steve_rolfe
Junior Member
What is the main advantage of the HQ10 over the HQ7 short range anti-air missiles?
054/A FFG Thread II
- Thread starter tphuang
- Start date
She's still looking good for her age!
The HQ10 is a lot more compact and smaller. They are probably removing the HQ7 for logistics reasons.
HQ7 is probably being phased out and HQ10 is used in nearly all the ships.
As mentioned, size and weight. It also does not need a dedicated command guidance radar like the way the HQ-7 or the HQ-17 (Tor-M1) does. Should note the Russians use the naval Tor-M1 as their close in missile. While the HQ-10 does need a radar to point the launcher towards the targets, it can rely on a common existing one, like the secondary search radar that's also used for other purposes.
It uses passive RF and infrared for homing, so its fired already locked, like a heat seeking missile. Passive RF means it also homes in on the target's radar seeker for good measure, and that's convenient because the enemy antiship missile's seeker is at the front and the engine heat is behind. I do believe they might already have been two versions of this, the first version of the HQ-10 relied on the PL-8 AAM's seeker or has technology similar to the PL-8, e.g. multi-sensor, multi-spectral, at least three spectral bands are being homed in or the use of IIR, with a very wide field of view. The second version is more akin to the PL-10's seeker. IMO the PL-8 and the PL-10 are very effective missiles, and a missile based of their seeker technology would be the same, and I do not think the HQ-10 takes a second seat behind its inspiration, the RAM or RIM-116, when it comes to being effective.
Being passive RF and IR, the missile is invulnerable to electronic jamming or interference against a datalink. You can fire off as many as you can. Keep in mind, like any heat seeking missile, other heat sources can distract the missile.
HQ-7 relies on command guidance. That means it requires a dedicated radar set that tracks the target and sends a radio signal to the missile. However, ECM can interfere against the datalink, and there is a limit to the number of missiles the system can guide through the channels, but if its like the French Crotale, that would be around 8. Against an enemy antiship missile that is radar stealthy or hard to get a lock on, the radar set can switch to optics to track the target. So yes, its still effective.
One advantage the HQ-7 has over the HQ-10 is range, 15km vs. 9-10km. Both missiles are about over Mach 2 and with an altitude max about 6km.
I suspect the HQ-10 launcher can be reloaded by hand at sea, which is a big convenience over the HQ-7.
backwindow
New Member
plawolf
Lieutenant General
Other important factors are likely to include:
- multi target engagement capabilities: The HQ7 needs to keep the target illuminated, which means it will struggle to engage multiple targets coming in from very different vectors at the same time.
- cost: being a much bigger missile, it may well cost more per round than the HQ10 despite the latter having better guidance packages.
- magazine size: for the same weight and footprint, you can have a much bigger HQ10 launcher with far more rounds ready to fire compared to a HQ7. And as Tam already touched upon, the HQ10 missiles are small enough to be hand loaded, meaning you can carry reloads onboard ships that are quick and easy to use and can be stored almost anywhere. With the HQ7, you need a dedicated mechanical loader, which eats up a lot of deck space and only carry one set of reloads.
- raw performance: being a much newer missile, I would expect the HQ10’s performance to be significantly better than the HQ7 in all fields except range.
50 054A's +60? 056's +MPA's +underwater sensors, it will no longer be factual to call ASW China's weakest link. Add SSK's and all the 3 near seas have essentially become Chinese lakes.
asif iqbal
Lieutenant General
the biggest development here are the later iterations of the FFG have VDS, TAS and better bow mounted sonars
there could be a case they are using a rotary UAV as some later Type 054A have what looks like a side storage hanger next to the main hanger
however the main thing they lack is a true long range naval helicopter
Z9C just doesnt cut the butter and is the biggest weakness in the PLAN ASW
Z15 was planned dont know if it will ever materialise, if the manage to solve the helicopter problem build enough then yes I would agree China has mastered the ASW warfare but not yet