broadsword
Brigadier
I believe altitude of 5-6 meters is too high for ground effect for a missile of that size; 1 meter, iffy or minimal. So I think the main purpose is to fly under the radar.
Chinese UAV/UCAV development
- Thread starter AssassinsMace
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I believe altitude of 5-6 meters is too high for ground effect for a missile of that size; 1 meter, iffy or minimal. So I think the main purpose is to fly under the radar.
Hendrik_2000
Lieutenant General
Here is Kyle Mizukami take on this new UAV
I am not sure if radar can detect flying object so close to the water surface with all those clutter
China Is Building a Sea-Skimming Anti-Ship Drone
Unnamed drone can fly less than two feet above the surface of water.
MOST POPULAR
By
May 4, 2017
China is developing a new drone that uses ground effect technology to skim the surface of the ocean, allowing it to fly just eighteen inches off the water. The unmanned vehicle could be a challenging opponent for potential adversaries, some of whom would find it difficult to detect.
The drone first appeared on Chinese corners of the internet and quickly spread to Russian and western defense blogs. The drone appears to have a set of forward canards and a pair of upward swept wings. It has an air intake on top instead of the bottom, perhaps to avoid sea spray from being sucked into the engine at very low altitude. It is also painted in blue Chinese Navy camouflage.
Most modern cruise missiles are what are called "sea-skimmers," flying thirty feet or less above the surface of the water in order to avoid detection. The curvature of the Earth means sea skimming shortens the distance that enemy ship radars can detect it, giving the defender less time to shoot it down. Here's a short video about the American Harpoon anti-ship missile, which is considered a sea-skimmer.
The new unnamed drone, by comparison, is claimed to fly . Against typical sea skimmers, a ship radar thirty feet above sea level would . The same radar would only detect the Chinese drone at 9.48 miles. A drone flying that close to the ground won't be flying supersonic, and by appearances the UAV has a turbofan engine. Assuming a speed of 600 miles an hour, typical for subsonic anti-ship missiles, an enemy ship would have 59 seconds to react.
The drone can fly this low thanks to the , which takes place when very low flying aircraft experience more lift and less drag due to the presence of the ground underneath. The ground blocks the trailing vortices of the wing and decreases downwash. Further evidence that the drone takes advantage of ground effect is its low-wing design, where the wing root is at the bottom of the fuselage, a common feature among ground effect vehicles.
The drone has an estimated flying time of 1.5 hours, which at 600 miles an hour would give it a 900 mile range. It has a maximum takeoff weight of 6,000 pounds and a maximum payload—likely a blast fragmentation warhead—of 2,000 pounds. That's the average size of warheads the Soviet Union fielded during the Cold War to take out American aircraft carriers—that is, if when weren't fielding nuclear warheads.
Shaanxi Y-9 medium transport.
The maritime patrol version of the aircraft is similar.
Via Wikipedia.
One possible concept of operation for the drone would be to place them in shore batteries on islands or Chinese Navy ships. A friendly manned aircraft, such as or high altitude unmanned aerial vehicle, detects the enemy fleet and provides targeting data. Once launched, the aircraft or drone can continue to provide updated targeting data, allowing the anti-ship drones to operate with radars off. This gives them a better chance of sneaking up on the enemy, as radar is another means by which incoming missiles can be detected.
How effective would this be against the U.S. Navy? It's difficult to say, but against carrier battle groups—the drone's primary target—there are already the ingredients for an effective defense. The Navy's extends the sensor range of carrier battle groups by using the radar onboard the . Flying at 30,000 feet, a Hawkeye can theoretically detect the drone at 215 miles, provided it can pick it out from surface clutter such as wavetops. This increases the defender's reaction time from 59 seconds to more than 20 minutes. The E-2D can also provide targeting data to SM-6 surface to air missiles launched to take out the incoming drones. Furthermore, the E-2D will also pick up any Chinese asset providing targeting data to the drones, whether they be ships, manned aircraft, drones, or possibly even submarine masts.
No word yet on when the drone enters service.
Source: ,
I am not sure if radar can detect flying object so close to the water surface with all those clutter
China Is Building a Sea-Skimming Anti-Ship Drone
Unnamed drone can fly less than two feet above the surface of water.
MOST POPULAR
By
May 4, 2017
China is developing a new drone that uses ground effect technology to skim the surface of the ocean, allowing it to fly just eighteen inches off the water. The unmanned vehicle could be a challenging opponent for potential adversaries, some of whom would find it difficult to detect.
The drone first appeared on Chinese corners of the internet and quickly spread to Russian and western defense blogs. The drone appears to have a set of forward canards and a pair of upward swept wings. It has an air intake on top instead of the bottom, perhaps to avoid sea spray from being sucked into the engine at very low altitude. It is also painted in blue Chinese Navy camouflage.
Most modern cruise missiles are what are called "sea-skimmers," flying thirty feet or less above the surface of the water in order to avoid detection. The curvature of the Earth means sea skimming shortens the distance that enemy ship radars can detect it, giving the defender less time to shoot it down. Here's a short video about the American Harpoon anti-ship missile, which is considered a sea-skimmer.
The new unnamed drone, by comparison, is claimed to fly . Against typical sea skimmers, a ship radar thirty feet above sea level would . The same radar would only detect the Chinese drone at 9.48 miles. A drone flying that close to the ground won't be flying supersonic, and by appearances the UAV has a turbofan engine. Assuming a speed of 600 miles an hour, typical for subsonic anti-ship missiles, an enemy ship would have 59 seconds to react.
The drone can fly this low thanks to the , which takes place when very low flying aircraft experience more lift and less drag due to the presence of the ground underneath. The ground blocks the trailing vortices of the wing and decreases downwash. Further evidence that the drone takes advantage of ground effect is its low-wing design, where the wing root is at the bottom of the fuselage, a common feature among ground effect vehicles.
The drone has an estimated flying time of 1.5 hours, which at 600 miles an hour would give it a 900 mile range. It has a maximum takeoff weight of 6,000 pounds and a maximum payload—likely a blast fragmentation warhead—of 2,000 pounds. That's the average size of warheads the Soviet Union fielded during the Cold War to take out American aircraft carriers—that is, if when weren't fielding nuclear warheads.
The maritime patrol version of the aircraft is similar.
Via Wikipedia.
One possible concept of operation for the drone would be to place them in shore batteries on islands or Chinese Navy ships. A friendly manned aircraft, such as or high altitude unmanned aerial vehicle, detects the enemy fleet and provides targeting data. Once launched, the aircraft or drone can continue to provide updated targeting data, allowing the anti-ship drones to operate with radars off. This gives them a better chance of sneaking up on the enemy, as radar is another means by which incoming missiles can be detected.
How effective would this be against the U.S. Navy? It's difficult to say, but against carrier battle groups—the drone's primary target—there are already the ingredients for an effective defense. The Navy's extends the sensor range of carrier battle groups by using the radar onboard the . Flying at 30,000 feet, a Hawkeye can theoretically detect the drone at 215 miles, provided it can pick it out from surface clutter such as wavetops. This increases the defender's reaction time from 59 seconds to more than 20 minutes. The E-2D can also provide targeting data to SM-6 surface to air missiles launched to take out the incoming drones. Furthermore, the E-2D will also pick up any Chinese asset providing targeting data to the drones, whether they be ships, manned aircraft, drones, or possibly even submarine masts.
No word yet on when the drone enters service.
Source: ,
Lethe
Captain
10 miles .... torpedo range. Just a thought.
What's the sepration height of ASROC again?
Hendrik_2000
Lieutenant General
The rumor is that this UAV "sharp sword" wii enter service soon
We know well the nEUROn , a demonstrator of stealth combat drone developed by Dassault and several European industrialists. We also know X-47 Pegasus or Taranis , plans of drone with flying wing American and British. But few people know that the Chinese also had a similar craft called the Sharp Sword .
Little is known about this craft because the Chinese hardly ever talk about it. From 2012 to today, there are only fewer than 10 official items that have mentioned in a very discreet way his presence, plus a dozen photos taken by spotters.
So what exactly do you know about this mysterious Sharp Sword?
Sharp Sword Flying Wing Drone
In April 2011, an article on the Chinese AVIC aircraft manufacturer's website mentioned the name of a certain LIU Zhe Min (刘志敏), then deputy director of the 601 Shenyang Institute, who was assigned the role of chief designer Of a drone project.
It is learned in the text that this is the first time the Chinese design office has designed such a craft, and its development is assisted by several Chinese air force entities.
A little more than a year later, another article still published by the AVIC group talks about a certain "plane" that came out of the final assembly line on December 13, 2012. That same LIU delivered a speech in which He asked the technicians to prepare for the tests (on the ground) after this milestone.
One of the rare photos of the Sharp Sword drone in assembly.
In March 2013, another AVIC article referred to a plane that was built at HAIG (Hongdu Aviation Industry Group), a subsidiary of the Chinese aircraft manufacturer and specialized in the production of advanced training aircraft and anti-ship missiles .
The device in question is equipped with an air inlet of "very complex" section, and "inaccessible" for the men and the tools for its assembly.
The text also mentions a "complex-shaped coating", an "integral tank of the cell", "composite ultra-long hatches" and the collaboration of the various entities within the AVIC group for the design and manufacture of the craft.
It is later learned that the Sharp Sword drone is indeed a project whose design is placed under the responsibility of the Shenyang Institute 601 while production is carried out by HAIG.
The name of Sharp Sword then begins to circulate and the first pictures arrive in May 2013 - the Chinese spotters have photographed a strange flying wing aircraft on the tarmac of a flight test center in the Southwest.
After a few months of ground preparation, the drone finally took off and took off for the first time on 21 November 2013 at 13:00 local time.
But such an event that could have flowed a lot of ink went completely unnoticed, no official communication concerning it was made. It was not until May 2016 that the name of another project engineer, ZHANG Ji Jun (张子军), who is involved in the development of a "technological demonstration platform", is mentioned in an AVIC article And hands the Sharp Sword under the eyes of observers.
Then there is the award of the "National Science and Technology Progress Award 2016", where , which indicates the collaboration between these two subsidiaries of the AVIC group in the Sharp project Sword and also the end of its development.
And the exact role of the project finally unveiled this year, in late April - the Sharp Sword drone is actually the demonstrator of the Chinese Air Force's "ground attack platform". The information was revealed by the Chinese Communist Youth League, which awarded .
So what can be done about this project?
Knowing that the development of the Sharp Sword is funded by the Chinese Air Force, and that the endowment of a global system around combat drones is a subject that the Chinese army has already studied since 2001 Minimum) under Research Program 973. There is no doubt that the industrialization of a stealthless Air-Ground strike platform is only a matter of time.
In addition to the WD-1K drones , known mostly as Wing Loong I , the Chinese Air Force actually needs a stealth vector to carry out reconnaissance missions and also ground strikes against the defensive target installed throughout the 1st chain of islands.
It is moreover probable that a marine variant could also emerge, as was already discussed recently in the file " ".
To be continued.
Henri K.
We know well the nEUROn , a demonstrator of stealth combat drone developed by Dassault and several European industrialists. We also know X-47 Pegasus or Taranis , plans of drone with flying wing American and British. But few people know that the Chinese also had a similar craft called the Sharp Sword .
Little is known about this craft because the Chinese hardly ever talk about it. From 2012 to today, there are only fewer than 10 official items that have mentioned in a very discreet way his presence, plus a dozen photos taken by spotters.
So what exactly do you know about this mysterious Sharp Sword?
Sharp Sword Flying Wing Drone
In April 2011, an article on the Chinese AVIC aircraft manufacturer's website mentioned the name of a certain LIU Zhe Min (刘志敏), then deputy director of the 601 Shenyang Institute, who was assigned the role of chief designer Of a drone project.
It is learned in the text that this is the first time the Chinese design office has designed such a craft, and its development is assisted by several Chinese air force entities.
A little more than a year later, another article still published by the AVIC group talks about a certain "plane" that came out of the final assembly line on December 13, 2012. That same LIU delivered a speech in which He asked the technicians to prepare for the tests (on the ground) after this milestone.
One of the rare photos of the Sharp Sword drone in assembly.
In March 2013, another AVIC article referred to a plane that was built at HAIG (Hongdu Aviation Industry Group), a subsidiary of the Chinese aircraft manufacturer and specialized in the production of advanced training aircraft and anti-ship missiles .
The device in question is equipped with an air inlet of "very complex" section, and "inaccessible" for the men and the tools for its assembly.
The text also mentions a "complex-shaped coating", an "integral tank of the cell", "composite ultra-long hatches" and the collaboration of the various entities within the AVIC group for the design and manufacture of the craft.
It is later learned that the Sharp Sword drone is indeed a project whose design is placed under the responsibility of the Shenyang Institute 601 while production is carried out by HAIG.
The name of Sharp Sword then begins to circulate and the first pictures arrive in May 2013 - the Chinese spotters have photographed a strange flying wing aircraft on the tarmac of a flight test center in the Southwest.
After a few months of ground preparation, the drone finally took off and took off for the first time on 21 November 2013 at 13:00 local time.
But such an event that could have flowed a lot of ink went completely unnoticed, no official communication concerning it was made. It was not until May 2016 that the name of another project engineer, ZHANG Ji Jun (张子军), who is involved in the development of a "technological demonstration platform", is mentioned in an AVIC article And hands the Sharp Sword under the eyes of observers.
Then there is the award of the "National Science and Technology Progress Award 2016", where , which indicates the collaboration between these two subsidiaries of the AVIC group in the Sharp project Sword and also the end of its development.
And the exact role of the project finally unveiled this year, in late April - the Sharp Sword drone is actually the demonstrator of the Chinese Air Force's "ground attack platform". The information was revealed by the Chinese Communist Youth League, which awarded .
So what can be done about this project?
Knowing that the development of the Sharp Sword is funded by the Chinese Air Force, and that the endowment of a global system around combat drones is a subject that the Chinese army has already studied since 2001 Minimum) under Research Program 973. There is no doubt that the industrialization of a stealthless Air-Ground strike platform is only a matter of time.
In addition to the WD-1K drones , known mostly as Wing Loong I , the Chinese Air Force actually needs a stealth vector to carry out reconnaissance missions and also ground strikes against the defensive target installed throughout the 1st chain of islands.
It is moreover probable that a marine variant could also emerge, as was already discussed recently in the file " ".
To be continued.
Henri K.
Last edited:
Hendrik_2000
Lieutenant General
New use of UAV as forest fire fighter seem like mission accomplish spurring more interest in uav. Next come maritime surveillance. From Henri K
It is difficult to imagine when MALE armed CH-4 drones are fighting against terrorists in the Middle East, the same model in China is being used to fight another "enemy" - forest fires. But this is precisely what happened recently in Mohe, the northernmost Chinese county, bordering the border with Russia.
According to an article in the People's Daily, several northern provinces of China have been victims of forest fires in recent times, including in Inner Mongolia and Heilongjiang Province.
Despite the mobilization of large air assets, such as the MA-60 and Y-12 aircraft and Mi- 26TC heavy helicopters , the relatively complex situation of the mountainous areas in the region quickly revealed the (human) Traditional means of recognition.
It is in this context that the CH-4 drone, designed by the CAAA, a subsidiary of the Chinese aerospace group CASC, was deployed to conduct several missions to Mohe in order to demonstrate and evaluate its ability to carry out long- Duration and play the role of the communication relay in remote areas.
With a range of 40 hours in flight and with several sensor types, the CH-4 allows firefighters to control a larger area for longer, with less material and human resources, and to reduce the associated losses more efficiently .
The first field returns show that the deployment of CH-4 does not require heavy logistical support on the ground compared to airplanes, and offers significant advantages in terms of economy, responsiveness and adaptability to the environment.
It is probably for these reasons that as a means of surveillance and remote sensing in the prevention and control of forest fires.
Finally, we can see through these demonstrations that the CAAA is actively seeking to widen the scope of application for its star MALE drone, originally designed for military missions.
Apart from preventing and fighting forest fires, surveillance in collaboration with the State Oceanic Administration in 2015.
The image of an oil leak at sea photographed by a CH-4 drone.
Henri K.
It is difficult to imagine when MALE armed CH-4 drones are fighting against terrorists in the Middle East, the same model in China is being used to fight another "enemy" - forest fires. But this is precisely what happened recently in Mohe, the northernmost Chinese county, bordering the border with Russia.
According to an article in the People's Daily, several northern provinces of China have been victims of forest fires in recent times, including in Inner Mongolia and Heilongjiang Province.
Despite the mobilization of large air assets, such as the MA-60 and Y-12 aircraft and Mi- 26TC heavy helicopters , the relatively complex situation of the mountainous areas in the region quickly revealed the (human) Traditional means of recognition.
It is in this context that the CH-4 drone, designed by the CAAA, a subsidiary of the Chinese aerospace group CASC, was deployed to conduct several missions to Mohe in order to demonstrate and evaluate its ability to carry out long- Duration and play the role of the communication relay in remote areas.
With a range of 40 hours in flight and with several sensor types, the CH-4 allows firefighters to control a larger area for longer, with less material and human resources, and to reduce the associated losses more efficiently .
The first field returns show that the deployment of CH-4 does not require heavy logistical support on the ground compared to airplanes, and offers significant advantages in terms of economy, responsiveness and adaptability to the environment.
It is probably for these reasons that as a means of surveillance and remote sensing in the prevention and control of forest fires.
Finally, we can see through these demonstrations that the CAAA is actively seeking to widen the scope of application for its star MALE drone, originally designed for military missions.
Apart from preventing and fighting forest fires, surveillance in collaboration with the State Oceanic Administration in 2015.
The image of an oil leak at sea photographed by a CH-4 drone.
Henri K.
AssassinsMace
Lieutenant General
Hendrik_2000
Lieutenant General
Yup I would love to hear his analysis
A better pic
A better pic
many of the articles on this drone (including this one by sputnik) are all speculative on what the actual performance, capability and role is.
So far, the only fundamental things we know are in the original photo, which doesn't give much specifications with things like the exact kind of payload, the range, what kind of launch/recovery method it uses, and what kind of guidance it has etc... let alone whether it is even intended for service with the Chinese military.
It's hard for anyone to write anything of substance without knowing those things. It's an interesting weapon to be sure, but I think people are getting a bit too excited so far.
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