PLA Navy news, pics and videos

Blitzo

Lieutenant General
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I do not know. It's obvious that they are testing an integrated mast...but they have made recent changes to the carrier mockup so I do not think it is for that.

Perhaps the Type 055...or it could be for the first CATOBAR carrier?

Maybe an upgrade to the Type 071? We just don't know...at least I don't.

It's been most often associated with the 054A successor.

Looking at it, the mast looks perfectly suited to a frigate sized vessel.
At this stage, i tlooks like the top, bulbous part of the mast may be an "enclosed mast" which encloses a rotating array inside, while the lower half of the mast is more of a traditional integrated mast with sensors embedded into the "surface" of the mast itself.
 

ahho

Junior Member
ZBL09's medical evacuation variant appears to have a ramp door, but all others have swing doors, as far as I know...

24613176160_997667ae77_b.jpg

Is that a door on the ramp
 

plawolf

Lieutenant General
Submunitions and the accuracy to hit a hanger sized target pretty much dead on.

That's pretty much all the capacity you need for AShBM work.

Submunitions to disable escorts, and a heavy punch reserved for anything big enough to target with a reasonable chance of hitting.

Follow up with a saturation conventional AShM strike straight after to mop up and bye bye hostile naval task group.
 

Blitzo

Lieutenant General
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Submunitions and the accuracy to hit a hanger sized target pretty much dead on.

That's pretty much all the capacity you need for AShBM work.

Submunitions to disable escorts, and a heavy punch reserved for anything big enough to target with a reasonable chance of hitting.

Follow up with a saturation conventional AShM strike straight after to mop up and bye bye hostile naval task group.

Well there's still the need for midcourse correction with receiving datalink support, and also the ability to hit a moving target... which skeptics would fairly point out.

Still, the Rocket Force are hardly going to demonstrate that capability.


It's very interesting that DF-16 comes with a submunition warhead variant (assuming the pictures in the video are correctly assigned to the right missile). I've always thought that a submunition warhead would be optimal for AShBM duties, I suspect/expect DF-21D and DF-26 would have similar warhedas
 

plawolf

Lieutenant General
Well there's still the need for midcourse correction with receiving datalink support, and also the ability to hit a moving target... which skeptics would fairly point out.

Still, the Rocket Force are hardly going to demonstrate that capability.


It's very interesting that DF-16 comes with a submunition warhead variant (assuming the pictures in the video are correctly assigned to the right missile). I've always thought that a submunition warhead would be optimal for AShBM duties, I suspect/expect DF-21D and DF-26 would have similar warhedas

Midcourse course changes is a critical requirement, but China has long since developed that technology, so incorporating it into the design should be fairly easy and straight forwards compared to the challenges they had to overcome to achieve such accuracy and prefect submunitions release at such high speeds.

Hitting a moving target is really a superfluous requirement give the size of the target and the relative speeds of the missile.

In order to achieve such accuracy, the warhead would need to have terminal course correction capabilities. Given the speed of the missile, an extra 20-30 knots is not going to make any meaningful difference to its chances of hitting the intended target.
 

Blitzo

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Midcourse course changes is a critical requirement, but China has long since developed that technology, so incorporating it into the design should be fairly easy and straight forwards compared to the challenges they had to overcome to achieve such accuracy and prefect submunitions release at such high speeds.

Hitting a moving target is really a superfluous requirement give the size of the target and the relative speeds of the missile.

In order to achieve such accuracy, the warhead would need to have terminal course correction capabilities. Given the speed of the missile, an extra 20-30 knots is not going to make any meaningful difference to its chances of hitting the intended target.

That all may be relatively true, but those are still rather critical parts of the missile's flight path and very important for the AShBM role which technically have yet to be demonstrated in a confirmed and/or reliable way (just playing devil's advocate here).

Of course, those are both things that will be difficult to prove and demonstrate unless the chinese military wanted to deliberately show off, and I myself believe also that midcourse correction and terminal course correction to hit a moving target should be quite achievable.


It's just that those are also things which haven't been shown yet (and which we may never get to see), so I think we can't be too blase about the "capacity" needed for an AShBM to work, if we are looking for solid evidence.
 

plawolf

Lieutenant General
That all may be relatively true, but those are still rather critical parts of the missile's flight path and very important for the AShBM role which technically have yet to be demonstrated in a confirmed and/or reliable way (just playing devil's advocate here).

Of course, those are both things that will be difficult to prove and demonstrate unless the chinese military wanted to deliberately show off, and I myself believe also that midcourse correction and terminal course correction to hit a moving target should be quite achievable.


It's just that those are also things which haven't been shown yet (and which we may never get to see), so I think we can't be too blase about the "capacity" needed for an AShBM to work, if we are looking for solid evidence.

I am less interested in convincing doubters who prefer not to be convinced then trying to assess the most accurate likely capabilities of the PLA.

The point is the PLA doesn't have to show or prove anything to us. It is up to us to try and piece together as much as possible from what they do show us.

One can be pedantic and insist on all sorts of tests results that the PLA will be almost certain to never release, but in my experience such people tend to never be satisfied. As soon as you satisfy one set of their needlessly pedantic requirements, they quickly dream up newer, even harder to satisfy requirements.

Short of China fighting and winning in a war, there will always be those who just refuse to believe China could do it.

Hell, even if China fought a war and won, they will probably come back a week later and claim it was all a fluke.
 

no_name

Colonel
Submunitions and the accuracy to hit a hanger sized target pretty much dead on.

That's pretty much all the capacity you need for AShBM work.

Submunitions to disable escorts, and a heavy punch reserved for anything big enough to target with a reasonable chance of hitting.

Follow up with a saturation conventional AShM strike straight after to mop up and bye bye hostile naval task group.

Submunitions also means you can pretty much give up the effort for a terminal interception.
Basically once the fleet location is discovered and tracked it is game over. Doesn't matter if it is not taken out in one shot because they can steadily degrade its capabilities with successive waves.
 
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