I can have ULRSAMs and/or ULRAAMs to do the same with much greater efficiency (of which the former have been discussed in some academic papers from sometime ago, with unverified rumors of it being currently under development) whilst also minimizing the unnecessary costings on the finite material and effort available to the PLA and its related institutes.
Sorry to rain in the parade - But the CJ-1000 is NOT it.
EDIT: hahaha, had misread your comment (we’re kind of saying the same thing), and also replying to the wrong comment (as the thread’s very active right now)! Will still leave the following comment up for posterity:
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Don’t you recall the academic paper (or was it credible rumour?) about China researching or developing SAMs with over 1000km range?
And I wouldn’t even consider them “SAMs” anymore, more like a back up AAM magazine, in a sense similar to off-board weapons on a CCA or UADF.
The concept is also similar to how any enemy naval asset, that is in contact with a PLAN / PLAAF asset within let’s say 2000km of China, is also then theoretically in contact with PLARF, if required. Provided they (PLA asset) of course have adequate sensors to help cue the incoming DFs to save their butts.
This would be great for time sensitive high-value air targets that are large, not manoeuvrable, and slow. It also drastically widens the window of opportunity to take a shot. For example, you could have a VLO (V)HA(V)LE ISR UAV (e.g. Malan flying wing) nearish to Guam or Diego Garcia, it could even manage to passively detect unsuspecting AEW&Cs through their emissions, or use EO/IRST (if equipped) to detect sortieing B-2/1s from above. Why not use that small window of opportunity to call in long range anti-air missiles from the mainland?
Not saying CJ-1000 has swappable missiles, only exploring the concept further — Something like the YJ-19 isn’t even that big or extremely dissimilar from an AA missile, a booster the size of CJ-1000’s could get it pretty far before separation and the scramjet ignition. The missile itself could also be lighter and/or longer and slimmer.
To me this all goes back to PLAAF’s doctrine for next generation air combat, as well as the broader PLA multi-domain intelligentized [whatever other adjectives] warfare doctrine.
Domains are merging. Remember, we have PLAAF slowly evolving air combat reminiscent of early 20th century naval warfare. Also, if I had an Air Cruiser
(Air Dominance Fighter as alternate term?), or an Air Battleship, I’d also want to exploit those nice big IWBs by putting “HC-ULRAAMs” in them. They’d similarly be cued to target by another component or node in the multi-domain kill web (like a CCA, supported by optical or synthetic aperture radar satellites, and within detection range of a B-21).