SinoSoldier
Colonel
Mysterious Missile Henri K speculation Sino SM3? AKA HQ26 for use in Type 55 destroyer?
According to , an offshore testing center of the Chinese navy conducted a rescue exercise in Bohai Bay, north China. The scenario simulates the ignition failure during a simultaneous firing of two missiles, and therefore had the objective of checking the effectiveness of the rescue teams in this kind of incidents.
The exercise in itself is nothing special, but a passage of the video revealed an unknown missile so far, launched from one of the Chinese vessels dedicated naval weapons testing.
The mysterious missile launched from a Class 909 test bench (Source: CCTV-7)
This missile seems to be composed of four parts - a large first stage painted black (unusual in the Chinese tests), a second conical trunk-shaped stage, then a third stage and the head which, diameter.
Its launching, according to the images, was carried out a priori "cold" - the missile is first ejected from its silo by a gas generator, before the first stage is switched on.
The size of the missile, based on the main mast of the Type 909, is estimated to be between 8.4 and 9 meters, with a diameter between 420 and 710 mm.
Calculation of the length of the missile using the height of the main mast of Type 909
Since the test firing is to take place at the end of October 2016 from a vertical launching system, it is likely that the latter is also installed on the last two classes of Chinese destroyer - Type 052D and Type 055 . This so-called universal VLS is precisely compatible with hot launch (using CCL silos, Concentric Canister Launcher) and cold.
And according to the Chinese military standard GJB-5860-2006 which expresses the characteristics to be respected by the system, this Chinese VLS has three launch modules of different length: 9 meters, 7 meters and 3.3 meters.
A VLS tube being installed in its silo on a Type 052D destroyer
Once all the data is spread, the question that now arises is - what is this Chinese naval missile?
Given its relatively large size, we have several options - an anti-submarine missile (ASROC), a naval cruise missile, a long-range anti-aircraft missile, or a naval ballistic missile.
Knowing that the Chinese navy has not planned to equip its last destroyers with ASROC missiles - missions dedicated to anti-submarine warfare are assigned to specialized frigates - one can therefore already rule out this first possibility .
For the new Class 055 destroyers, currently under construction in Shanghai and Dalian, the information we have today indicates that they will be equipped with a cruise missile to hit the targets on the ground. This naval cruise missile comes from the YJ-18 family , which is already available in several different versions, such as Surface-Ground?, Surface-Surface and Ground-Surface, similar to the Russian 3M54 missiles . We are talking about a certain kinship between these two families of missile naval.
And among the range of Russian missiles, there are just two variants that have a length close to 9 meters, it is the version 3M54T with the vertical launch, and version 3M14T , always with the vertical launch, dedicated to the strike Sea -Ground. Russia in particular fired 26 3M14T missiles in October 2015 against 11 targets in Syria, from the corvettes located in the Caspian Sea.
It is therefore possible that this Chinese missile is the Sea-Sol variant of YJ-18. But if the YJ-18s and the 3M54s are technologically linked, it should not have such a big difference in terms of external shape - the 3M14T has the same diameter everywhere.
The Chinese SAM HQ-9B system with a range> 200 km
As to the possibility of a long-range anti-aircraft missile, the probability appears to be near zero. And for good reason, the missile chosen for the anti-aircraft bubble of the last Chinese destroyers is the H / HQ-9B . His "earthly" twin, the HQ-9B , was exhibited at the Zhuhai Air Show in November 2016. According to the Chinese Air Force officers present there, the range of this missile is "over 200 Km ".
And although the HQ-9B is also cold launch, but its length is significantly less than 9 meters. Given its current scope, there does not seem to be a need to develop another system to go even further.
We then come to the fourth and last possibility, the missile ballistic missile HQ-26 . This missile, whose name is known since 2000, on a framework document published by the Chinese aerospace group CASC, has been under development for about ten years at SAST, a subsidiary of the CCAC. It is, to date, the only known Chinese naval anti-ballistic missile project.
According to this document, the HQ-26 is a so-called "high endo-atmospheric" ballistic missile, just like the HQ-19, but it is based on the ground. The missile's end-of-stroke maneuverability is ensured by a solid double-pulse propellant engine.
However, since the publication of this document in 2000, its name is only openly mentioned once, on the website of the Environmental Monitoring Center in Shaan'xi Province, which participated in a Logistics support in March 2014, for the development of solid propellant engine of HQ-19 and HQ-26. The report was also removed from the site some time later.
So we do not know what its size, what the performance is, and what is the state of its development. We have indeed a rumor from the corridor that the 1st and 2nd stages of the HQ-26 would have a diameter of 700 mm and a third stage of 400 mm. But all this has not been verified so far.
However, institutional publications that may be associated with the HQ-26 project, according to some analysts, have nevertheless surfaced from time to time. It is known, for example, that a call for tender has been launched for the double-pulse motor on the 3rd floor of a "certain missile", and , against the 6th Academy of another large Chinese aerospace group CASIC. The detailed design of this engine began since then.
It should be noted that the 3rd floor of the missile RIM-161 Standard Missile 3 (or simply SM-3 ), , is also a double pulse motor.
The double-pulse motor of the 3rd stage of missile SM-3 (Photo: Orbital ATK)
And in June 2014, the SAST, the entity responsible for the development of the HQ-26, published an article to talk about a team that has worked for 10 years on a "certain" project, a concept "totally new".
By pooling these elements, HQ-26 is thought to be in development, but it seems unlikely that it will be able to carry out validation trials conducted by the Chinese Navy after just two and a half years 3rd floor engine started.
So in your opinion, what is this mysterious Chinese naval missile? Vote for the choice you think is most likely, or leave a comment if your idea is not on the list.
Interesting results on the poll...
Why do people think it could be a cruise missile? We've never seen a naval cruise missile with two diameters & with such a massive booster, not to mention that its near-vertical trajectory is unlike that of cruise missiles (which curve shortly after launch).
