Chinese air to ground weapons (missiles, PGMs, etc)

Jingle Bells · Mar 12, 2022

Bltizo said:
It probably can dual mount GB100, the two stations doesn't appear to be asymmetrical.

That said, given it's an industry advertisement, and it looks like they're just flying it on a test aircraft (not even a fighter it seems), naturally that is not confirmation that it is in service with the PLA.

That dual rack and the 100kg and 50kg weapons actually demonstrates why I personally am not very fond of the GB family of PGMs -- because even the 100kg and 50kg weapons here take up quite a large footprint in terms of wingspan, despite being small in weight and despite not even having an extended range wing kit.

For 100kg weapons, the prevailing norm is for them to be SDB type weapons with 100kg range and mounted tightly packed on a quad pack, like so:

For dual racks for fighter aircraft, it is very reasonable to have dual racks of 250kg PGMs:

===

.... Meanwhile, that dual rack, being able to carry likely only two 100kg PGMs (shown with one 100kg and one 50kg PGM), and the 100kg PGMs in question lacking wingkit extensions to be able to achieve 100km-esque range, is immensely underwhelming.

So something more like this (which i believe is a 100kg class PGM:

in a tightly packed (quad pack) which should weight around the same as a 500kg class LS6 or GB500 (around 572kg +- 15kg).

That does make sense. But I think GB100 (100kg class) does have its own use on a small light-attack/trainer aircraft or UAV, just probably not ideal on a heavy strike aircraft.

Blitzo · Mar 12, 2022

Jingle Bells said:
So something more like this (which i believe is a 100kg class PGM:
View attachment 85093
in a tightly packed (quad pack) which should weight around the same as a 500kg class LS6 or GB500 (around 572kg +- 15kg).

That does make sense. But I think GB100 (100kg class) does have its own use on a small light-attack/trainer aircraft or UAV, just probably not ideal on a heavy strike aircraft.

The PRC aerospace industry has shown multiple weapons of that class and configuration already, i.e.: SDB-esque.

TL-20, CS/BBM-2 (YL-14), FT-7, among others.

Frankly I don't see what role a 100kg class weapon without folding wings has -- it's not like you can't carry a SDB-esque weapon and be very useful.

ZeEa5KPul said:
It strikes me that the PLAAF was like the proverbial dog chasing the car and not knowing what to do once it's caught it. It chased after air superiority for so long (which is the reason why its AAMs are world-leading) that it hasn't given any thought to what it'll do with it once it has it. There has to be an entirely new generation of air-to-ground munitions developed because, as your post illustrates, the current crop just won't cut it. Fortunately, that seems to be a much easier problem than the one the PLAAF already solved, namely seizing air superiority over a peer opponent.

I don't think that's a fair analogy... especially because the aerospace industry has shown a number of PGM families (going as early as to the late 2000s) that would be very appropriate for PLA combat aviation even of today.

We just don't yet have evidence of the PLA buying them for in service use, even though we all know that they're naturally keeping some capabilities hidden from us.

Jingle Bells · Mar 12, 2022

Bltizo said:
The PRC aerospace industry has shown multiple weapons of that class and configuration already, i.e.: SDB-esque.

TL-20, CS/BBM-2 (YL-14), FT-7, among others.

Frankly I don't see what role a 100kg class weapon without folding wings has -- it's not like you can't carry a SDB-esque weapon and be very useful.

I don't think that's a fair analogy... especially because the aerospace industry has shown a number of PGM families (going as early as to the late 2000s) that would be very appropriate for PLA combat aviation even of today.

We just don't yet have evidence of the PLA buying them for in service use, even though we all know that they're naturally keeping some capabilities hidden from us.

Isn't the LT-3 built around a 250kg class iron-bomb core, and its overall weight is around 500kg class with GPS/INS guidance and folded gliders for extended range?

Do you think that from a logistic and cost point of view, it would be better to limit the variety of PGMs weight class for platforms like J16 and J10?

In my opinion, J10 should only carry two weight classes of PGM's: either 500kg and 1000 kg, or 250kg and 500kg. We already see J10 carry 500kg class laser guided bombs, therefore it should definitely be able to carry 250kg class. So it would really be nice to see J10 carry a 1000kg class PGM.

BTW, can you tell what weight class are these iron bombs on J10B/C? In the picture below:

Jian-10 (J-10B) Active Electronically Scanned Array (AESA) RADAR fc-20 People's Liberation Ar...jpg

My train of thought for ask this question is that, if these iron bombs were 250kg class, do you think it would be a good strike package for 6 250kg class stand off PGM (with the front 2 bombs replaced with a guiding pod and an ECM pod). Or would you still consider this (6 GPM with either stand off capability or not) to be lagging behind Western standards in terms of efficiency (or any other measures)?

Blitzo · Mar 12, 2022

Jingle Bells said:
Isn't the LT-3 built around a 250kg class iron-bomb core, and its overall weight is around 500kg class with GPS/INS guidance and folded gliders for extended range?

LT-3 is a 500kg PGM, with dual mode guidance (satellite and laser), and it lacks a gliding wing kit.
You might be thinking about LS-6.

Jingle Bells said:
Do you think that from a logistic and cost point of view, it would be better to limit the variety of PGMs weight class for platforms like J16 and J10?

In my opinion, J10 should only carry two weight classes of PGM's: either 500kg and 1000 kg, or 250kg and 500kg. We already see J10 carry 500kg class laser guided bombs, therefore it should definitely be able to carry 250kg class. So it would really be nice to see J10 carry a 1000kg class PGM.

Different PGM weight classes and configurations have different uses.
I think flight testing and integration of certain weight classes naturally should only be done for some aircraft types (e.g.: if they procured a 1000kg PGM, those should probably only be integrated on J-16 and JH-7A), but for other categories like 500kg, 250kg and 100kg PGMs, those should be usefully integrated among all major multirole strike capable aircraft and modern bombers (assuming the PLA buys the latter two in large numbers at some point).

More importantly, buying 250kg and 100kg PGMs should occur simultaneously with buying MERs to allow larger magazine size per sortie.

Jingle Bells said:
BTW, can you tell what weight class are these iron bombs on J10B/C? In the picture below:
View attachment 85094

My train of thought for ask this question is that, if these iron bombs were 250kg class, do you think it would be a good strike package for 6 250kg class stand off PGM (with the front 2 bombs replaced with a guiding pod and an ECM pod). Or would you still consider this (6 GPM with either stand off capability or not) to be lagging behind Western standards in terms of efficiency (or any other measures)?

Those are 250kg bombs, which we can deduce by their size and shape.

And yes, there are multiple PLA aircraft (JH-7As, J-10s, Flankers and H-6Ks) that already are structurally able to carry 250kg bombs on appropriate MERs which demonstrates their structural compatibility with 250kg PGMs.

For me, if a J-10 family aircraft can carry six 250kg PGMs (four on the wing dual racks, two on the rear fuselage stations), two pods (targeting pod and ECM pod on the two forward fuselage stations), and three EFTs and two SRAAMs, to me that would be a very competent precision strike loadout that is largely competitive with the F-16 in an equivalent configuration.

See this post (and the subsequent exchange) a week or so ago, which probably addresses various questions that you might have:

Lessons for China to learn from Ukraine conflict for Taiwan scenario

Which I was firmly against at the time. 1991 Gulf War was justifiable, 2003 not. Also I'm not American. There's a moral principle here - "two wrongs don't make a right". Indifference is what the US and the West has brought upon the world. Two wrongs don't make a right but the first wrong is...

www.sinodefenceforum.com

Jingle Bells · Mar 12, 2022

Bltizo said:
LT-3 is a 500kg PGM, with dual mode guidance (satellite and laser), and it lacks a gliding wing kit.
You might be thinking about LS-6.

Different PGM weight classes and configurations have different uses.
I think flight testing and integration of certain weight classes naturally should only be done for some aircraft types (e.g.: if they procured a 1000kg PGM, those should probably only be integrated on J-16 and JH-7A), but for other categories like 500kg, 250kg and 100kg PGMs, those should be usefully integrated among all major multirole strike capable aircraft and modern bombers (assuming the PLA buys the latter two in large numbers at some point).

More importantly, buying 250kg and 100kg PGMs should occur simultaneously with buying MERs to allow larger magazine size per sortie.

Those are 250kg bombs, which we can deduce by their size and shape.

And yes, there are multiple PLA aircraft (JH-7As, J-10s, Flankers and H-6Ks) that already are structurally able to carry 250kg bombs on appropriate MERs which demonstrates their structural compatibility with 250kg PGMs.

For me, if a J-10 family aircraft can carry six 250kg PGMs (four on the wing dual racks, two on the rear fuselage stations), two pods (targeting pod and ECM pod on the two forward fuselage stations), and three EFTs and two SRAAMs, to me that would be a very competent precision strike loadout that is largely competitive with the F-16 in an equivalent configuration.

See this post (and the subsequent exchange) a week or so ago, which probably addresses various questions that you might have:

Lessons for China to learn from Ukraine conflict for Taiwan scenario

Which I was firmly against at the time. 1991 Gulf War was justifiable, 2003 not. Also I'm not American. There's a moral principle here - "two wrongs don't make a right". Indifference is what the US and the West has brought upon the world. Two wrongs don't make a right but the first wrong is...

www.sinodefenceforum.com

I see, that make sense.

I am starting to suspect that the PLA hasn't massively been shown to have procuring a variety of different PGMs, probably because they are waiting for BeiDou system to be completed, in order to get an entirely new class of different weight class PGMs with multi-guidance system, like the LT-3. It could be that the PLA doesn't trust GPS and/or GLONASS, and also doesn't think purely optical guided PGM's with varies weights classes are worth investing in big-number procurements.

They could be doing the work right now, as BeiDou system only fully complete near the end of 2020. I think the PLAAF was not under a huge pressure to have PGMs in big numbers and variety, and they rather have the latest ones with multi-guidance (both optical and BeiDou/INS).

That's just my speculation.

I would love to see a whole family of optical + BeiDou/INS PGM with optional standup glider add-on's, with 100kg, 250kg, 500kg, 1000kg and 1500kg classes, for J-10, J-16 and JH7A. I added in the 1500kg class because I am a big fan of the brutish looking KAB1500 class.

Jingle Bells · Mar 12, 2022

@Bltizo BTW, I have one more question for you: can targeting pod engage multiple targets at the same time? Let's say there is multiple targets in the same general area, for example 8 small bunkers a few dozen to around 100 meters apart from each other. If one jet is carrying eight 100kg LGMs, can this fighter jet's targeting pod engage all of these small bunkers at the same time, in one wave?

SinoSoldier · Mar 12, 2022

ZeEa5KPul said:
You're making my point for me. The Russian air force isn't the yardstick - given Russia's performance in Ukraine, I would be deeply concerned if the PLA wasn't regularly one-upping it. PGMs for export aren't PGMs in service, and no Chinese company has an SDB equivalent or a proper 250kg dual rack. Drone swarms aren't PGMs.

This is a problem that needs fixing. Stop the cope.

1. CS/BBM2

2. FT-7

3. TL-20

2018-09-26-L-15-teste-deux-nouvelles-munitions-Air-Surface-08.jpg

4. CM-506KG

Over the past two decades, numerous Chinese companies have developed or proposed multiple families of guided A2G weaponry, far too many to count. Should the PLAAF choose to induct A2G munitions of choice, supply is certainly not a problem.

As for dual bomb racks, they're indeed rare to spot but Huitong has posted a photo of two GB100 or TG100 munitions being loaded onto the JH-7A. Extrapolating that, it wouldn't be surprising if they're developing or even discreetly using multiple-ejector racks for smaller or larger (e.g. 250 kg) munitions. Photo below:

antiterror13 · Mar 12, 2022

Jingle Bells said:
I see, that make sense.

I am starting to suspect that the PLA hasn't massively been shown to have procuring a variety of different PGMs, probably because they are waiting for BeiDou system to be completed, in order to get an entirely new class of different weight class PGMs with multi-guidance system, like the LT-3. It could be that the PLA doesn't trust GPS and/or GLONASS, and also doesn't think purely optical guided PGM's with varies weights classes are worth investing in big-number procurements.

They could be doing the work right now, as BeiDou system only fully complete near the end of 2020. I think the PLAAF was not under a huge pressure to have PGMs in big numbers and variety, and they rather have the latest ones with multi-guidance (both optical and BeiDou/INS).

That's just my speculation.

I would love to see a whole family of optical + BeiDou/INS PGM with optional standup glider add-on's, with 100kg, 250kg, 500kg, 1000kg and 1500kg classes, for J-10, J-16 and JH7A. I added in the 1500kg class because I am a big fan of the brutish looking KAB1500 class.

Well, the BeiDou you referred to was BeiDou 3 which is global in June 2020, I think the PLA focus is in Asia Pacific, specifically near China border and al had been covered even by BeiDou1 since 2000. Then BeiDou 2 operational in 2012. So China could develop it without waiting BeiDou 3 fully operational in June 2020

Blitzo · Mar 13, 2022

ZeEa5KPul said:
You're making my point for me. The Russian air force isn't the yardstick - given Russia's performance in Ukraine, I would be deeply concerned if the PLA wasn't regularly one-upping it. PGMs for export aren't PGMs in service, and no Chinese company has an SDB equivalent or a proper 250kg dual rack. Drone swarms aren't PGMs.

This is a problem that needs fixing. Stop the cope.

The Chinese aerospace industry has a wide variety of PGMs produced and tested, including multiple SDB equivalents.

The PLA doesn't have any in service to our knowledge, which is an entirely separate problem.

As for 250kg bombs on dual racks, they absolutely have dual racks able to carry two 250kg bombs, (see pictures in my post history), the issue is they don't have any 250kg PGMs in service.

Blitzo · Mar 13, 2022

Jingle Bells said:
@Bltizo BTW, I have one more question for you: can targeting pod engage multiple targets at the same time? Let's say there is multiple targets in the same general area, for example 8 small bunkers a few dozen to around 100 meters apart from each other. If one jet is carrying eight 100kg LGMs, can this fighter jet's targeting pod engage all of these small bunkers at the same time, in one wave?

Laser guided bombs being deployed from one platform alone, cannot engage multiple targets simultaneously (unless you go really wild with laser designation) -- you only have one laser per targeting pod after all.

If you have satellite guided bombs, you can engage multiple targets simultaneously, by generating satellite coordinate data for a number of targets, and then dropping all of your weapons on the same time.

E.g.: If you are a strike fighter with a load of 8 PGMs, and you want to strike 8 bunkers simultaneously, you use a targeting pod to use a laser to generate satellite coordinate data for those 8 bunkers, and then you allocate one PGM per satellite coordinate. Then you can drop all of the 8 PGMs at the same time and they will independently hit each of the 8 targets at once.

Alternatively, if your weapons are guided by MMW radar or ImIR (or both), those guidance systems can also independently hit multiple targets at once, especially if they have a satellite guidance system as well on board.

Chinese air to ground weapons (missiles, PGMs, etc)

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