BTW, I am not talking about China using fighters for anti-shipping role against India. Its to be used against US and the west pac. Having H6 to carry YJ-12 is certainly good. But I feel, current YJ-91 is just too short range and thus fighter level strike air crafts like J-16 currently have a capability gap.
Chinese air to ground weapons (missiles, PGMs, etc)
- Thread starter AssassinsMace
- Start date
lcloo
Captain
They have the choice of using correct size of butcher knives for different sizes of animals. They also have truck lauched long range missiles for anti-ships.
Yes YJ-91 isn't a good platform by today's measure. It's only updated by its modernised electronics and that's assuming this is the case.
YJ-12 is a fair bit more modern but uses the exact same concept as Moskit to Kh-31 just with much more modern and sophisticated electronic components. They're okay for their roles and what they are. missiles you can build and stockpile quickly, easily and in the tens of thousands over the decades. They're modernised by updating their electronics, software and whatnot and they perform supersonic cruise and mach 3+ terminal speeds. That's good enough for what they need to be. Certainly all these missiles are arguably a class above older subsonic non-stealthy cruise missiles fielded around the world in the 20th century and continue to be. After all Neptune was able to hit a Russian cruiser (if we're to believe that it was the Neptune). Perhaps what made that possible behind the scenes is EW and ISR related rather than the platform itself.
China just moved on with these types of ordinance because it is facing the US not India. It needs to be that much better than playing boring old supersonic missiles with India. It's why it has developed and fielded various types of hypersonic missiles that can be launched from ship, space, air, and land. What's more strategically and tactically important is all the other stuff - ISR, EW, comms, network resilience and so on. In these fields, India is barely a bug at the moment and it appears their political structure actually isn't better at getting shit sorted than China's. In fact, if anyone is honest, it is quite a lot worse and China isn't even that great at it despite what China fearmongering westerners often claim.
China should develop some more stealthy air to ground ordinance than the few it's shown in shows that aren't in service as far as we know and the one that is potentially in service shown with the J-16 years ago. Better if these can be supersonic but it's going to be less stealthy than it would otherwise. In the meantime, YJ-91 is 90% as good for its role and it's been made for a long time. Just keep upgrading rocket motor, fuel, software, and electronics as those tech improve over time. It's mechanically not a bad platform.
A stealth stand off cruise missile weapon like YJ-98 (AFK-98A) is arguably more effective than any of the supersonic relics we've been discussing. The reason being, supersonic ones are typically much more observable and supersonic missiles aren't that much harder to intercept if your interceptors are located in the right places which they would need to be to intercept stealth SOWs anyway.
The superonic missile isn't anywhere near as terrain hugging. YJ-12 can do the lowest sea skim compared to any other supersonic cruise anti-ship missile out there but that's only because it's not navigating mountain ranges. Supersonic flight takes a lot of turning performance out of the missile and its trajectory and firing directions are all well known. YJ-91 and Brahmos CANNOT terrain hug and navigate across mountain regions or urban landscapes the way a JSOW or YJ-98 can. A stealthy cruise missile even one with a fraction of the range (as long as it's launching platform is out of reach of SAMs) will be able to attack from any direction, hug terrain better, and on top of all that be able to have superior radar and infrared signature than a supersonic. Even if signals emissions are equally stealthy and spoof resistant which there is no reason why they wouldnt be.
If only China can make something like YJ-98 into a much longer ranged and near supersonic weapon or even supersonic, then you'd have... I dunno a GJ-11 delivering guided bombs or similar ordinance hahaha.
Point is far too many superior options exist over the cold war relic style YJ-91, Brahmos type missile. I can see YJ-12 having a much greater role out in the open ocean since warhead size, speed, range and attrition factors are just calculated differently to a land conflict.
It should be noted that Yankee posted when AFK-98A was revealed years ago that China had AFK-98 variants (ARM, anti-surface etc) in service since 2016 which lines up with typical Chinese military revelation patterns. Anything revealed near-officially has been in service for some time. SOW isn't hard to do mechanically. It's the software and electronics that pose any technical challenge and in these domains China's long accomplished more impressive weapons arguably more demanding in those domains.
Storm Shadow/SCALP, JSOW, JASSM style weapons are far superior to the old supersonics like YJ-91 and Brahmos. China has long had YJ-98 in service. Air to ground has also changed since cheap and easy to build MALE UAVs proliferated.
The superonic missile isn't anywhere near as terrain hugging. YJ-12 can do the lowest sea skim compared to any other supersonic cruise anti-ship missile out there but that's only because it's not navigating mountain ranges. Supersonic flight takes a lot of turning performance out of the missile and its trajectory and firing directions are all well known. YJ-91 and Brahmos CANNOT terrain hug and navigate across mountain regions or urban landscapes the way a JSOW or YJ-98 can. A stealthy cruise missile even one with a fraction of the range (as long as it's launching platform is out of reach of SAMs) will be able to attack from any direction, hug terrain better, and on top of all that be able to have superior radar and infrared signature than a supersonic. Even if signals emissions are equally stealthy and spoof resistant which there is no reason why they wouldnt be.
If only China can make something like YJ-98 into a much longer ranged and near supersonic weapon or even supersonic, then you'd have... I dunno a GJ-11 delivering guided bombs or similar ordinance hahaha.
Point is far too many superior options exist over the cold war relic style YJ-91, Brahmos type missile. I can see YJ-12 having a much greater role out in the open ocean since warhead size, speed, range and attrition factors are just calculated differently to a land conflict.
It should be noted that Yankee posted when AFK-98A was revealed years ago that China had AFK-98 variants (ARM, anti-surface etc) in service since 2016 which lines up with typical Chinese military revelation patterns. Anything revealed near-officially has been in service for some time. SOW isn't hard to do mechanically. It's the software and electronics that pose any technical challenge and in these domains China's long accomplished more impressive weapons arguably more demanding in those domains.
Storm Shadow/SCALP, JSOW, JASSM style weapons are far superior to the old supersonics like YJ-91 and Brahmos. China has long had YJ-98 in service. Air to ground has also changed since cheap and easy to build MALE UAVs proliferated.
I like that you provided a detailed comment. But I disagree that YJ-12 is a cold war relic. Supersonic and Hypersonic anti-ship missiles are THE modern 21st century weapons. The fact that Soviets developed this 50 years ago is a testament to their strategic acumen.
No matter how good stealth is, it still will be detected and shot down. Not only missiles, even automatic guns can shoot down subsonic missiles. Stealth just makes detection harder in longer ranges but once u are close, u r detected anyway. Moreover, Anti-Stealth Radar was available from the beginning and are now being vigously developed to counter stealth completely.
Supersonic and Hypersonic missiles dont care about stealth. They care about manuverability and speed to prevent interception. This is a near-peer way of fighting. I think Americans went with Stealth missile cause its smaller to launch from their planes and also cheaper. Chinese solution to the problem is higher end and better at penetrating thick air defenses.
Yes but once you are close to the stealth missile, you don't have the response time to turn your guns around and if you're using SAMs or manpads, usually those problems are gone and the equipment and techniques used to detect those stealth missiles have been attacked or eroded first. These same SAMs and manpads will also have a go at the supersonic cruise missile. The difference being everyone would know when and where the supersonic is coming from for minutes as opposed to the maybe 30 second window for a terrain hugging stealth.
Stealth doesn't just allow you to convert advantage linearly, like its detection range, it's exponential. Advantages with stealth far outweigh more speed unless we're talking well into hypersonic territory. It's hard to know how much advantage gets converted the more km/h you gain but interceptors have no extra issue intercepting mach 3 vs mach 0.5 it's just a response time and if you're not stealthy and attacking from known and easily observed directions, your interceptors can make light work of that supersonic missile. Especially when your supersonic missile like Brahmos or YJ-91 are hanging so high up. Interceptor do have a lot of trouble against hypersonics due to simple geometry (they'd need to be damn well placed to be physically possible to intercept hypersonics) and the fact that all publicly known SAM systems use =<mach 5 missiles at max speed and these missile speeds drop to mach 1 pretty damn quickly to have a chance at a turning hypersonic.
China has all of those. Hypersonic, stealth sub-sonic, and supersonic. The supersonic ones are arguably the easiest to intercept. Okay subsonic non-stealth is even easier haha but yes these supersonic missiles are better than non-stealth subsonic. Still doesn't mean you should invest more resources into fielding yet another platform of supersonic non-stealth cruise missile? China has two. It's better to spend that resource elsewhere to make your overall force more effective and capable.
What's interesting is the supposed HN-2000 supersonic cruise missile. Not sure if PLA ever purchased it and what it's YJ designation is.
All ur argument about Terrain hugging stealth falls apart when a plane with Radar is in the air. Terrain hugging relies on Radar horizon and curvature of earth. With planes look down, Terrain hugging no longer works. A US carrier will have planes always flying monitoring missions in wartime. There will be no hiding from that.
That's why Stealth is not a game changer in anti-ship missile design. Its a nice to have feature but ultimately not that significant. Look at the recent Iran strike on Israel. All the subsonic missiles and drones were easily shot down by US planes with AAM. But they couldn't stop ballistic missiles with extreme speed.
Hypersonic missiles are obviously better in every way. But if u are supersonic, that is also good. Its better than a subsonic slow missile a fighter jet can easily shoot down. A fighter jet probably can't shoot down a Mach 3-4 missile.
I agree but you are here conveniently ignoring the fact that Iran used non-stealth and non-terrain hugging missiles and drones.
I'm saying there are plenty of situations where stealth, terrain hugging cruise missiles are superior to supersonic but non-stealth and non-terrain hugging missiles. There are situation where the reverse is also true. China has both of these types of missiles.
I'm not here arguing about whether one is always better than the other. You're claiming supersonic is great. It is what it is. It's fine for plenty of missions and hopeless in others. Stealthy cruise missiles is absolutely a more must have in my opinion than supersonic cruise missiles. Best to combine both which the HN-2000 is supposedly for. Of course if it is supersonic, it's unlikely to be terrain hugging and maneuverable enough to navigate tricky landscapes.
China and US are examples of countries with both types but plenty of countries only have one and all the more capable and smarter ones have chosen stealthy terrain hugging subsonic cruise missiles over brute speed missiles.
Manpads and anti-air guns can intercept mach 0.5 cruise missiles easily.
Yes and my post says they can. The difference is the stealth missile won't be known. You wont know where to put those manpads and anti air guns. You won't have enough time to move them to the correct positions when you do know the stealth cruise missile is around.