Chinese cruise and anti-ship missiles

AndrewS

Brigadier
Registered Member
Yes the difference is huge, but let's say a hypersonic missile costs the same as a Tomahawk which would be incredibly cheap, as a Tomahawk is a nonstealthy subsonic missile without need for rocket booster, from the 1980's.

A Tomahawk costs around $1 million. A JASSM costs from $1-2 Million
The CSBA previously had the following estimate for $10 million for a 1500km Land-Attack Ballistic Missile. So you could buy at least 5 JASSMs for the cost of a single ballistic missile.

Hypersonic missiles are coming in even more expensive in the US.
 

tphuang

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fyi, here is the article
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Just an amazing statistic, which is public but it’s worth repeating, is that the U.S. has done roughly 10 or 11 hypersonic tests. I think there was another one yesterday that the Air Force claimed was successful. China, last time I checked, had done 280.

Kaiser: Wow.
Demetri: That was several months ago. I wouldn’t be surprised if they’re closer to 300 by now.
China is conducting a lot of hypersonic tests of different types. If you listen to shilao's podcast, they are far ahead of US in this area. They have ballistic missile, HGV, HCM AShM all under development. You wouldn't do several tests a month unless you can get the costs down.

btw, Tomhawk missiles are a $2 million a pop now
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Number one on the list is 35 anti-ship Naval Strike Missiles for $57.8 million, followed by 48 Tactical Tomahawk long-range anti-ship and strike missiles for $96 million, according to the list reviewed by USNI News.

subsonic missiles are cheaper for USN, but still quite expensive by Chinese standard.

I'd expect hypersonic missiles to be around $30 million each based on the comments made by people like Frank Kendall and not procured in any significant quantities.

China can just build these things cheaper and faster. Economy of scale does matter and they've clearly got the cost down at this point.

Also keep in mind that hypersonic and subsonic missiles are for different purposes. Hypersonic missiles are hard to intercept, so you use that prominently against well defended targets like CSGs and critical land targets. You still need subsonic missiles for stand off land attacks in that initial phase against weakened naval targets and land attacks.

As I discussed in another thread, if you carry 32 hypersonic AShM per 055 (if they need 11 m VLS for this) and have 30 055s in action, you can carry over 900 super powerful weapons just with your surface combatants. I think it will be a while for them to get to this point, but that's the direction they would want to go.
 

Andy1974

Senior Member
Registered Member
the cost of the window is nothing compared to the cost of essentially every other component.

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Yes the difference is huge, but let's say a hypersonic missile costs the same as a Tomahawk which would be incredibly cheap, as a Tomahawk is a nonstealthy subsonic missile without need for rocket booster, from the 1980's.

That would be $1.5 million. Diamond window to ZnS window would be saving less than 1% of the cost.

What's the benefit of diamond over ZnS?
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Diamond is not.

Now I don't know whether this is an acceptable tradeoff. Maybe you do. But if there's any reentry involved, ZnS might not be the way to go.
I’m just the messenger, it was the missile designers that made this choice, as I said It is for cost reasons. maybe their algorithms are improved that they don’t need diamond. Either way, they are choosing to ditch it.

It is my belief that China will be able to make cheap missiles soon. The body of the missile is very cheap, because they have a new method of moulding using microscopic titanium balls, doped with rare earths, that presses hypersonic body parts, and they are ready for assembly right off the press.

Maybe a hypersonic missile will cost $100k, not $1.5 million if every component is affordable.

Launch cost: $1 (if using rail guns)
Windows : $770 each
Body: $10,000 (basically just raw material, and electricity)

Whatever other components that are currently expensive will either be replaced or reduced in price, the goal is to have there problems solved within 3 years.
 

Hyper

Junior Member
Registered Member
I’m just the messenger, it was the missile designers that made this choice, as I said It is for cost reasons. maybe their algorithms are improved that they don’t need diamond. Either way, they are choosing to ditch it.

It is my belief that China will be able to make cheap missiles soon. The body of the missile is very cheap, because they have a new method of moulding using microscopic titanium balls, doped with rare earths, that presses hypersonic body parts, and they are ready for assembly right off the press.

Maybe a hypersonic missile will cost $100k, not $1.5 million if every component is affordable.

Launch cost: $1 (if using rail guns)
Windows : $770 each
Body: $10,000 (basically just raw material, and electricity)

Whatever other components that are currently expensive will either be replaced or reduced in price, the goal is to have there problems solved within 3 years.
It's impossible for an hypersonic missile to cost 100k dollars. Your entire post is based on large and wide assumptions.
 

sunnymaxi

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Chinese scientists plan boron-powered supersonic missile that can fly and swim​

  • Anti-ship device will be able to cruise at commercial airliner altitudes and reach 200 knots underwater, project team says
  • Volatile element that reacts in both air and water will power the ‘cross-media’ weapon


China is developing a supersonic
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that will be able to travel further and faster than any traditional torpedo, according to researchers involved in the project.

The 5 metre (16.4 feet) missile will be able to cruise at 2.5 times the speed of sound at about 10,000 metres (32,800 feet) – the same altitude as a commercial airliner – for 200km (124 miles) before diving and skimming across the waves for up to 20km.
Once it is within about 10km of its target, the missile will go into torpedo mode, travelling underwater at up to 100 metres per second (200 knots) using supercavitation – the formation of a giant air bubble around it which significantly reduces drag, according to the researchers.

It will also be able to change course at will or crash-dive to a depth of up to 100 metres to evade underwater defence systems without losing momentum.

Lead scientist Li Pengfei and his team said no existing ship defence system was designed to handle such a fast “cross-media” attack. “This can greatly improve the missile’s penetration capability,” they said.

One of the biggest challenges for the developers is the power system, because of the need to produce considerable thrust while breathing in either air or water. But Li’s team said the problem could be solved by using boron – a light element that reacts violently when exposed to both, releasing a huge amount of heat.

The team, from the college of aerospace science and engineering in the National University of Defence Technology in Changsha, Hunan province, unveiled a blueprint for the missile’s power system in the September 8 issue of the peer-reviewed Journal of Solid Rocket Technology, published by the Chinese Society of Astronautics.

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Boron was briefly added to jet fuel by the US Air Force in the 1950s to increase the power of supersonic bombers. But the project was abandoned because the ignited boron particles were hard to control and formed a layer of debris that gradually reduced engine performance.

The hypersonic race has rekindled interest in boron in recent years. China, for instance, has built air-breathing scramjet engines using solid fuel containing boron nanoparticles to accelerate missiles to five times the speed of sound or faster, according to openly available information.

The US military has similar programmes. A Nasa study funded by the US Navy last year found that nanotubes made using boron nitride, a combination of boron and nitrogen, could potentially be used to power hypersonic weapons travelling at speeds above 6,400km/h (4,000 miles per hour).

But most boron-powered engines are designed to work only in the air. Researchers usually choose aluminium or magnesium as fuel to drive supercavitating torpedoes as they react more easily with water.

Li’s team said they had designed a boron-powered ramjet engine that could work both in the air and underwater.

There are some unique components, such as adjustable inlets and exhaust nozzles to maintain the boron’s burn efficiency in different environments, but the biggest change is in the fuel rods, according to their paper.

Boron usually accounts for about 30 per cent of the total fuel weight in an air-breathing missile because of the many other chemicals required to control and prolong the strong combustion.

Li’s team has doubled the share of boron in the fuel and estimates the result could produce a thrust greater than that of aluminium in water.

“The cross-media ramjet uses a fuel-rich solid propellant, which burns with the external air or seawater entering into the ram to generate high-temperature gas and generates thrust through the nozzle,” the paper said.

“It has the high specific impulse and simple structure as an ideal power source for a cross-media anti-ship missile.”

The team said the increased boron content could cause some problems in mass production, ignition and combustion control, but these “can be solved by the modification of boron particles, improvement of manufacturing process, and the study of grain mass properties”.

Adjusting the thrust of a solid fuel engine is difficult. The boron powder, for instance, behaves as both solid and fluid when injected into the combustion chamber, making physical modelling or regulation of the burning process challenging.
And once started, the process cannot be stopped.

China has made some significant progress on solid propellent technology in recent years, including the application of multiple layers of coating on nanofuel particles to rein in their explosive behaviours.

Last year, China Aerospace Science and Technology Corporation built and tested a 3.5 metre wide motor that generates 500 tonnes of thrust,
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ever built using a single segment of solid propellant.

And the Chinese Academy of Sciences’ new civilian solid-fuelled rocket Lijian One, with advanced combustion control technology, is twice as big as the DF-41, China’s largest road-mobile intercontinental ballistic missile.

But there are risks for China in relying on borofuels for mass-produced weapons, according to a materials scientist in Beijing who is studying the volatile element.

China imports about half of its boron ores from overseas – mainly from the US – and it is about 100 times more expensive than aluminium.

“There is a growing concern that boron will become a target in the trade war,” said the researcher, who asked not to be named because of the issue’s sensitivity.
 

siegecrossbow

General
Staff member
Super Moderator
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Chinese scientists plan boron-powered supersonic missile that can fly and swim​

  • Anti-ship device will be able to cruise at commercial airliner altitudes and reach 200 knots underwater, project team says
  • Volatile element that reacts in both air and water will power the ‘cross-media’ weapon


China is developing a supersonic
Please, Log in or Register to view URLs content!
that will be able to travel further and faster than any traditional torpedo, according to researchers involved in the project.

The 5 metre (16.4 feet) missile will be able to cruise at 2.5 times the speed of sound at about 10,000 metres (32,800 feet) – the same altitude as a commercial airliner – for 200km (124 miles) before diving and skimming across the waves for up to 20km.
Once it is within about 10km of its target, the missile will go into torpedo mode, travelling underwater at up to 100 metres per second (200 knots) using supercavitation – the formation of a giant air bubble around it which significantly reduces drag, according to the researchers.

It will also be able to change course at will or crash-dive to a depth of up to 100 metres to evade underwater defence systems without losing momentum.

Lead scientist Li Pengfei and his team said no existing ship defence system was designed to handle such a fast “cross-media” attack. “This can greatly improve the missile’s penetration capability,” they said.

One of the biggest challenges for the developers is the power system, because of the need to produce considerable thrust while breathing in either air or water. But Li’s team said the problem could be solved by using boron – a light element that reacts violently when exposed to both, releasing a huge amount of heat.

The team, from the college of aerospace science and engineering in the National University of Defence Technology in Changsha, Hunan province, unveiled a blueprint for the missile’s power system in the September 8 issue of the peer-reviewed Journal of Solid Rocket Technology, published by the Chinese Society of Astronautics.

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Boron was briefly added to jet fuel by the US Air Force in the 1950s to increase the power of supersonic bombers. But the project was abandoned because the ignited boron particles were hard to control and formed a layer of debris that gradually reduced engine performance.

The hypersonic race has rekindled interest in boron in recent years. China, for instance, has built air-breathing scramjet engines using solid fuel containing boron nanoparticles to accelerate missiles to five times the speed of sound or faster, according to openly available information.

The US military has similar programmes. A Nasa study funded by the US Navy last year found that nanotubes made using boron nitride, a combination of boron and nitrogen, could potentially be used to power hypersonic weapons travelling at speeds above 6,400km/h (4,000 miles per hour).

But most boron-powered engines are designed to work only in the air. Researchers usually choose aluminium or magnesium as fuel to drive supercavitating torpedoes as they react more easily with water.

Li’s team said they had designed a boron-powered ramjet engine that could work both in the air and underwater.

There are some unique components, such as adjustable inlets and exhaust nozzles to maintain the boron’s burn efficiency in different environments, but the biggest change is in the fuel rods, according to their paper.

Boron usually accounts for about 30 per cent of the total fuel weight in an air-breathing missile because of the many other chemicals required to control and prolong the strong combustion.

Li’s team has doubled the share of boron in the fuel and estimates the result could produce a thrust greater than that of aluminium in water.

“The cross-media ramjet uses a fuel-rich solid propellant, which burns with the external air or seawater entering into the ram to generate high-temperature gas and generates thrust through the nozzle,” the paper said.

“It has the high specific impulse and simple structure as an ideal power source for a cross-media anti-ship missile.”

The team said the increased boron content could cause some problems in mass production, ignition and combustion control, but these “can be solved by the modification of boron particles, improvement of manufacturing process, and the study of grain mass properties”.

Adjusting the thrust of a solid fuel engine is difficult. The boron powder, for instance, behaves as both solid and fluid when injected into the combustion chamber, making physical modelling or regulation of the burning process challenging.
And once started, the process cannot be stopped.

China has made some significant progress on solid propellent technology in recent years, including the application of multiple layers of coating on nanofuel particles to rein in their explosive behaviours.

Last year, China Aerospace Science and Technology Corporation built and tested a 3.5 metre wide motor that generates 500 tonnes of thrust,
Please, Log in or Register to view URLs content!
ever built using a single segment of solid propellant.

And the Chinese Academy of Sciences’ new civilian solid-fuelled rocket Lijian One, with advanced combustion control technology, is twice as big as the DF-41, China’s largest road-mobile intercontinental ballistic missile.

But there are risks for China in relying on borofuels for mass-produced weapons, according to a materials scientist in Beijing who is studying the volatile element.

China imports about half of its boron ores from overseas – mainly from the US – and it is about 100 times more expensive than aluminium.

“There is a growing concern that boron will become a target in the trade war,” said the researcher, who asked not to be named because of the issue’s sensitivity.

But I thought the Chinese couldn’t innovate.
 

Staedler

Junior Member
Registered Member
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Chinese scientists plan boron-powered supersonic missile that can fly and swim​

  • Anti-ship device will be able to cruise at commercial airliner altitudes and reach 200 knots underwater, project team says
  • Volatile element that reacts in both air and water will power the ‘cross-media’ weapon


China is developing a supersonic
Please, Log in or Register to view URLs content!
that will be able to travel further and faster than any traditional torpedo, according to researchers involved in the project.

The 5 metre (16.4 feet) missile will be able to cruise at 2.5 times the speed of sound at about 10,000 metres (32,800 feet) – the same altitude as a commercial airliner – for 200km (124 miles) before diving and skimming across the waves for up to 20km.
Once it is within about 10km of its target, the missile will go into torpedo mode, travelling underwater at up to 100 metres per second (200 knots) using supercavitation – the formation of a giant air bubble around it which significantly reduces drag, according to the researchers.

It will also be able to change course at will or crash-dive to a depth of up to 100 metres to evade underwater defence systems without losing momentum.

Lead scientist Li Pengfei and his team said no existing ship defence system was designed to handle such a fast “cross-media” attack. “This can greatly improve the missile’s penetration capability,” they said.

One of the biggest challenges for the developers is the power system, because of the need to produce considerable thrust while breathing in either air or water. But Li’s team said the problem could be solved by using boron – a light element that reacts violently when exposed to both, releasing a huge amount of heat.

The team, from the college of aerospace science and engineering in the National University of Defence Technology in Changsha, Hunan province, unveiled a blueprint for the missile’s power system in the September 8 issue of the peer-reviewed Journal of Solid Rocket Technology, published by the Chinese Society of Astronautics.

Please, Log in or Register to view URLs content!

Boron was briefly added to jet fuel by the US Air Force in the 1950s to increase the power of supersonic bombers. But the project was abandoned because the ignited boron particles were hard to control and formed a layer of debris that gradually reduced engine performance.

The hypersonic race has rekindled interest in boron in recent years. China, for instance, has built air-breathing scramjet engines using solid fuel containing boron nanoparticles to accelerate missiles to five times the speed of sound or faster, according to openly available information.

The US military has similar programmes. A Nasa study funded by the US Navy last year found that nanotubes made using boron nitride, a combination of boron and nitrogen, could potentially be used to power hypersonic weapons travelling at speeds above 6,400km/h (4,000 miles per hour).

But most boron-powered engines are designed to work only in the air. Researchers usually choose aluminium or magnesium as fuel to drive supercavitating torpedoes as they react more easily with water.

Li’s team said they had designed a boron-powered ramjet engine that could work both in the air and underwater.

There are some unique components, such as adjustable inlets and exhaust nozzles to maintain the boron’s burn efficiency in different environments, but the biggest change is in the fuel rods, according to their paper.

Boron usually accounts for about 30 per cent of the total fuel weight in an air-breathing missile because of the many other chemicals required to control and prolong the strong combustion.

Li’s team has doubled the share of boron in the fuel and estimates the result could produce a thrust greater than that of aluminium in water.

“The cross-media ramjet uses a fuel-rich solid propellant, which burns with the external air or seawater entering into the ram to generate high-temperature gas and generates thrust through the nozzle,” the paper said.

“It has the high specific impulse and simple structure as an ideal power source for a cross-media anti-ship missile.”

The team said the increased boron content could cause some problems in mass production, ignition and combustion control, but these “can be solved by the modification of boron particles, improvement of manufacturing process, and the study of grain mass properties”.

Adjusting the thrust of a solid fuel engine is difficult. The boron powder, for instance, behaves as both solid and fluid when injected into the combustion chamber, making physical modelling or regulation of the burning process challenging.
And once started, the process cannot be stopped.

China has made some significant progress on solid propellent technology in recent years, including the application of multiple layers of coating on nanofuel particles to rein in their explosive behaviours.

Last year, China Aerospace Science and Technology Corporation built and tested a 3.5 metre wide motor that generates 500 tonnes of thrust,
Please, Log in or Register to view URLs content!
ever built using a single segment of solid propellant.

And the Chinese Academy of Sciences’ new civilian solid-fuelled rocket Lijian One, with advanced combustion control technology, is twice as big as the DF-41, China’s largest road-mobile intercontinental ballistic missile.

But there are risks for China in relying on borofuels for mass-produced weapons, according to a materials scientist in Beijing who is studying the volatile element.

China imports about half of its boron ores from overseas – mainly from the US – and it is about 100 times more expensive than aluminium.

“There is a growing concern that boron will become a target in the trade war,” said the researcher, who asked not to be named because of the issue’s sensitivity.
This at least makes way more sense than the transmedium torpedo-into-missile drone described in the Sun article a while back.
 

Chilled_k6

Junior Member
Registered Member
Source here.
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A missile brigade learns to identify potential OPFOR ships:
1663426398636.png

Apparently, the ship on the frame in the background is the USNS Howard Lorenzen. On Aug 3rd this ship left Yokohoma to monitor PLA activities in light of Pelosi's visit to Taiwan.
1663426423840.png

Chinese media identified the missile brigade as equipped with CJ-100 (aka DF-100), and practiced striking naval targets.
1663426672198.png
1663426690867.png
1663426746777.png
 
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