On 11 May, the daily Frontier Post publication reported that
Pakistan was planning to test-fire a new 4000 km range ballistic
missile - Tipu [the fighter] on 28 May 1999, the first anniversary of
Pakistan's nuclear tests. No other reports assert the fact of the
existence of such a missile, and no test has taken place as of the end
of 1999. According to report, the new missile was developed by a team of
scientists from the Pakistan Atomic Energy Commission, and is capable
of carrying either conventional or nuclear payloads.
The missile was described as being 12 meters long. This reported
length is evidently inconsistent with the reported range of the missile,
since Chinese [possibly DF-3A or DF-4] and North Korean [TD-2] missile
with ranges of several thousand kilometers are several times larger. The
utility of a missile in this range class is obscure, since the 1500 km
range Ghauri/Hatf-5 ND-1 derivative provides almost complete coverage of
India, and politically interesting targets at more than twice this
range are rather difficult to identify.
Although the existence of a Tipu missile is doubtful, the origins
of the "Tipu" nomeclature are interesting, nonetheless. Tipu Sultan was
the muslim ruler of Mysore in Srirangapatnam, who was enthroned as the
ruler of Mysore on 04 May 1783. He continued the Second Mysore War
against the English, and defeated many English generals. His maxim was
that "it was far better to live like a lion for a day than to live like a
jackal for a hundred years". It is said that Tipu Sultan forced Hindus
to convert to Islam, though there is conflicting evidence that these
claims are true. When Tipu was killed at the battle of Tipu Khanahally
in 1799 the British captured more than 700 rockets. These rockets were
taken to England by William Congreve and subsequently "reverse
engineered."