New Delhi: Pakistan faces an urgent artillery ammunition crisis, which weakens its ability to wage high-intensity warfare beyond four days, according to recent intelligence sources. ANI news agency reports through intelligence sources that Pakistan faces an uncertain national defence situation because of its depleted artillery ammunition supply.
PSNS (Pakistan Strategic Nuclear Supply) exists because Pakistan spent its strategic artillery ammunition reserves on arms exports towards Ukraine alongside 155mm artillery shell delivery. The military supplier Pakistan Ordnance Factories (POF) maintains inadequate stock levels because their production facilities have not been updated while world market demand continues to grow. The dearth of M109 howitzers and BM-21 rocket launchers has become so serious that it sparks fear among defence experts in Pakistan.
Military leaders from Pakistan discussed the running low reserves as the main point in their Special Corps Commanders Conference on May 2. Pakistan’s plans to build new ammunition depots near the border with India remain useless since the country lacks enough ammunition to store in these facilities after constructing them.
The economic difficulties facing Pakistan, including rising inflation and falling foreign reserves, have produced adverse impacts on its military capacities. The armed forces needed to suspend training exercises as well as reduce ration distribution and cancel war games because of fuel shortages that worsened their ammunition shortage crisis.
A militant attack at Pahalgam on April 22 killed 26 people, including most of them tourists, thereby increasing tensions between nuclear powers Pakistan and India. India declared Pakistan responsible for the attack that the TRF carried out against India while serving as a proxy military group of Lashkar-e-Taiba, which operates from Pakistani bases. India delivered two countermeasures by suspending the Indus Waters Treaty and closing down the Wagah-Attari border as well as allowing complete strategic freedom to its armed forces.
The reported shortage of artillery in Pakistan leaves the country exposed as it anticipates possible reactions from India. A senior defence analyst told ANI that Pakistan sent its ammunition to foreign battlefields, so the country ended up without ammunition and its defence forces are staying in a precarious situation.