China Ballistic Missiles and Nuclear Arms Thread

[Max Demian]

Tor M1, HQ-17, HQ-16 are all mentioned to have anti ballistic capabilities. ESSM certainly does as well. All of these are in excess of mach 4 max speed. If the geometry of the trajectory works, then intercepts are entirely possibly. The AShBM just make it hard by approaching from the top which means interceptors need to basically climb the whole time and lose energy for climb and serious turning because of the maneuvering warhead.

Engaging hypersonic missiles is more than just kinematics: you need also the radar capability (detect, discriminate, speed) and flight control software capability, something that those legacy systems lack.

Here is a cool concept video of AMDR-S (SPY-6) from LockMart defending against a combined cruise missile and ballistic missile attack (LockMart lost the competition to Raytheon) .It illustrates the critical task of target discrimination after warhead separation. SPY-6 brings new capabilities thanks to its fully digital radar architecture which where hitherto only possible with X-band AMDRs.

That logo at the end of the video is hinting at a laser weapon in addition to the Standard missile?

 

[Max Demian]

Even with early warning and SM3 or SM6 ready to intecept, it will still be an incredibly difficult task to defend.
We are not talking about a single missiles or two, but coordinated saturated attack using Df26, Df21d, YJ18 and YJ12 .
We may see waves after waves of missiles. But China just need to spend about a or two billions dollars here, but potential losses for US side is far greater.

Of course, we are not really talking about a single carrier either. In a full war scenario, there will be 6+ carrier strike groups, dozens of submarines, hundreds of UAVs probing China's defenses for a weakness, with thousands of aircraft and missiles in reserve waiting to pounce. This will be first and foremost a clash of networks. The network which is able to gather more information, of better quality, process and act upon it quicker will have the initiative. I fear that China is not ready yet for such an uber fast-paced multi-theater conflict. The US has been developing and debugging its network-centric operations since the early 90s through actual wars, while China was only running simulations throughout that period.

Again, a LockMart illustration of network-centric warfare against BM saturation attacks:

The SM-3 missile sure is a marvel of engineering. 4 stage rocket, 2500km range, pin-point accuracy. No wonder it costs almost $20M per unit:

 

[Temstar]

Of course, we are not really talking about a single carrier either. In a full war scenario, there will be 6+ carrier strike groups, dozens of submarines, hundreds of UAVs probing China's defenses for a weakness, with thousands of aircraft and missiles in reserve waiting to pounce. This will be first and foremost a clash of networks. The network which is able to gather more information, of better quality, process and act upon it quicker will have the initiative. I fear that China is not ready yet for such an uber fast-paced multi-theater conflict. The US has been developing and debugging its network-centric operations since the early 90s through actual wars, while China was only running simulations throughout that period.

Again, a LockMart illustration of network-centric warfare against BM saturation attacks:

The SM-3 missile sure is a marvel of engineering. 4 stage rocket, 2500km range, pin-point accuracy. No wonder it costs almost $20M per unit:

$20M USD for an interceptor? I just saw an estimate that says US analysis places DF-21D at $15M USD each. That's a bad trade.

 

[SimaQian]

This may look good as advertised. But in a full scale war, the first things that will be crippled are not ships. But communications infrastructure. Expect that satellites, radar stations will be the first casualties. In fact anti satellite warfare is even more extensively invested by both Russia and China. This is the best demostration of assymetric warfare. China and Russia maynot be able to match those high tech weapons fielded by US and Nato, but all of those have one thing in common. They rely so much on satellite communication. I think this the field where Chinese planners are looking more. How to damage the enemy with minimum effort.
Once those satellites are out, then it will be more of a level playing field.

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[ougoah]

The US has been developing and debugging its network-centric operations since the early 90s through actual wars, while China was only running simulations throughout that period.

But the US hasn't actually been doing this at all. Which actual wars has simulated what it would be like to fight PLAN in 2020? I think both are just modeling and training against near peer or slightly superior adversaries.

Until the PLAN has good enough counters to Seawolfs and Virginias there isn't any level playing field. But whatever it comes/came up with will surely remain in secrecy seeing as the real threat to PLAN is subsurface. I don't think any flashy Lockmart ads mean anything. The Russians also showed off some animations with mach 10000000 cruise ballistic parallel universe hopping super duper missiles too. They might work and have wonder-weapons to answer US military aggression as well, but point is videos are nice and all at least to demonstrate the basic stuff to newbies but target discrimination and network centric warfare should be pretty common? As in do Chinese BMD systems not have target discrimination? Do PLAN vessels not have networking capability? etc

 

[Hendrik_2000]

Of course, we are not really talking about a single carrier either. In a full war scenario, there will be 6+ carrier strike groups, dozens of submarines, hundreds of UAVs probing China's defenses for a weakness, with thousands of aircraft and missiles in reserve waiting to pounce. This will be first and foremost a clash of networks. The network which is able to gather more information, of better quality, process and act upon it quicker will have the initiative. I fear that China is not ready yet for such an uber fast-paced multi-theater conflict. The US has been developing and debugging its network-centric operations since the early 90s through actual wars, while China was only running simulations throughout that period.

Again, a LockMart illustration of network-centric warfare against BM saturation attacks:

The SM-3 missile sure is a marvel of engineering. 4 stage rocket, 2500km range, pin-point accuracy. No wonder it costs almost $20M per unit:

Well this thing worked on principle of predicted flight path aka conventional ballistic missile when the midcourse is the most vulnerable. But against hypersonic missile those ABM is useless
Also This worked only against mid power nuclear state like Iran or Noko whose missile is single warhead and relative crude missile. The KKV cannot distinguished real warhead form penetration aid like in MIRV There were attempt to built multi warhead KKN but they were abandoned due to cost and difficulties

The GMD has only 50% success sofar The truth is an nuclear exchange is unwinnable against near peer like China

 

[Max Demian]

China and Russia maynot be able to match those high tech weapons fielded by US and Nato, but all of those have one thing in common. They rely so much on satellite communication. I think this the field where Chinese planners are looking more. How to damage the enemy with minimum effort.
Once those satellites are out, then it will be more of a level playing field.

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It will be crucial how gracefully each side’s network degrades as assets are destroyed.

It is not true that US is too dependent on satellites. They have extensive network warfare experience from an era when satellites were not as ubiquitous. Think of Link 4, Link 11 HF beyond line of sight comm links. Investment in such systems has not stopped. NATO navies are transitioning to Link 22 HF over the horizon comm system. This is complemented with faster line of sight systems like Link 16. I don’t know how China compares on this level.

Also, space technology is enjoying a sort of renneaisance in the US. It’s not inconceivable that they would militarize Starlink like technology to build a highly redundant, cheap to replace (thanks to reusable Falcon-9) satellite network.

 

[ougoah]

The USN has never practiced those advertised abilities in real life against any near peer adversary. At most they simulate something and train against it or they do any actual shoot which I'm sure China and Russia do all the time as well using their own equipment or knowledge gleaned from intelligence gathering. Who knows if jammers will work as anticipated. At the moment China can throw more missiles at those CBGs than there are SM-3 and SM-6 in the entire USN and then some. I wouldn't feel at all comfortable sitting on a US carrier in the event of an actual naval war. Some lockheed martin advertising won't change that and chances are they'll perform about as well as Patriot missiles in Iraq - <10% real life success.

 

[Max Demian]

Well this thing worked on principle of predicted flight path aka conventional ballistic missile when the midcourse is the most vulnerable. But against hypersonic missile those ABM is useless

All MRBM are hypersonic, so that's not an issue here. What you mean is probably MARV capability, but that only works within the atmosphere. The same applies for hypersonic gliders. Or maybe you are thinking of a hypersonic cruise missile? But that's not a ballistic missile, and afaik no country has one operational yet.

Also This worked only against mid power nuclear state like Iran or Noko whose missile is single warhead and relative crude missile. The KKV cannot distinguished real warhead form penetration aid like in MIRV There were attempt to built multi warhead KKN but they were abandoned due to cost and difficulties.

Where are you getting this from? SM-3 is not a terminal defense weapon. It has enough range to kill most MRBM right after they've entered space, long before they are in position to release MIRVs.

 

[Max Demian]

But the US hasn't actually been doing this at all. Which actual wars has simulated what it would be like to fight PLAN in 2020? I think both are just modeling and training against near peer or slightly superior adversaries.

They've employed and refined their network-centric warfare doctrine in actual wars on a large scale: Iraq 1.0, Iraq 2.0, Yugoslavia, Afghanistan, plus a bunch of minor skirmishes some of which revealed critical engineering bugs. For example, the tragic shooting of an Airbus airliner by USS Vincennes was the result of a design oversight in the early AEGIS system. There is no replacement for experience gained from actual combat.

Granted, the US Navy has no combat experience advantage over PLAN when it comes to ASuW and ASW, other than having a larger SINKEX "budget"