Pakistani Mods

The US is accusing Pakistan of modifying Harpoon anti-ship missiles and P-3 Orions for attacks against land targets:

Pakistan on August 30 rejected U.S. government claims that it illegally modified American-made missiles and said the accusations were part of a campaign to "malign it and its armed forces". Modifications to anti-ship missiles made them capable of hitting land-based targets and thus threatening India, The New York Times said Aug. 29. The New York Times said the missiles were sold to Pakistan by the administration of former U.S. president Ronald Reagan as a defensive weapon during the Cold War in the 1980s.

U.S. military and intelligence officials said they suspect that Pakistan has modified the missiles in a manner that would be a violation of the Arms Control Export Act in the United States, the paper said. According to the report, U.S. intelligence agencies detected on April 23 a suspicious missile test that appeared to indicate that Pakistan had a new offensive weapon.

The United States has also accused Pakistan of modifying U.S.-made P-3C aircraft for land-attack missions, another violation of U.S. law that the administration of President Barack Obama has protested, the report said.

The modified land attack Harpoons must be for the small Pakistani sub fleet; firing short range land attack missiles from a surface vessel under conditions of utter Indian naval dominance would simply be suicidal. Even then, the strategic effect of the weapons would seem to be small, given the limited range and payload of the Harpoon. I have some doubt as to whether putting a nuclear warhead on a Harpoon is within current Pakistani capabilities, although the eventual intention may be to acquire a weak second strike capability of the same character as that of Israel.

As for modifying the P-3 for land attack missions, I'm pretty curious about the utility of a slow, big propeller-driven land attack craft in any conceivable India-Pakistan war scenario. Big, slow planes do fine under conditions of air supremacy, but rather less well when enemy fighters are lurking about. Perhaps the expectation is that the P-3s will be used against Taliban forces, to similar effect as the variety of loitering aircraft that the US currently employs.