Of course. 300km is a conservative estimation, a lower bound for B-21 and a upper bound for radars. What I want to show is Air defense is not ‘a wall’ even though radars are so powerful.
PLA strike strategies in westpac HIC
- Thread starter SEAD
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Yes this part I totally agree with.
I don’t think so. MDA conducted a whole series of tests for ‘complex MRBMs’, in which I believe maneuvering should be No.1 threat.
Only the last test of the series failed so I DO believe they can interrupt MaRV reliably, perhaps he overestimates US BMD but you are underestimating it.
it’s true that both DF-26 and DF-17 are ‘maneuvering’, but you can ‘run’ in 10m/s or 0.5m/s speed, for 100km or 100m.
DF-21/26s can't maneuver during midcourse flight though right? MaRVs can only maneuver (aerodynamically) in atmosphere in terminal phase so I guess midcourse ABMs like SM-3 shouldn't have more difficulty with them than any other BMs.
We don’t know, but assuming they cannot maneuver during midcourse, 1) the midcourse of BD-21/26 may be far away from all SM-3 platforms 2) traditionally BMs have decoys and EW to defeat out-atmosphere interrupting but we do know little about that (top secret for both sides).
Interrupting MRBMs is a very complicated task, I believe that’s why they did so many tests for a single threat. We must agree US is almost there. (putting salvo and new threats such as HGV aside)
From what I can see the MDA testing is against complex MRBMs simulating a 1000-1700km range.
But the discussion is about Guam, which means a missile with 3000km+ range from Mainland China, which is why I mentioned the DF-26 IRBM.
A DF-26 IRBM need to travel significantly faster than an MRBM in order to achieve its range.
Plus the previous conditions still hold.
Even if you hit a DF-26, a payload of tungsten kinetic submunitions will still roughly follow the same trajectory to the target airbase.
And a DF-26 is significantly cheaper than the cost of the defending missile system.
in my memory they have extended the range in recent tests but I would appreciate if you can link any resources. My memory is vague now.
Nope. warheads are carefully designed and only work when they are triggered as design. They are much more than 1000lbs explosive or iron blocks.
‘roughly follow the same trajectory’ normally means 100km CEP.
From what I see, THAAD has only been tested once against an IRBM back in 2017.
And that IRBM target was almost certainly not manoeuvring.
Furthermore, Lockheed Martin want [4 years and funding] to develop a new THAAD-ER interceptor to deal with HGVs carried on the DF-17.
Think about it.
A DF-26 re-entry vehicle with payload is 1200-1800kg
A THAAD has a small hit-to-kill warhead in relation to the above. If you can find out the weight, that would be useful but I suspect it has not been released.
A THAAD warhead would breakup the incoming reentry vehicle, but it simply doesn't have the energy to really change the momentum of the overall incoming mass. Of course, the higher the intercept, the more the level of dispersion. But if the intercept is only at 40km, I would expect very little in the way of dispersion. Remember that tungsten ball bearings have a melting point of 3422C.
Plus you haven't addressed how the defender will have to spend a lot more money on THAADs than the incoming DF-26s.
A THAAD battery with 48 missiles costs $3 Billion.
CSBA have an estimate for a 4000km IRBM at $21 Million each. So 48 DF-26 missiles would cost $1 Billion, which is 3x less.
So China should easily be able to overwhelm THAAD based missile defences with DF-26s
In summary, I see too many points of failure and disadvantages in US missile defence being viable.
So if the US wants to get into an arms race between DF-26s and THAADs, the Chinese military should welcome such an outcome.
But I don't really see how the US military can avoid this. There are so few possible base locations in the 2nd Island Chain for the US to use, and they have to have some basing in the 2nd Island Chain if they want to project military power to China's coastline.
In the longer-term, I don't see the US being able to sustain a credible military presence in the Second Island Chain, if the US-China come to blows.
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A few things on this topic. The first question is stealth strike aircraft vs counter stealth. I think by now with the help of ground base uhf radar queuing other radar system, stealth aircraft like f35 and j20 are much easier to detect and track vs 10 years ago. Technology will continue to improve in the next 10 years making them even easier to detect. Still, stealth technology itself will also improve. The newest stealth bombers like b21, h20 and ucavs will likely be stealthy vs wider band spectrum and negating a lot of the long range detection capabilities of uhf radar. And these new stealth bombers will have good route planning taking them to destinations while avoiding the most powerful sensors. I suspect that h20 with its long range will be able to get very close to Guam without being detected. I think b21 can come quite a bit within Chinese adiz without being found also. That's just a capability f35 doesn't have right now. If I were usaf, I would not try my luck pushing it to Chinese air space. Still the fact that china to guam is a vast ocean whereas Guam to Chinese air fields still have to go through Chinese air space is an advantage to china. The flip side is that us bombers wpuld also heavily bombard shipyards in Shanghai to degrade Chinese naval industry. There is no question about that.
China could also engage with carrier groups to pull their attention away from possible path that h20 would take toward Guam.
I think h20 to Guam for bombardment with large number of 250 kg pgms is an entirely possible scenario. I am not sure that is a good usage of h20 resources. I think that maybe they can have h20 make more frequent sorties to first chain island bases and completely degrade any ability for USAF to operate from there. You probably only want to use h20 for longer range missions only when the first chain bases are degraded to the point where multirole fighter jets can carry out all the repeat attacks. I think mrbm and longer range lacm maybe better assets to go after targets as far as Guam in the initial phase. They need enough such medium range ballistic missiles to overwhelm missile defense. Making assumptions about what bmd cannot intercept is not good planning.
If the initial mrbm launches can significantly degrade Guam air defense capabilities, then you can send h20 in to launch large quantities of pgms.
I think if they can upgrade air launched lacms to have 2500 km range, then h6k will be able to launch them safely. Otherwise, it would need large number of j20 escort on Guam attack mission. Again, direct attacks or disguises on carrier group is good tactics to use. I am sure that professional military planners will have some good ideas on how to distract carrier groups in the middle. Similarly, h6k groups could also feign attacks to pull resources.
Similarly, usn and USAF can use tactics to attack and overwhelm weak points of Chinese air defense and degrade Chinese air bases.
I think the most obvious path for china is to continue to produce as many missiles as it can. They clearly are capable of producing them cheaply. There are only so many missiles that bmd can intercept.
China could also engage with carrier groups to pull their attention away from possible path that h20 would take toward Guam.
I think h20 to Guam for bombardment with large number of 250 kg pgms is an entirely possible scenario. I am not sure that is a good usage of h20 resources. I think that maybe they can have h20 make more frequent sorties to first chain island bases and completely degrade any ability for USAF to operate from there. You probably only want to use h20 for longer range missions only when the first chain bases are degraded to the point where multirole fighter jets can carry out all the repeat attacks. I think mrbm and longer range lacm maybe better assets to go after targets as far as Guam in the initial phase. They need enough such medium range ballistic missiles to overwhelm missile defense. Making assumptions about what bmd cannot intercept is not good planning.
If the initial mrbm launches can significantly degrade Guam air defense capabilities, then you can send h20 in to launch large quantities of pgms.
I think if they can upgrade air launched lacms to have 2500 km range, then h6k will be able to launch them safely. Otherwise, it would need large number of j20 escort on Guam attack mission. Again, direct attacks or disguises on carrier group is good tactics to use. I am sure that professional military planners will have some good ideas on how to distract carrier groups in the middle. Similarly, h6k groups could also feign attacks to pull resources.
Similarly, usn and USAF can use tactics to attack and overwhelm weak points of Chinese air defense and degrade Chinese air bases.
I think the most obvious path for china is to continue to produce as many missiles as it can. They clearly are capable of producing them cheaply. There are only so many missiles that bmd can intercept.