Pakistan’s Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif has ignited a major shift in Pakistan’s conventional warfighting doctrine with the unveiling of the Army Rocket Forces Command (ARFC), a new formation designed to unify, modernise, and supercharge the nation’s missile and rocket forces.
The announcement, made under the glare of stadium lights during Pakistan’s 79th Independence Day and Marka-i-Haq celebrations at Islamabad’s Jinnah Sports Stadium, signals an unmistakable intent to elevate precision-strike capability to a central pillar of national defence.
“On this occasion, today, I announce the formation of the Army Rocket Force Command,” he declared to a packed audience, framing the new unit as both a symbol of technological progress and a hard-edged instrument of deterrence.
By ring-fencing missile and rocket assets into a dedicated formation, Islamabad is signalling the dawn of a precision-strike era, where speed of decision, integration of targeting networks, and credible theatre-level firepower become decisive advantages in conventional conflict.
A senior Pakistani security official made the strategic subtext explicit, stating, “It is obvious that it is meant for India,” a candid admission that frames the command’s primary deterrence vector and its role in South Asia’s evolving crisis stability equation.
The ARFC will carry an exclusive mandate for handling, deploying, and executing missile operations in a conventional war, ensuring unity of command and collapsing the time between target acquisition and weapons release.
Strategically, the move consolidates what was once a fragmented portfolio of conventional missile and rocket units—previously dispersed between artillery brigades and specialist detachments—into a single operational ecosystem optimised for synchronised, theatre-wide strikes.
This centralisation will allow Pakistan to fuse ISR feeds from drones, AWACS, and ground-based radars directly into strike planning, cutting the sensor-to-shooter loop to seconds rather than minutes.
The new command architecture also lays the groundwork for multi-domain integration, enabling missile forces to operate seamlessly alongside airpower, electronic warfare, and cyber units to degrade enemy air defences, disrupt battlefield logistics, and impose paralysis at critical moments.
The PLARF-inspired framework emphasises doctrinal discipline, tiered strike ranges, layered fires, and survivable basing concepts including mobility, dispersion, and deception to preserve combat power under sustained enemy pressure.
In high-tempo conventional scenarios, such a command structure allows for rapid employment of ground-launched precision weapons against airbases, logistics nodes, radar installations, and massed manoeuvre forces far beyond the forward line of troops.
For Pakistan’s general staff, the ARFC provides a clear, centralised command-and-control spine to orchestrate campaign planning, manage munitions inventories, and sequence strike packages that degrade an adversary’s entire combat architecture rather than merely its frontline formations.
Operationally, the command can unleash multi-salvo, multi-vector barrages designed to saturate and exhaust enemy missile defences, creating fleeting windows of opportunity for follow-on air or ground manoeuvres.
Doctrinally, the emphasis on conventional missile power strengthens both deterrence by denial—making it harder for an adversary to achieve objectives—and deterrence by punishment, raising the projected cost of any aggression.
Shehbaz’s focus on advanced targeting systems, improved guidance, and robust command networks signals a technology-driven force structure capable of delivering high-precision effects while minimising collateral damage.
This precision capability extends cross-theatre reach, giving national decision-makers more flexible escalation control and the ability to tailor strategic signals in real time during crises.
Regionally, the ARFC’s creation will almost certainly trigger counter-measures—India and other neighbouring states are likely to expand air and missile defences, harden key infrastructure, and intensify ISR coverage of Pakistan’s missile deployments.
Internally, the shift is also about institutional learning and talent cultivation, with standardised training pipelines producing cadres of specialists in mission planning, battle damage assessment, and electronic protection for missile forces.
At the industrial-strategic level, having a single doctrine owner will streamline procurement cycles, sustainment, and modernisation, aligning budgets with operational priorities and sharpening the roadmap for indigenous missile development and joint ventures.
The timing of the announcement—synchronised with national commemorations—underscores political resolve and reinforces a narrative of technological modernisation as a central pillar of Pakistan’s defence posture.
The public framing of the command in PLARF terms communicates strategic transparency, revealing Pakistan’s intent to emulate proven missile command architectures that can integrate with broader joint campaign designs.
Although official details on the ARFC’s order of battle, basing, and missile family allocations remain classified, its conventional warfighting remit points to clear rules of engagement, precision targeting processes, and strict escalation safeguards below the nuclear threshold.
In practical terms, this means greater striking power in the opening hours of a conflict, stronger deterrence leverage during crisis bargaining, and more credible compellence options without immediate reliance on manned airpower.
For India, the explicit linkage by Pakistani officials to deterrence aims will likely accelerate investments in layered BMD systems, counter-ISR measures, and rapid runway recovery—a response pattern seen in other competitive missile force dynamics worldwide.
For the broader region, the ARFC’s existence injects a new variable into South Asia’s already compressed decision timelines, where short missile flight times leave leaders with minutes to interpret intent and choose responses.
New Command against India
Pakistan’s missile forces are entering a period of unprecedented consolidation and modernization with Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif’s announcement of the Army Rocket Force Command (ARFC) in August 2025.
The new formation is designed to take exclusive operational control of Pakistan’s conventional rocket and missile systems—separate from the nuclear-centric Army Strategic Forces Command—creating a unified command for rapid deployment, integrated targeting, and improved survivability.
Multiple launch rocket systems (GMLRS)
At the tactical and operational level, Pakistan has invested heavily in precision-guided multiple launch rocket systems (GMLRS) to bridge the gap between tube artillery and ballistic missiles.
Fatah-I entered service in 2021 with a range of 140 km, high-explosive payloads, and GPS/INS guidance, enabling precision strikes on enemy logistics hubs, artillery positions, and troop concentrations well beyond the forward edge of battle.
The more recent Fatah-II, with a range of 290–400 km and heavier payload capacity, extends deep interdiction capability into the adversary’s rear areas, threatening airbases, command posts, and supply corridors.
These systems—battlefield-proven in the May 2025 conventional clash with India—are mounted on mobile 8×8 TELs, allowing rapid shoot-and-scoot operations to evade counter-battery fire.
Complementing them are older unguided rocket systems such as the A-100E (~100 km) and KRL-122 (~40 km), still useful for saturation bombardment.
Tactical Ballistic Missiles
Pakistan’s short-range ballistic missiles (SRBMs) form the crucial bridge between battlefield fires and strategic deterrence.
The Hatf-IX Nasr, with a 70 km range and multiple warhead options—including tactical nuclear payloads—remains the centrepiece of Pakistan’s counter to India’s “Cold Start” doctrine, threatening advancing armoured formations with catastrophic battlefield losses.
The Hatf-III Ghaznavi, with a 290–320 km range, can deliver either conventional or nuclear warheads against forward-deployed airbases, logistics hubs, or staging areas.
Systems such as the Abdali (180–450 km range) fill gaps in Pakistan’s short-to-medium-range strike portfolio, providing flexibility in target selection and escalation control.
Medium-Range Ballistic Missiles
Pakistan’s Shaheen series forms the backbone of its conventional long-range missile capability.
Shaheen-I/IA — 750–900 km range, dual-capable
Shaheen-II — 2,000–2,500 km range, strategic strike role
Shaheen-III — 2,750 km range, designed to target Indian facilities in the Andaman & Nicobar Islands
The Ghauri-I/II liquid-fuel MRBMs complement the Shaheen family, though their slower launch readiness has led to a reduced frontline role.
Perhaps most significant is the Ababeel, a 2,200 km MRBM equipped with MIRV (multiple independently targetable reentry vehicle) technology—designed to penetrate advanced air and missile defence systems such as India’s S-400 and upcoming indigenous BMD shield.
Cruise Missiles
Pakistan has built a diverse cruise missile portfolio for land, sea, and air-launched applications, offering low-observable, terrain-hugging strike options against heavily defended targets.
The Babur series—Babur-1/IA/II (450–750 km) and Babur-III (submarine-launched, 450 km)—provides land-attack and anti-ship capability, with the latter forming part of Pakistan’s nascent sea-based second-strike deterrent aboard Agosta 90B and future Hangor-class submarines.
The Ra’ad-II air-launched cruise missile (350–600 km range) gives Pakistan’s JF-17 and Mirage strike aircraft a potent standoff weapon, reducing exposure to enemy air defences.
In 2022, Pakistan unveiled the Taimoor ALCM (~280 km), a low-observable, Storm Shadow–class weapon aimed at export markets as well as domestic service.
Several days ago, Pakistan unveiled the FATAH-IV, a new-generation subsonic ground-launched cruise missile designed to strike deep inside hostile territory with unprecedented precision and survivability.
The missile’s public debut during Pakistan’s Independence Day celebrations at Jinnah Stadium, Islamabad, was more than just a display of national pride—it was a deliberate show of force aimed at signalling to New Delhi that Islamabad is closing the precision-strike gap.
With a range of 750 kilometres, accuracy within five metres, and a 330-kilogram high-explosive warhead, the FATAH-IV is optimised to destroy high-value, mobile, or hardened targets far beyond Pakistan’s borders without escalating to nuclear exchange.
Travelling at 0.7 Mach and weighing 1,530 kilograms, the missile leverages a low-altitude, terrain-following flight profile—flying just 50 metres above ground level—to remain invisible to most conventional radar systems until seconds before impact.
This low-level penetration capability, coupled with precision guidance, makes the FATAH-IV a formidable weapon against enemy command centres, airbases, logistics hubs, and integrated air defence networks.
India-Pakistan War
The creation of the ARFC sends a clear deterrence signal to India, reinforcing Pakistan’s ability to launch multi-axis, multi-domain strikes in a conventional war.
For New Delhi, the move underscores the need for layered missile defence and rapid runway repair capabilities, as well as enhanced counter-ISR to reduce vulnerability to Pakistan’s precision strikes.
Regionally, the ARFC’s existence adds another escalation vector to South Asia’s already fragile crisis stability, where high-speed decision-making and short flight times compress reaction windows.
Pakistan’s rocket and missile forces in 2025 are no longer a loose collection of systems spread across artillery and strategic commands.
With the Army Rocket Force Command, Islamabad has built an integrated, doctrine-driven structure that covers the full spectrum—from battlefield precision with Fatah rockets, to theatre-strike SRBMs like Nasr and Ghaznavi, to strategic Shaheen MRBMs and Babur cruise missiles capable of reaching deep into enemy territory.
This layered capability provides Pakistan’s leadership with a calibrated escalation ladder—one that can signal resolve, inflict precise conventional damage, or escalate to strategic levels if national survival is at stake.
As technology advances and regional tensions persist, the ARFC will likely remain the centrepiece of Pakistan’s conventional deterrence strategy, shaping South Asia’s military balance for years to come.
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