Pakistan Navy’s newly commissioned submarine PNS/M Hangor has completed its maiden live weapon firing, launching an anti-ship cruise missile in the North Arabian Sea. The submarine engaged its target with precision, according to a Pakistan Navy statement.
Chief of the Naval Staff Admiral Naveed Ashraf witnessed the exercise at sea. He praised Hangor’s combat power and stressed that subsurface warfare capability remains central to the Navy’s deterrence posture.
Hangor is the lead boat of an eight-submarine class Pakistan ordered from China in April 2015. The design is an export variant of the People’s Liberation Army Navy’s Type 039B Yuan-class submarine. Four boats are being built in China, with the remaining four constructed at Pakistan’s Karachi Shipyard and Engineering Works under technology transfer arrangements.
Deliveries have slipped behind the original 2022–2028 schedule. Hangor launched in 2024 and entered service in April 2026, while the second and third boats launched in China during 2025.
Pakistan has not disclosed Hangor’s propulsion system or weapon suite. Analysts widely link the design to CSOC’s S26 submarine, which uses Stirling air-independent propulsion. Defence blog Quwa reports Hangor measures 76 metres and displaces 2,800 tonnes, making it shorter but heavier than the baseline S26.
The Navy currently fields three Agosta 90B AIP submarines and two Agosta 70 diesel-electric boats, with Turkish contractor STM completing mid-life upgrades to the Agosta 90B fleet since 2020.
Once complete, the Hangor programme will substantially expand Pakistan’s anti-access/area-denial capability. Speculation persists that the boats could eventually carry Babur-3 submarine-launched cruise missiles, though this remains unconfirmed.
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