Pakistan Test-fires Newly Inducted LY-80 Weapons System

The Pakistan Army has test-fired newly inducted LY-80 long-range air defence weapons system on Thursday near Karachi.

The military fired the LY-80 at the culminating event of the two-week-long exercise, Al-Bayza 2019.

“Induction of the LY-80 long-range air defence weapon system has greatly enhanced the capability of the military’s air defence arm,” Gen Bajwa was quoted by the Inter Service Public Relations (ISPR) as saying Thursday.

The Pakistan Army formally inducted the LY-80 (HQ-16) medium-range surface-to-air missile (SAM) system in March 2017. It has a maximum range of 40 km and is capable of engaging targets at an altitude of 400 to 10,000 metres. It comprises of an IBIS-150 3D target-search radar, a solid-state S-band passive electronically-scanned array (PESA) radar with a range of up to 150 km, multiple L-band tracking and guidance PESA radars, and six-cell vertical missile-launchers. Each L-band tracking radar has a range of 85 km, and can detect up to six targets, of which it can track four. Battery comprises of a tracking radar and four missile launchers.