Long Heng: Cambodia successfully tested Rockets

Samdech Techo PM Hun Sen declared “Successful Rocket Testing”

Samdech Techo Prime Minister Hun Sen on March 4 declared the “successful rocket launching” exercises that was conducted it by the Royal Cambodian Armed Forces at Rolea Pa’ ier district of Kompong Chhang province, about 80km from northwestern part of Phnom Penh.

Speaking at the celebrating ceremony of the 99th international women’s day at The Royal University of Phnom Penh, Premier Hun Sen announced that it was a successful rocket launching that we have never done it for years.
“There were no technical errors and did not make any danger happen from the test-launching,” he said, noting that with half an hour, all 15 trucks had launched the rockets to the right targets area as planning.
“The rocket launching conducted form 8:00 to 8:30 Am at Kompong Chhang province,” he said. “I would like to stress that this is not show of military muscle. But it is an ordinary exercise so that we can be ready to defense the nation in case of the invasion,” he said, adding that First we plan to launch just 10 truck’s worth of rockets to be fired 17 km range. But later we decided to launch 15 truck’s worth to the maximum range of 40 kilometers,” he said.
The rocket test this time is not to show weapon forces with neighboring countries. Even if we did not have a dispute, now is the time frame to test them after it kept so long in stock,” he stresses. He added the local villagers at the area have to avoid the target area until the military officials deems it safe. All countries need to have the weapons to defense the nation, he said, adding that he praised to armed forces that have been trying to train and build the capacity through this weapon testing.

At the scene event, Deputy Prime Minister and national defense minister H.E.Tea Banh, who presided over the launch at a Kompong Chhang airport field, said that the event today is just to test the quality of the weapons and give the next generation of our armed forces to practice in firing them. We tested the successfully, and all 215 rockets from 15 BM mobile rocket launchers run to shoot to the right target of the locations,” H.E. Tea Banh told reporters after the rocket test.
“It does not have doubt from this test because we are conducting them to show our abilities to defense the national sovereignty and territory integrity from the invasion,” he said, adding that over 400 soldiers from RCAF attended in this exercise after they trained about the two month period and they could learn more from this test.
Moreover, deputy commander -in -Chief of RCAF General Kun Kim said that the rocket test today focused on the young trainee soldiers when assessing the exercise. “Our shooters of the BM-21 rocket launchers are young and they have young experiences and they need more experiences. “They had training in how to fire and now the have had the success in the testing,” he said, adding that this is the first rocket test since 1979 and all these rockets kept in warehouses in nearly 40 years and they made in Russia and some in China. These weapons we kept in warehouses for so long, so we need to clean, repair them and test them as you all saw them today,” General Kun Kim stresses. Last week, Samdech Techo Prime Minister Hun Sen said that the price of one of BM-21 rocket could be worth at $1,200, $2,800 and $3,800. ###