and has 1 Armored and 2 Infantry Divisions along with 11(I) Armored Brigade... Currently commanded by Lt. Gen. Ayman Bilal Safdar
Based out at Multan, II Corps is the other strike corps with 1 Armored and 2 Infantry Divisions along with 13(I) Armored Brigade and 44(I) Mechanized Brigade... Corps is commanded by Lt. Gen. Akhtar Nawaz
Thread on Indian Army ORBAT based on latest available data.
A good amount of work in this regard has already been done by @KesariDhwaj, @SupratikSaumya and people in DFI. They have been a good reference point for me to create this infographics thread.
Northern command has recently got Strike One Corps as addition. With this there is a strike corps each at northern and eastern border with China.
Chinar Corps has 2 Division plus 2 RR Forces...each RR Force is equivalent to a division.