Pakistan’s announcement that it has test-fired a “ship-launched Anti-Ship Ballistic Missile (ASBM)” has triggered a wave of dramatic online commentary — including claims that the missile could “send INS Vikrant to the bottom of the Arabian Sea.” A short promotional clip posted by the Pakistan Navy shows a missile being fired from PNS Tippu Sultan, a Chinese-built Type 054A/P frigate, accompanied by assertions that the system can strike naval targets 700–850 km away at hypersonic speeds.
But evidence from Pakistan’s own defence-industrial ecosystem, the physical constraints of the ship involved, the absence of an ASBM “kill chain,” and visual analysis of the video itself show that the claims are technically impossible, industrially unsupported, and strategically illogical.
What Pakistan appears to have tested is, at best, another variant of a supersonic anti-ship cruise missile fired from a slanted deck launcher — not an ASBM, not hypersonic, and certainly not a technology comparable to China’s DF-21D or DF-26.
No public record of SMASH
Pakistan’s defence-industrial complex is small, tightly networked and highly dependent on visible procurement pipelines. New missile programmes typically leave unmistakable traces: recruitment ads by NESCOM or NDC, tenders by SUPARCO, ISPR teasers, leaked mock-ups from industry fairs, or long development trails like those seen in Ababeel or Fatah-II. None of these exist for SMASH
There is no public record tying “SMASH” to NESCOM, NDC, SUPARCO, HIT, the PN Dockyard or any industrial entity. There were no tenders, no job postings, and no programme indicators prior to the first mention in late 2024. A ship-launched ballistic missile programme — vastly harder than anything Pakistan has ever fielded — cannot emerge without years of visible industrial activity.
The absence of this trail alone makes the ASBM claim untenable.
Type 054A/P frigate can’t launch a ballistic missile
The frigate featured in the video, PNS Tippu Sultan, carries a 32-cell Vertical Launch System (VLS) designed only for cold-launch HQ-16 surface-to-air missiles. These launch cells cannot withstand the heat, pressure, exhaust dynamics or structural stress of a ballistic missile launch.
A ballistic missile launch requires reinforced hot-launch silos or flame trenches, blast-isolated compartments, gas-management ducts, and redesigned deck architecture. Once more, none of these exist on the Type 054A/P.
Retrofitting them would require major hull restructuring, dockyard modifications, new weight-balancing and new wiring — all changes that would be obvious in tenders, dockyard imagery or satellite photographs. No such evidence exists.
The naval architecture, too, rules out a ship-launched ASBM.
China does not export ASBM technology
Some might argue that Pakistan could have received the technology from China. However, an ASBM is one of China’s most closely-guarded strategic capabilities, central to PLA Rocket Force anti-access doctrine.
China has never even exported DF-21D/DF-26 derivatives or manoeuvrable re-entry vehicle (MaRV) seeker technology or hypersonic terminal guidance systems, let alone share the technology behind these.
There is no precedent — political, military or industrial — for Beijing exporting ASBM capability to any nation, let alone Pakistan.
Final nail in the coffin: The video it self
The most decisive evidence comes from footage of the supposed firing.
The missile is launched from an angled, rail-type deck launcher, not from a vertical silo. The launcher is tilted roughly 35–45 degrees, which is visually identical to launchers for Harbah cruise missiles, C-802/C-803 anti-ship missiles, and CM-302 supersonic missiles.
Every real ASBM in service worldwide, whether American or Chinese, uses vertical canister launch, not angled tubes. A slanted launcher cannot fire a ballistic missile.
This alone conclusively debunks the ASBM narrative.
All in all, Pakistan’s claim of a ship-launched ASBM is contradicted by its own video, by the limitations of the frigate used, by the lack of any detectable ballistic trajectory, and by the total absence of an industrial history behind the missile.
The assertion that this system could threaten an aircraft carrier like INS Vikrant is not supported by physics, engineering or intelligence indicators. It is a narrative constructed for perception, not a capability grounded in reality.
