The entire AI analysis confirms that what I said is correct, yet you claim I know nothing?
You need to get this straight: what I was actually talking about was information from the
Inertial Worldeditor — he's the real source. What he described was the standard launch procedure for China's medium and short-range tactical ballistic missiles back then. Ground-based correction assistance was still required. I'm recounting the technical principle he explained.
Because it's been a long time (2000–2004), a lot of detail is fuzzy in my memory. In his original wording, he might have referenced even earlier technical details or principles of ground-based correction for ballistic missile launches (possibly also for confidentiality reasons), but he didn't go into it. The listeners were all amateur enthusiasts — let's be honest, in his eyes we were just a bunch of military-obsessed kids, and he was giving us a basic science-popularization session in his own field. Did it need to be deeply professional?
You talk as if I don't understand radar at all. I wasn't frontline personnel in the Second Artillery (though I do actually know people who were), and I visited a few times in middle school, but how would I know the specific equipment details and what they did?
But even back then, radar types and costs came in many varieties. China's electronics industry in those years was nowhere near what it is now — many advanced radars existed only in single digits, or even just as prototypes. In the DF-2A / DF-3 era, these missiles were actually strategic-weapon class, with only a handful in inventory. They all carried nuclear warheads, prepared for confronting the USSR. Equipping them with radar was no problem.
But by the 1990s, the DF-11 and DF-15 were short-range tactical ballistic missiles — did they
needto be equipped with radar? You should first understand the types and levels of radar back then. How many Doppler radars did China produce in total in those years? Why do I say it might've used a modified HQ-2配套 radar? Because the HQ-2 had high production volume and large stockpiles of radars. But what operating architecture did the early HQ-2 radar use? My father's unit participated in the deployment for shooting down the U-2 — when my father was in service, he even trained on repairing radars (he was a radar soldier himself). So for a tactical missile like this, if it used radar at all, it probably wasn't the fancy advanced-architecture kind you're imagining. (In the 1990s, various Doppler radars
werethe "advanced architecture" domestically — the state was trying to export them to earn foreign exchange; for example, read up on how Academician Wang Xiaomo "pitched" Egypt and developed the JW-9 surveillance radar.) It was roughly at the level of Western radars approaching obsolescence from the 1950s–70s. So the early DF-11/DF-15 couldn't possibly have used the kind of advanced radar you're talking about. Also, don't forget the famous M-7 is itself a surface-to-surface ballistic missile converted from the HQ-2 — so along the HQ-2 technical line, phasing out obsolete products to provide ground-guidance assistance for the DF-11/DF-15 is entirely plausible.
You have to understand what China's technical state was in those years. Don't just force-fit a few buzzwords. I have confidence in China's current tech, but I won't sugarcoat or downplay China's past capabilities. In the DF-11/DF-15 R&D years (mid-1980s to late 1990s — the hardest period for China's defense industry, with the least military-budget support), the technical combination I described is the most reasonable, the one that fits the historical context best. I'm not going to take the R&D testbed equipment prepared for launch vehicle launches and force-fit it onto the standard-issue equipment of short-range tactical missiles.
Get this straight — all of this is what
Isaid. Because what the AI initially retrieves all comes from Baidu Baike entries. Go look at what the original web pages actually say yourself.
I spent ages explaining to the AI the events of those years, what the
Inertial Worldeditor told us, and the technical background of that era — the AI then cross-checked against the technical conditions of those years, verified point by point, and
thenagreed with my view.
What have you said in your whole reply? What sources did you produce? You just went on about "China had radar technology back then." Well, duh — as if I didn't know China had radar technology back then.
Here's what I actually said, at core:
- There's long been a claim outside China that during the 1996 Taiwan Strait test launches, the US turned off GPS, causing the test launches to fail. The Taiwanese side put out stories that the missiles had a 200 km error, and has mocked the mainland over it for years. I'm taking a neutral stance — neither blindly affirming nor denying. Instead, I'm analyzing which parts of these claims are plausible and which aren't. Because, as everyone knows, during that exercise a senior PLA officer turned traitor (Liu Liankun [sic: commonly Liu Liankun, the 1996 leak case]), leaking China's exercise secrets — extremely damaging, and that's universally acknowledged by later historians. So it's reasonable to think anythingis possible, just that it's wrapped in mistaken perceptions.
- I analyzed, from a technical level, how GPS technology was actually used in those short-range ballistic missiles back then — factoring in the technical tier (civilian), the unreliability of the technology at the time, and the conclusions in professional literature.
- What I recounted was the Inertial Worldeditor's account from after 2000, popular-science-ing the pre-DF-11/15 launch procedure — there's some ambiguity in this (the radar vs. radio-signal "beam riding" bit — PS: beam riding itself is also a radio-guidance technique; it also appeared on early fire-control radars, just that ballistic missiles need a simpler version: no target illumination needed, no mechanical gimbal to track a target, fixed angle is enough. So calling it under the broad "radar" umbrella isn't wrong either).
- Because GPS waspresent during the ascent phase, the apparent "200 km error" scenario istechnically possible (my earlier analysis suggested it was more likely premature self-destruction). Why? Because if it weren't for the cause I analyzed, a pure ballistic missile — even a V-2 — couldn't possibly have a 200 km error. At worst it'd be 1 to a few km. Because the INS is still there — INS can't be jammed or affected (though wiring misconnection is possible). Only if ascent-phase guidance data went anomalous (with GPS participation) would self-destruction become a possibility.
And what did you come in questioning? You led off with an absolutely certain tone that "the US GPS can't do regional navigation shutdown." Who can prove that? Back then, even if no deployment had been announced, it could still have been a developmental/experimental capability. Secondly, China's anti-EW-jamming capability was weak in those years — the US could absolutely have jammed GPS operations. Keep in mind, in the early 1990s GPS wasn't widespread in China, and the cost was high. The US turning off GPS or jamming its operation wouldn't have hurt itself much — it was also a realistic deterrent.
I'm just objectively analyzing the possibilities in this historical episode. What are you doing?
Didn't you read the AI analysis? The GPS-cutoff scenario is hard to verify, but electronic warfare jamming can easily block GPS signals — that's the most likely possibility.
