PLAN Anti-ship/surface missiles

SamuraiBlue

Captain
Although a bit off topic but going over the specs of the YJ-18, I believe it's a bit exaggerated.
150Km by jet and another 50Km by rocket. It also would require a rocket booster during launch to make the vertical launch making it a three stage missile.
Although technically possible it makes it a very long missile in length.
How long is this missile ?
Does it actually fit into the specified length of the VLS?

Some questions really comes to mind.
 

Blitzo

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Although a bit off topic but going over the specs of the YJ-18, I believe it's a bit exaggerated.
150Km by jet and another 50Km by rocket. It also would require a rocket booster during launch to make the vertical launch making it a three stage missile.
Although technically possible it makes it a very long missile in length.
How long is this missile ?
Does it actually fit into the specified length of the VLS?

Some questions really comes to mind.

Okay, first of all I believe the specs ONI posted for YJ-18 are inaccurate. They seem to have simply taken the specs of the export version of 3M-54E, and have believed rumours that YJ-18 is a straight up copy of 3M-54E. The few pictures we have of YJ-18 do not depict a missile geometry anything like 3M-54 I wrote that here: https://www.sinodefenceforum.com/plan-anti-ship-missiles.t6345/page-8#post-335707

As for the overall flight profile, again, the 3M-54 has been in service for a long time, and has been bought by many countries. YJ-18 is meant to have a similar flight profile to 3M-54 (which is probably where the misunderstanding of YJ-18 being a direct copy of 3M-54E came from), with a subsonic cruise phase and a supersonic terminal phase.
The way it works is that the missile is basically "two stage" with a folding wing and outer first stage/shell in operation during the subsonic phase, with the inner second stage/core which fires up its engine for the supersonic phase after the first stage is detached. A CGI video of the method is here:

Such a missile is not actually that much bigger than a standard cruise missile because the subsonic first stage is a relatively thin outer casing. The booster to propel the missile from the VLS of course is no bigger than a normal booster for a normal cruise missile.
Also, keep in mind that 3M-54E is the export version of the missile with a shorter range (220km) for MTCR compliance. The 3M-54 for domestic russian use has a range listed from 440-660km. Both the export and domestic versions are the same size; 8.22m with a diameter of 0.533m

The longest version of the Chinese common VLS has is 9m long with a diameter of 0.85m. From pictures and video (see my first link, and google YJ-18 launch video) we know the YJ-18 is hot launched via CCL style, meaning its overall diameter is definitely a bit smaller than 0.85m although we don't know the length of YJ-18. If anything YJ-18 seems to have a greater width to length ratio compared to 3M-54, although whether that's because YJ-18 has similar length to 3M-54 and is much wider (i.e.: a bigger missile), or is a similar width to 3M-54 but much shorter (i.e.: a smaller missile) is one we can't confidently tell yet. If I had to bet I'd say the former, given the rough diameter of YJ-18 in the launch video (it's on youtube if you want to watch it) seems only mildly smaller than the estimated width of the VLS 0.85m wide cell. (edit: actually on second look it appears to be about 2/3 the width of the lid, so assuming the lid is 0.85m wide, then a minimum estimate puts YJ-18 at a 0.57 diameter, meaning it's probably a little shorter than 3M-54)

So to answer your question, not only is such a missile perfectly plausible and able to fit in the PLAN's VLS, but the range numbers listed by ONI are probably smaller than what YJ-18 actually is capable of given they're incorrectly assuming it's a copy of export 3M-54E.
 
Last edited:

weig2000

Captain
Okay, first of all I believe the specs ONI posted for YJ-18 are inaccurate. They seem to have simply taken the specs of the export version of 3M-54E, and have believed rumours that YJ-18 is a straight up copy of 3M-54E. The few pictures we have of YJ-18 do not depict a missile geometry anything like 3M-54 I wrote that here: https://www.sinodefenceforum.com/plan-anti-ship-missiles.t6345/page-8#post-335707

As for the overall flight profile, again, the 3M-54 has been in service for a long time, and has been bought by many countries. YJ-18 is meant to have a similar flight profile to 3M-54 (which is probably where the misunderstanding of YJ-18 being a direct copy of 3M-54E came from), with a subsonic cruise phase and a supersonic terminal phase.
The way it works is that the missile is basically "two stage" with a folding wing and outer first stage/shell in operation during the subsonic phase, with the inner second stage/core which fires up its engine for the supersonic phase after the first stage is detached. A CGI video of the method is here:

Such a missile is not actually that much bigger than a standard cruise missile because the subsonic first stage is a relatively thin outer casing. The booster to propel the missile from the VLS of course is no bigger than a normal booster for a normal cruise missile.
Also, keep in mind that 3M-54E is the export version of the missile with a shorter range (220km) for MTCR compliance. The 3M-54 for domestic russian use has a range listed from 440-660km. Both the export and domestic versions are the same size; 8.22m with a diameter of 0.533m

The longest version of the Chinese common VLS has is 9m long with a diameter of 0.85m. From pictures and video (see my first link, and google YJ-18 launch video) we know the YJ-18 is hot launched via CCL style, meaning its overall diameter is definitely a bit smaller than 0.85m although we don't know the length of YJ-18. If anything YJ-18 seems to have a greater width to length ratio compared to 3M-54, although whether that's because YJ-18 has similar length to 3M-54 and is much wider (i.e.: a bigger missile), or is a similar width to 3M-54 but much shorter (i.e.: a smaller missile) is one we can't confidently tell yet. If I had to bet I'd say the former, given the rough diameter of YJ-18 in the launch video (it's on youtube if you want to watch it) seems only mildly smaller than the estimated width of the VLS 0.85m wide cell. (edit: actually on second look it appears to be about 2/3 the width of the lid, so assuming the lid is 0.85m wide, then a minimum estimate puts YJ-18 at a 0.57 diameter, meaning it's probably a little shorter than 3M-54)

So to answer your question, not only is such a missile perfectly plausible and able to fit in the PLAN's VLS, but the range numbers listed by ONI are probably smaller than what YJ-18 actually is capable of given they're incorrectly assuming it's a copy of export 3M-54E.

The well-known poster pop3 said in the HSH forum that 055 Destroyer has land-attack cruise missile launch capability by design. He also said the intended cruise missile is a YJ-18 variant still under development. For a while I was puzzled by this statement since the publicized range of YJ-18 is around 220 km. But if what said is true, it does indicate that the range of YJ-18 is much longer than 220 km.
 

Blitzo

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The well-known poster pop3 said in the HSH forum that 055 Destroyer has land-attack cruise missile launch capability by design. He also said the intended cruise missile is a YJ-18 variant still under development. For a while I was puzzled by this statement since the publicized range of YJ-18 is around 220 km. But if what said is true, it does indicate that the range of YJ-18 is much longer than 220 km.

That's strange, given the previous consensus was that both 052D and 055 will use a vertically launched CJ-10 as their primary LACM.

In any case, regarding YJ-18's range, a variety of numbers have been thrown around, however the 220km one simply appears least realistic given it is often associated with the notion that YJ-18 is a straight up copy of 3M-54E which we know to be almost certainly not true. Added to the fact that 220km is a short ranged missile compared to say YJ-62's 400+ km, you wonder whether the PLAN would accept a new generation AShM to have such a relatively short reach.
The 220km figure and the idea of YJ-18 being a 3M-54E copy also seems to have started among western defence observers. I do not recall a chinese source mentioning it, but then again I don't dig very deep or follow very consistently on the BBS
 

SinoSoldier

Colonel
As far as I know, the Type 055 will incorporate the CJ-10 as its LACM, YJ-100 (variant of CJ-10) for its long-range anti-ship reach, and YJ-18 for its supersonic short-range AShM.
 

Blitzo

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(p. 10). Pentagon's 2015 report says that the YJ-62 only has a range of 220km, while YJ-18 with a range of more than 500km.

Well their YJ-18 number is probably in the right ballpark but I have no idea where they got YJ-62's from. Even export variants of YJ-62 (C-602) has a range of 280km
 

Blitzo

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Just like the HQ-9, the Pentagon seems to underestimate the range of PLAN weapons again.

I don't think that's entirely fair; it's a vaguer problem where I think their sources are poor and they don't put too much importance to details such as range or specs, if it is a few hundred km or a few dozen km off depending on the type of weapon.
Then again they may have intelligence that makes their estimates valid, but somehow I doubt it given the quality of many of their reports are somewhat lacking compared to some info that we in the public domain even have if one bother's to look for it.
 

SpicySichuan

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I don't think that's entirely fair; it's a vaguer problem where I think their sources are poor and they don't put too much importance to details such as range or specs, if it is a few hundred km or a few dozen km off depending on the type of weapon.
Then again they may have intelligence that makes their estimates valid, but somehow I doubt it given the quality of many of their reports are somewhat lacking compared to some info that we in the public domain even have if one bother's to look for it.
Is it possible that China's export versions could be of a high quality (and thus range) than domestic ones, even this does not make realist rational sense?
 
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