Behind the China Missile Hype

navyreco

Senior Member
The Diplomat’s Assistant Editor Harry Kazianis sits down with Roger Cliff of the Rand Corporation to discuss China’s much talked about anti-ship missile, the DF-21D.

The DF-21D anti-ship ballistic missile is in the headlines quite a bit for a weapon that has never been formally and publicly tested on a moving target. A little over a year ago, the U.S. military declared the missile had reached Initial Operating Capability (IOC). In your view, where does the missile stand today, in terms of operational readiness?
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Kurt

Junior Member
Nice article and it feels good to read my own stance in a more elaborate statement. The problem is the systems to make this weapon work plus it's better launched from naval platforms.
 

bd popeye

The Last Jedi
VIP Professional
This statement in the first question jumped right out..

The DF-21D anti-ship ballistic missile is in the headlines quite a bit for a weapon that has never been formally and publicly tested on a moving target.

Myself , Jeff Head and other have been stating this all along.

(question)In the current U.S. arsenal of countermeasures, do you feel the U.S. has something that would be able to defend against such a missile? Would the SM-3 aboard Aegis vessels in the Pacific be able to provide a defense without their ever being a full test that U.S. officials could observe or study?(question)

The answer

The U.S. arsenal has a variety of potential countermeasures, some of which I probably don’t even know about. The thing to keep in mind is that, in order for China to successfully attack a U.S. navy ship with a ballistic missile, it must first detect the ship, identify it as a U.S. warship of a type that it wishes to attack (e.g., an aircraft carrier), acquire a precise enough measurement of its location that a missile can be launched at it (i.e., a one-hour old satellite photograph is probably useless, as the ship could be 25 miles away from where it was when the picture was taken), and then provide mid-course updates to the missile. Finally, the warhead must lock onto and home in on the ship.

This complicated “kill chain” provides a number of opportunities to defeat the attack. For example, over-the-horizon radars used to detect ships can be jammed, spoofed, or destroyed; smoke and other obscurants can be deployed when an imagery satellite, which follows a predictable orbit, is passing over a formation of ships; the mid-course updates can be jammed; and when the missile locks on to the target its seeker can be jammed or spoofed. Actually intercepting the missile is probably the most difficult thing to do. The SM-3 has an exoatmospheric kill vehicle, meaning that it can only intercept the missile during mid-course, when it’s traveling through space, so an Aegis ship escorting the target would have to fire its SM-3 almost immediately in order to intercept the missile before it reentered the atmosphere, or else there would have to be an Aegis ship positioned right under the flight path of the missile. The DF-21D may be equipped with decoys that are deployed in mid-course, making the SM-3’s job harder. U.S. Aegis ships are also equipped with the SM-2 Block 4 missile, which is capable of intercepting missiles within the atmosphere, but the DF-21D warhead will be performing some high-G maneuvers, which may make it impossible for the SM-2 Block 4 to successfully intercept it.

How all this would work in reality is impossible to know in advance. Even after China has tested its missile against an actual ship, it won’t have tested it against one employing the full range of countermeasures that a U.S. ship would throw at it and, as you say, the U.S. Navy will never have tested its defenses against such an attack. Somebody is likely to be surprised and disappointed, but there is no way of knowing who.
 

Hendrik_2000

Lieutenant General
Nice article and it feels good to read my own stance in a more elaborate statement. The problem is the systems to make this weapon work plus it's better launched from naval platforms.

It doesn't confirm your stance . the conclusion is nobody know how it will worked out

How all this would work in reality is impossible to know in advance. Even after China has tested its missile against an actual ship, it won’t have tested it against one employing the full range of countermeasures that a U.S. ship would throw at it and, as you say, the U.S. Navy will never have tested its defenses against such an attack. Somebody is likely to be surprised and disappointed, but there is no way of knowing who.
 

Maggern

Junior Member
That's what old NATO generals have made millions speculating in (by writing WW3 fiction). For all the military spending during the cold war...how would NATO face up to the Warsaw Pact? One guess that quantity would meet quality. But one never knows until the chips are down. The same thing with China-US. Unlike in SOME books *cough*Tom Cl*cough* I'm sure the US would face some surprises, but that doesn't suggest they would lose the battle. Ah, the wonders of speculation...
 

Kurt

Junior Member
Rods from God would answer the question. China is on the military defense from a strategic POV and still a far cry from US abilities. So it would be a good idea not to challenge the US on issues they regard as positions necessary to defend by force. Cooperation is the much better option.
 

Lion

Senior Member
Rods from God would answer the question. China is on the military defense from a strategic POV and still a far cry from US abilities. So it would be a good idea not to challenge the US on issues they regard as positions necessary to defend by force. Cooperation is the much better option.

This stance will not always remain the same in near fututre. 10 years ago, people laughing at China using GPS guide weapon and claim Russian GLONAS unreliable while CHina cant use US signal. Now what happen?

China has its own Beidou signal and go operation recently. Thinking China will always remain the same is a big mistake.

And China has more money than US can afford in R&D and military procurement of new equipment. Meaning CHina will evolve faster than US.. US will probably proceed at a speed of 10% while China going at 40%.
 
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Kurt

Junior Member
This stance will not always remain the same in near fututre. 10 years ago, people laughing at China using GPS guide weapon and claim Russian GLONAS unreliable while CHina cant use US signal. Now what happen?

China has its own Beidou signal and go operation recently. Thinking China will always remain the same is a big mistake.

And China has more money than US can afford in R&D and military procurement of new equipment. Meaning CHina will evolve faster than US.. US will probably proceed at a speed of 10% while China going at 40%.

I consider real Chinese catchup to the US is slower than it might seem because softskills are hard to measure. In my opinion, Chinese do make progress, but are at risk to overestimate their softskills. Chinese military systems still could surprise the US, but I doubt very much that they can outclass US systems unless the cooperation with Russia improves. As long as Russia is wary about technology exports to China, they are at a disadvantage in total accumulated know-how. The value of know-how is not just making a system work, but includes unsuccessful developments that were shelved because they contain valuable lessons as well and might fare better in combination with new approaches.
 

Hendrik_2000

Lieutenant General
I consider real Chinese catchup to the US is slower than it might seem because softskills are hard to measure. In my opinion, Chinese do make progress, but are at risk to overestimate their softskills. Chinese military systems still could surprise the US, but I doubt very much that they can outclass US systems unless the cooperation with Russia improves. As long as Russia is wary about technology exports to China, they are at a disadvantage in total accumulated know-how. The value of know-how is not just making a system work, but includes unsuccessful developments that were shelved because they contain valuable lessons as well and might fare better in combination with new approaches.

Kurt

Your statement is based on nothing but personal bias,made by uninformed person.We heard a lot more about weapon development from the west because of the free press and the need for the government to justify the huge defense expenses.
It is also ridiculous to assume that China doesn't learn from the failed or shelved project. There are plenty of example. WS 10A chief engineer is the man behind the failed project WS 6. J10 project succeed because of the lesson learned from the shelved J9 project

But because China is authoritarian government, it doesn't need to revealed their weapon development. Just because it is not on the press doesn't meant that it doesn't exist. China s behind is conventional weapon because their budget is way smaller than US
They don't need to reinvent the wheel and if need be why not reverse engineer. And only do research and development on the strategic weapon. Therefore they make efficient use of limited budget .

But China is not behind in the strategic weapon development, Just name it . ASAT? China does it. ABM? China is as good as US, Satellite ditto. High Power Laser China China did test it in 2006 check this one out
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Nuclear weapon warhead China is as good as US. The latest US miniature warhead is W66 and China posses similar design
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Orbital unmanned spacecraft ? China did successfully test X37B like space orbital vehicle
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Supercomputer? China have the fastest supercomputer last year Chinese supercomputer was the fastest.
This year they developed their own supercomputer with their own microprocessor..
You named it the list goes on and on.

China is behind in number of conventional weapon because China commit smaller number of their GDP to weapon purchases !.5% vs 4.5% in US

On your statement that China need Russia is ridiculous. China has stopped buying finish weapon or platform since a long time ago. Except for Jet engine for the spare of the legacy fighter like SK 27, China doesn't buy anything from Russia

In fact in space faring, Russia failed numerous time it become embarrassing. Let see. The Glosnas satellite lost in space, The Mars deep probe Phobo Grunt lost, The space truck to international space lab. failed, Russian military sat failed
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Bulava ICBM is not deployed yet after what 18 years of development?

In fact thing like AESA radar China is well ahead of Russia. Russia has not yet have a production model of AWAC or AESA for the fighter
REad this one
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2) Chinese Defence Products Today: State-of-the Art

Chinese defence products were once thought of as being moderately capable copies of previous-generation hardware that contained attributes of Russian, European and Israeli designs. Some of those bloodlines can still be seen in their designs, but the products now being seen at an expo like CIDEX show that Chinese firms have capabilities that approach first world industrial, state-of-the-art levels of sophistication.

Today the former students (the Chinese) have become the masters. Chinese industry now has the ability to produce components that the Russian electronics industry (after almost two decades of no investment by their government) is no longer capable of either designing or manufacturing. The initial failure rates on the production of transmit/receive (T/R) modules for the Active Electronically Scanned Array (AESA) radars being designed for the Mikoyan MiG-35 and the Sukhoi T-50/PAK-FA 5th-generation fighter, for example, were so high that it would have bankrupted any western firm involved in a similar programme.

Not surprisingly, this year’s CIDEX show saw groups of Russian specialists going through the halls and looking for components that they could source out of China to be utilised in Russian-designed weapon systems. Russian specialists will point out that they are now at a huge disadvantage to the Chinese in two very significant respects.

One is that the commitment by the central government in resources to the defence electronics sector is both sustained and serious. “They can take a field where there is nothing but flat land and wild grass,” said one Russian company representative, “and the next thing you know there is a full-blown factory or design centre there turning out a world-class product.”
 
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