On the same topic, looks like USN has now put it's foot down on hypersonic cruise missile.
We will see if they actually field it by then.
I should add that LR SAM for F-35 doesn't mean engaging it at the extent of its range but basically being able to carry more energy to improve its interception probability at far closer ranges. Let's say tracking and launching missile at F-35 can be done at range 100km, this would give a 200km ranged missile a lot of energy at 100km away from launch site. F-35s have stand off weapons of range well beyond 100km though so of course the only hope of engaging F-35s would be at longer ranges otherwise at least these missiles can be used in defence of ships against anti-ship missiles. All assumes detection tracking and fire control are all working effectively at range.
If China can consistently lock onto and fire missiles at F-35 from even 70 km out with J-20, US military would completely freak out. Keep in mind that there is nothing particularly special about LR ASM or F-35 carrying them. Of all the ways that F-35s can threaten PLA, carrying JASSM or LRASM externally to attack Chinese surface ships are not high up on that list. In fact, it wouldn't be more threatening (in y mind) than the bug doing the same thing. Sure, they will be harder to track than harpoon or SM-2, but with multiple aerial and surface combatant datelined together, they should be able to pick a lot of them up at the same time.
A future Chinese carrier group will need to be able to track hundreds of missiles of intercepting them. Keep in mind that a USN carrier group can track of thousands of targets and handle hundreds of anti-ship missiles.
The only counter PLAN has against this are the dedicated A2AD weapons mentioned and maybe subsurface capabilities. Surface ships can extend the range of A2AD and are all sensor nodes but they lack the range to directly engage USN carrier groups because aircraft outrange PLAN surface ships' "conventional" anti ship weapons coordinated wave attacks. Throwing handfuls of YJ-18s cannot be assumed to do much except expend USN interceptors.
Actually, aside from their recent development, YJ-18s are just about the most ideal anti-ship missiles you can find. They combine the long range and low profiles of subsonic missiles with terminal high supersonic missiles.
Now, I think your concern is that PLAN will be going against USN carrier group alone. That seems to be a premise. In fact, I don't see any scenario where PLAN would risk exposing its surface combatants to US air power without any kind of air cover. That would be a really stupid thing to do. Even for shipborne ASBM, they still need aerial assets to help them find US carrier group and target correctly.
Therefore the long term deterrence to achieve is force parity because there are always going to be counters to latest weapons no matter how impressive they are when they are new. A peer force in conjunction with world leading A2AD is going to be ideal and enough for a Taiwan scenario. Only one of those may not be enough to discourage US involvement in any Taiwan scenario. Right now China only has the A2AD side and building up the conventional force.
We have seen several major development in Chinese anti-ship missile programs in the past 15 years:
1) the proliferation of long range high subsonic missiles like YJ-83s and YJ-62s. As impressive as it was (like 8 YJ-83s per Type 022), that didn't really trouble or scare USN. USN faced much stronger threat in the Cold War.
2) the proliferation of long range high supersonic missiles like YJ-12 and YJ-18 on both bombers and surface warships. This is actually much more dynamic threat, since you could have Type 055s launch a whole bunch of sea-skimming supersonic missile at something like AB. Since I haven't been following things for 5 years, I can't tell you if USN freaked out over this. I would think they have not since the threat level here is no higher than Cold War days (missiles have gotten better but so have surface warship AAWs)
3) the likely proliferation of air and sea launched ASBM and hypersonic anti-ship missiles. I remember the alarm that went up when ASBM news first came out (in fact, it was my entry on informationdessimation which got subsequently posted on the Drudge Report and USNI) that caused very high alarms. I am waiting over the next few month to see if we get the same type of alarming article from US military that we saw when the HGV FOB tests were conducted. I think we will. That could spur a huge push from USN to devote addition funding for interceptors and radar system to defend this. I think this will push USN carrier groups to be further out.
Yeah, that's where the US is cripplingly behind. "Risk" is a 4-letter word that strikes terror into anybody near the pursestrings in the US. That's how you get three failures on HyFly and then they quit without ever seeing if the damn thing actually works. Same is happening to ARRW. It's had three failure, none of which has even got to the booster firing, and now they've zeroed out the funding for it. I think it gets one more attempt but then, regardless of outcome, there is no money. Compare SpaceX 's Starship to NASA's SLS. Same thing.
I don't think US military had the same impetus as PLA to push HGV/HCM development. USN carrier group would be able to overwhelm any defense with air launched AShMs and a barrage of SM-2. It's only in the past 5 years that PLAN is building a robust enough surface combatant fleet that might theoretically be able to defend against saturation attack from USN carrier groups. Are there any other navies capable of defending against saturation attack of hundreds of missiles? PLA pushed for hypersonic missile development because USN is capable of dealing with saturation attacks.
I think what you have pointed to is a real problem with US military, but it's not the only high level problem. Fundamentally, US military believes that it needs to be able to dictate warfare anywhere around the world with much less loses than its adversaries. While that worked when everyone was spending less than 1/10 of DOD's budget, that doesn't work well when China is at 1/3 of US' military budget with significantly lower development and production cost. I mean the Chinese costs is many folds lower. When you pursue this high threshold level, you are driven to pursue capabilities that your adversary don't need to pursue. For example, USN will likely be devoting an obscene amount of money to protect its carriers against the ever improving PLAN hypersonic AShM. PLAN likely will not be chasing similar type of capabilities.
I'd argue the US, effectively, has a smaller budget than China all things considered. Everything on the list costs less in China.
Yes. And anyone that has the recent inflationary pressure in America knows how much things cost here.
