YJ-12

DF-21D

DF-21D MIRV Version

YJ-12 Anti-ship Missile Regarded by US media as China’s Most Dangerous Missile
US War on the Rocks website published an article on July 2 titled “China’s Most Dangerous Missile (So Far)” by Robert Haddick, an independent contractor at U.S. Special Operations Command, that regards China’s YJ-12 anti-ship missile as China’s most dangerous weapon so far.
Haddick’s article is based Pantagon’s latest annual report that briefly mentions that anti-ship cruise missile (ASCM). He quotes the report as saying, “The new missile provides an increased threat to naval assets, due to its long range and supersonic speeds.”
According to Haddick, the report understates the danger of the missile to US Navy in Western Pacific because the missile constitutes a threat greater even than the much-discussed DF-21D anti-ship ballistic missile (ASBM).
YJ-12 missile is indeed China’s powerful weapon againt US aircraft carrier strike group, but his comparison between YJ-12 and DF-21D proves his ignorance about China’s weapon development.
Haddick said that DF-21D had “still apparently not tested against a moving target at sea”. This proves even the best informed US military expert does not really know China’s weapon development.
That is perhaps due to his inability to read Chinese military materials.

An article by Wang Genbin, deputy commander-in-chief of Department 4 of China Aerospace Science & Industry Corp. (CASIC), on a journal publicly available in China. Wang says in the article that in the two decades since 1988, China spent 3 billion yuan ($494 million) in successfully developing DF-21A, 21B, 21C and 21D missiles and completed the transition from development of only nuclear missiles to that of both nuclear and conventional missiles and from fixed target to low-speed target. In addition, the accuracy has been improved from several hundred to several tens of meters. The two decades from 1988 ended in 2008. What Wang says means that by 2008, DF-21D is able to hit low-speed target, i.e. a warship, with the accuracy of several tens of meters. Do you think Wang’s figure is not based on tests? In China, an officer of his rank will be in problem if the accuracy he mentioned is not based on tests.
For fear of being blamed for revealing the secret about the test results of DF-21D, important Chinese official media huanqiu.com says in its report : A US research institute believes that in 2011 and 2012, China conducted quite a few launches of DF-21D in the South China Sea and successfully hit and sank a simulated model of aircraft carrier made by transforming China’s Yuanwang 4 survey ship.
Return to YJ-12, Haddick says: Naval War College Review published a 2011 study that YJ-12 had the longest range of 400 km among all the ASCMs in the world. It enables Chinese attack aircraft to launch it outside the engagement range of US Navy’s Aegis Combat System and the SM-2 air-defense missiles. As a result US aircraft carrier strike group does not have enough time to respond to the attack.
Haddick describes in his article a realistic future scenario of China sending 48 Su-30 MKK or J-11B fighter jets to attack a US aircraft carrier combat group. The Chinese aircrafts are supersonic and have a combat radius of 1.500 km. They each can carry two to four YJ-12 missiles. As those aircrafts are roughly equal in strength to that of US F-15E fighter-bombers, the aircrafts from the US carrier can only shoot down a few of them. The 100 YJ-12s launched by them from various directions at very low altitude above sea surface will not be detected until they are so close that the US warships have only 45 seconds to engage them.
According to the conclusion of a study from the Naval Postgraduate School, surface warships on alert were only able to hit 32% of the attacking missiles. That means more than 32 of the more than 100 ASCMs will hit US warships, but US navy will be in trouble if only five of them hit US warships.
Haddick says that US Navy is well aware of the threat and plans to develop Navy’s long-range network engagement to destroy YJ-12s and the aircrafts launching them far away. However he believes that China may develop longer-ranged ASCMs with better target seekers. In this competition China “seems to possess the competitive cost and technology advantages”
This blogger’s Note: It is common sense that a warship is a much larger target than a missile; therefore, it is much easier to develop a missile to hit a warship than a missile to hit another missile. In addition, ASCMs are much cheaper than warships especially aircraft carriers.
Based on mil.huanqiu.com’s report “The US discloses China’s real aircraft carrier killer more formidable than DF-21D missile”, I said saturated cruise missile attack was more formidable than DF-21D. Let me quote the following paragraphs in the post:
US think tank International Strategy Research Institute recently published a report, stating that in spite of the great concern raised by PLA’s DF-21D anti-aircraft carrier missile, China’s anti-ship cruise missiles may finally be the greatest threat to US aircraft carrier combat groups.
Cruise missiles are cheap but accurate and can be launched from land, warships, submarines and aircrafts. Simultaneous attack of lots of cruise missiles can frustrate an aircraft carrier combat group’s Aegis air defense so that they can be used to destroy the group.
Due to their compact shape, supersonic speed, small radar signal and low-altitude flight, they can better penetrate enemy air defense. In addition, once launched, a cruise missile needs little support. It can hit its target even if the warship or aircraft that launched it has been destroyed.
Source: huanqiu.com “US media’ exposure of China’s most dangerous missile so far, even more dangerous than DF-21D” (summary by Chan Kai Yee)

J-18 VTOL Stealth Fighter 1

J-18 VTOL Stealth Fighter 2

J-18 VTOL Stealth Fighter 3

Japanese and US media have lots of speculation about China’s third fourth-generation stealth fighter jet J-18 in addition to the J-20 and J-31 already widely known.
Japan’s Asahi Shimbun was the first to publish a report on the successful test flight of J-18 at the beginning of 2013.
It said that China began to develop its own catapult for the aircraft carrier it planed to build but lacked key technology to make such catapult; therefore, China scrapped its original plan for a carrier for horizontal taking off of aircrafts and began instead to develop VTOL aircrafts.
Soon afterwards, US Defense News weekly published an article that believed that China was developing short-distance vertical taking-off and landing stealth fighter jet, i.e. J-18 Red Eagle VTOL fighter jet, with superb stealth function and installed with laser active phased array radar, internal weapon bays and two vector engines with great thrust.
The Japanese and American reports, though sensational in nature and supplemented by later reports, are but speculation. There had been no evidence on the existence of J-18 whatever until now when Britain’s Jane’s Defense Review published a report on the fighter containing a recent photo copied from a post at a Chinese military forum on the Internet.
Judging by the photo given by Jane’s, J-18 looks almost the same as J-31 except its canard structure. This gives people the impression that it is a VTOL version of J-31. It sounds reasonable as developing a VTOL version saves money than the development of an aircraft from nothing. This is also the case with US F-35 stealth fighter jet. It has three versions including a VTOL version.
However, J-31 is developed by Shenyang Aircraft Corporation who has no experience in developing canard aircrafts. It is suspected that the aircraft is a national project participated by Shenyang and other aircraft manufacturers.
The photo shows that like J-31, it is also powered by two engines perhaps due to China’s lack of an engine powerful enough to power the fighter alone. But some analysts believe twin engines are safer than a single engine.
However, there is the question: Since China has successfully built an aircraft carrier for horizontal taking off, why shall it develop VTOL stealth fighter jets?
The answer for some people are that there must be a smaller amphibious attack warship carrying VTOL stealth aircrafts to supplement the large nuclear aircraft carriers with electromagnetic catapult that China will build in the future.
This blogger simply does not buy that. The generally accept view is that China will follow the US to be a world police so that it has to have aircraft carrier fleets to send Chinese troops far away to fight battles in other countries.
China shall never do that. The failures of European colonialism and US failure in Vietnam, Iraq and Afghanistan have provided enough lessons that military invasion will bring no benefit to a country.
European colonialists failed and have to retreat from Southeast Asia in spite of their overwhelming economic and military power, but Chinese immigrants without money and without military support from their homeland have succeeded there. They either dominate or are very influential in the area now.
The above facts teach China it shall never try to conquer other nations. If it has already had state-of-art nuclear aircraft carriers, it had better sell them. If it cannot find a buyer for them, it had better scrap them and use the waste steel. Why? Because they are too expensive to maintain.
Then, however, what will China have to defend its trade lifeline in the world? Amphibious warships with VTOL aircrafts are quite enough, but they are not able to counter the nuclear carrier battle groups of a superpower.
To deal with such groups, China shall develop integrated space and air capabilities, which will enable it not only to defend its trade lifelines but also to counter attack from the space.
Remember, we are now living in the space era!
Source: qianzhan.com “Was J-18 test flight at Inner Mongolia pure imagination? Jane’s Defence: I’s beyond all doubt” (summary by Chan Kai Yee)

Long March 2FT1

Long March 2FT1 2

Impression of the Space-Aircraft

According to Japanese newspaper The Sankei Shimbun, China will soon complete the establishment of its integrated space and air force. The force will have its own management independent from Chinese army, navy and air force.
Both Chinese air force and the Second Artillery Corps. will participate in the force so that the force will be a combination of various arms of the services. There will be ground force, force with space and aerospace equipment, rocket troops, etc. in it. Its major tasks will be space defense, support for air, ground and marine combat operations and development in space and universe.
In light of the reports of The Sankei Shimbun, Canada’s Kanwa Defence Review and other media, Japan and the US seek to jointly establish a space surveillance and control system to monitor China’s space activities closely. The two countries’ speculate that China’s Second Artillery Corps is planning to establish a new arm of the services that contains troops of networking technology and electronic warfare. Those troops will be the basis for the combat capabilities of the integrated space and air force that the PLA is establishing.
Sankei Shimbun’s report points out that the US and Japan will jointly intensify their space surveillance with a clear division of labor. The US will use optical telescopes and ground-based radars to monitor Chinese satellites; while Japan will use its EPS-5 ground-based ballistic missile defense radar to identify Chinese satellites and other vehicles in their orbits in space so as to undertake a part of the tasks.
According to Kanwa’s speculation, the Second Artillery Corps will take the lead in carrying out the integrated space and air battle plan that the US and Japan are worried about. The Corps’ automatic command system has long been a networked one. Recently, its command management system has been connected by network with Chinese navy and air force to provide the foundation for the implementation of integrated space and air battle.
The report says that the Corps’ networked troops have the system for collecting, transmitting, processing and displaying intelligence and providing assistance for decision making and functions of surveillance and control. Its system that collects information can call for its use reconnaissance satellites, reconnaissance aircrafts of the navy and air force and other equipment. Its information transmission and processing system is equipped with advanced computers while its system that assists decision making and analysis consists of computer center, database and combat simulation system. The sophisticated equipment can help the Corps obtain at anytime information support from navy and air force and closely monitor the activities of other countries’ relevant equipment in space and on earth.
Qianzhan.com says that it is precisely US militarization of space that has forced China to deploy corresponding defense force in order to ensure prevention of China’s space assets from being attacked.
In addition, all computers at the terminals of the Corps’ automatic command system have been replaced by military notebook computer for field operations. That enables commanders of the Corps’ troops to obtain at anytime information on space and air battlefield through the terminals for making the decision to deal with the enemy.
According to Kanwa’s speculation, the establishment of electronic warfare troops also reflects the Corps’ intention to enhance its integrated space and air capabilities. Through its independent electronic reconnaissance and the integrated reconnaissance of the electronic warfare troops of the air force and navy, the reconnaissance capabilities of the Corps’ long- and mediau-range missile troops have been greatly enhanced. .
Such information system facilitates making clear the movements of the space and air combat systems of the US and other countries, in particular those of their satellite and missile interception system in outer space. Once it is found that China’s assets in space are in danger of being attacked, the Corps can attack with missiles the radars and wireless command facilities of the enemy’s space and air attack system.
Source: qianzhan.com “Surprising emergence of the new integrated space and air force shocks the world” (summary by Chan Kai Yee)