The Chinese People’s Liberation Army began phasing it out in the 1990s. The Pakistani Army still uses it. An 82mm smooth bore breech-loaded, tripod-mounted, recoilless anti-tank gun (likely an S-10 or Type 78/65 recoilless gun) is not exactly a “high-tech gadget” as one reporter claims. But it is a certainly a new entrant into the proxy war in Kashmir. Now, the Indian army is not fielding tanks in the counter-insurgency operations in the state. So the jihadis have been given this weapon to take on the armoured trucks and troop carriers.
The anti-tank gun was part of a large cache of arms and ammunitions seized by the Indian army in Kashmir. It’s arrival might suggest that Pakistan is recalibrating the capital-to-labour ratio of its proxy war against India. Update: Mihir opines that an old anti-tank weapon is a downgrade: “if this anti-tank gun is indeed being introduced by the Jihadis, it might actually signal growing desperation and shortage of material among their ranks.”
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