Re: The Chinese carrier killer

On Apr 1, 4:43 pm, nik Simpson <ni...@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
On 4/1/2009 3:19 PM, Jack Linthicum wrote:

On Apr 1, 3:59 pm, dumpst...@xxxxxxxxxxx wrote:
On Apr 1, 3:01 am, Ander<anderdontspa...@xxxxxxxxx>  wrote:

Frogwatch wrote:
According to the report
Which (and whose) report?
Also, remember that today is April 1st ;)
Is this what you're talking about?:

https://www.usni.org/forthemedia/ChineseKillWeapon.asp

But it doesn't say anything and the reference when you find it is an
item in the South China News but no copy seems to be actually
available. One site even says check with your local library and gives
a list of libraries.

The story was reported on CNN if that helps ;-) Basically seems to be a
1200mile range ballistic missile with some sort of terminal guidance, no
details on how much guidance, or what the weapon payload is. My guess
would be large explosive charge + KE, I doubt the Chinese would want to
start a nuclear war as their first gambit in a confrontation with the
USN. Sounds a bit like a weapon the Russkies were supposed to have
developed in the cold war to go after USN carrier groups. According to
USNI, apparently the navy wants some more anti-ballistic missile
equipped destroyers in their next Xmas stocking.

--
Nik Simpson

This is sort of the base analysis. Lots of connections within the
articles and, as in SMN, a long series of comments with other sites.
Some of the cites are in Chinese, which can remove a lot of arguments
if some read it and others don't. Claim within that the Pershing II
and its radar terminal guidance is a parent

http://informationdissemination.blogspot.com/2009/03/plan-asbm-development.html

Saturday, March 28, 2009
PLAN ASBM development

I was contacted by Galrahn to read over a Chinese blog entry on PLAN's
ASBM development (found here) and post my thoughts on it.
I think that before you look further, there are some other good reads
on this topic. Sean O'Connor has posted one of the better summaries on
this regarding to OTH radar and ASBM threat. I have also written an
entry in the past regarding ASBM threat, but it's really not that well
researched. That one was based on an article that stated China has
solved the difficulties surrounding hitting a moving target with a
ballistic missile.

I think that the blog entry I read was definitely the best researched
work on PLAN's ASBM plans. It listed many research papers that were
written in Chinese and published years ago. As a result of that, I
cannot possibly confirm that some of the things I've read are actually
accurate. The sources that I can confirm on the Internet do seem to
conform to what he was stating. I think in order to continue, it would
be beneficial to read some of the resources that he mentioned. The
include:
Sinodefence's Space Page
Sinodefence's Missile Page
Xianglong UAV Page
Yilong UAV page
The first one is important, because you can look through the current
and future development in China's space industry. It's important to
look through the communication, IMINT and EO satellites that China
will use in this system.
In the second link, the important missiles to look for are DF-21 and
possibly DF-15. In the third link, it lists China's probably most
recent venture into HALE UAV. It's about 2/3 the size of Global Hawk
or maybe even smaller. We don't have any figure on its endurance, but
one would guess it's much less than that of Global Hawk due to the
smaller size and less efficient engine. Although at this point, I
would think that PLAN would be fine with an Asian Hawk. And the final
link is an entry with information on China's version of Predator MALE
UAV. The stats listed on that page were actually from its ddescription
in the Zhuhai airshow, so I can verify that they are accurate. The two
UAVs are both developed by Chengdu AC (the developer of J-10), so my
guess is that Xianglong's endurance is comparable to Yilong (around 20
hours).

Reading through those links + Sean's blog entry are important in
appreciating the rest of the ASBM system. I will try to make this out
in Q&A format:

1. What caused China to start develop this system?
There are two main causes that drove this project. The first one is
USA's Pershing II project. I guess this showed PLA the accuracy that
can be achieved through MaRV warhead and active radar guidance. The
second one is the Taiwan incident in 1996 when PLA's powerlessness
against USN carrier group was on full display.

2. When did the project start and where is it now?
China probably started researching on MaRV right after Pershing II was
deployed in 1984. By 1991, China had finished research on MaRV.
According to the blog, there was a famous research paper in 1994 about
attacking fixed target using MaRV technology. In 1999's national pride
parade, they showed a missile with all the basic technology needed for
the missile part of the ASBM system. If we look at the current status
of the satellite constellations and reconnaissance platforms, we could
probably say that the system has achieved some operational capability.
The entire system needed for ASBM probably will not get set up until
all the space assets and UAVs are online next decade.

3. Which missile are they using and what kind of improvements are they
putting in?
It looks like DF-21 is the missile that ASBM is based on. It uses a
solid propellant, is road-mobile, widely deployed and also have
recently been improved to DF-21C. It's range of around 2000 km would
perfectly cover the areas where future conflict is likely to be
fought. Its range also would cover most of the areas that China's OTH-
B radar would cover. It is also large enough to carry a large warhead
needed to inflict damage on carrier while also holding a more complex
guidance/seeker. They have put a MaRV warhead on DF-21 for
maneuverability. In order to improve the penetration capability, they
have added a third stage to it to provide unpredictable movement (I
think the blog described it as some kind of oscillation). They have
apparently made modifications to the warhead in order to lower its
radar signature. They have also added a new multi-mode seeker that
apparently has an active, passive radar and infrared seeker (I'm not
sure how that works). It didn't mention how the missile would counter
ESM of the fleet except for improving the seeker and getting more
updated info from the sources that provided it initial targeting data.

4. What are the sources that provide targeting data for this ASBM
system?
The blog basically listed 5 sources and they are:

* Reconnaissance Satellites - I think you can look at the Ziyuan
and Yaogan series of satellites that have EO, CCD and SAR sensors as
possibilities here. They could also be talking about the FY series,
which is actually expected to be a constellation of Earth Observation
satellites. I think it's important that in the 18th Committee on Earth
Observation Satellites plenary and workshop in 2004, they announced
they would launch over 100 Earth Observation satellites. I don't know
enough about this to comment on which specific satellites I think will
be used for scanning ships, but the blog did mention that China has
used FY-2 series of satellites to track movement of targets. Another
possibility is launching many short duration, micro-Earth Observation
satellites in times of conflict. It mentioned that China can launch a
100 kg satellite on 12 hours notice. In peace mission 05. They
launched an experimental satellite on August 2nd for detection/science
experiment work. This operated for 27 days and returned to earth on
August 29th after the conclusion of the exercise.
* Elint satellites - It mentioned something like USN's White Cloud
Spaceborne ELINT System. The problem I have with this is that I can't
find any mention of China having similar system anywhere.
* OTH Radar - Has a range of 800 to 3000 km. The accuracy in
targetting is around 20 to 30 km. This can be improved to 2 to 3 km
with improved algorithm. OTH radar can work with the recon satellites
to provide more accurate targeting info.
* UAV - As mentioned above, China does have a robust UAV program
going right now including the aforementioned XiangLong program. As
we've seen in the Zhuhai airshow, they have numerous HALE and MALE UAV
projects going. The major problem currently with Chinese UAV programs
is that they simply don't have many small turbojet/turbofan engine
series. As a result of having to work with what they have, the major
design institute in AVIC-1 can't come up with the most optimal UAVs. I
think that this will change in the next 10 years, so this part of the
targeting system is behind recon satellites and OTH radar.
* Radio post - This is problem the most confusing one for me. The
blog talked about working with elint satellites (which I don't think
they have) to get the location of the carrier group through
communications between ships and satellites/aerial assets.


5. How does the launching/attacking process work?
I think that in times of war, they would launch many micro-EO
satellites that have short duration to increase reconnaissance in the
area approaching Taiwan. Similar to US, they would have HALE UAVs to
do advanced scouting in front of the war zone. The OTH radar will give
the base initial idea of incoming fleet. This information would be
combined with data of the recon satellites to provide a more precise
and more accurate targeting data. The missile would be launched to the
estimated position based on initial position + velocity, but this
would obviously be off. Although, I think the movement of the carrier
group will not be overwhelming. If the target is 2000 km away and the
missile is traveling at mach 10 (343 * 3.6 * 10 = 10,000+ km/h) , it
would get there in less than 12 minutes. During that time, if the
fleet moves at 30 knots, it would move at most 6 knots or around 11 km
from the original location. Still, if we add this to the initial
precision problems of OTH radar + EO satellite, this could still cause
the fleet to be outside the scanning area of the ASBM. In the cruising
process, the missile would have to continuously communicate with the
base through those new Data relay satellites (like TianLian-1 that
they launched recently) to get more improve the precision. The ASBM
will also likely veer off the path at this time, so it would need
communication with Beidou-2 constellation in order to keep it on
track. When it gets close to the target, the blog talked about 3
phases in its attack: high altitude guidance, high altitude gliding
and low altitude guidance. I'm really not sure how accurate is the
blog's description of the process. Its general theme is slowing down
the speed of the missile as it gets closer to the target to maybe give
the seeker more time to lock on to target and make unpredictable
movements to penetrate defense.

6. What is the operational status of this system?
From all the past sources I've read, it seems like PLAN already
considers this system to have achieved IOC. Normally, I don't read
about a certain capability developed in a Chinese military magazine
until after it is attained. From reading through different sources, it
looks like IOC was probably in 2007 or 2008. As mentioned before, more
elements in the system like UAV and satellites are getting added as
time goes on, so I look at this as a continuously evolutionary
process.

7. How beneficial is this system?
That I really would have no idea. I wouldn't even know how much damage
would 1 missile cause on a carrier. I would think that if this system
can even temporarily put one carrier out of commission and/or keep
carrier groups further out from the mainland, it would've achieved its
purpose.

8. Are there other launch platforms to this system?
I always thought that an-air launched version of ASBM from JH-7A is
possible. There are certainly a large variety of short range ballistic
missiles that JH-7A would be able to carry and provide updates for. I
have not thought about launching ASBM from a SSBN, since that could
easily be mistaken for a nuclear missile.

That's about it. I think a lot of resources on this are available to
form an opinion.

Posted by Feng at 7:02 PM
.

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