(cont)
The base of the 821st Brigade appeared in the televised report (Image: CCTV-7)
Satellite image of the base of 821e briagde
According to the official videos released, it is reported that LUO and his battalion have fired several real shots of a "new type of cruise missile" since the end of May, one of which took place between June 20 and 22 .
Launch vehicle analysis (TEL) shows that this is clearly the DF-10A cruise missile, first revealed in September 2015 during the military parade to celebrate the victory against the Japanese invaders in World War II , and whose characteristics are kept secret but it is thought that its range of up to 2,000 to 2,500 km.
Comments from television reports include words such as "precision strike", "day and night penetration", "volley of shots in multiple waves" and "confrontation Red-Blue" for this series of maneuvers. And we can see images where six DF-10A missiles were fired simultaneously from a vast meadow while other launches took place visibly in the night, and two life-size buildings serving as targets that were hit hard.
With the help of
one of these target buildings could be located in the Gobi desert, among a large field of fire used by the Chinese army for many years. The comparison of the images of this seven-storey building released this weekend by the state media and those dating a few years ago actually suggests that these first would be recent.
We see then that a missile, supposed DF-10A, touched the fourth floor of the building and caused a sharp explosion. These images are therefore a priori consistent with .
"End of June [...] In the space of a few tens of minutes, several cruise missiles of the same model have crossed windows to destroy targets located more than a thousand li ¹, and this in a surgical way," writes the reportators of the journal
Science and Technology daily , institutional everyday Chinese Ministry of Science and Technology (MOST), "the scene is impressive ...".
To be able to respond to the new strategic requirement of the country, namely "deterrence and combat any zone, both nuclear and conventional", the force of Chinese rockets organizes since 2012
" ( "The Sword of the Sky"), which focuses particularly on the rapprochement to modern combat conditions, confrontation as well as interoperability with the other air forces, marine and land forces of the Chinese army.
And the "Sky Sword" drills began at the end of May this year - if you believe in the Chinese Army Newspaper - and the focus also shifts from "Brigade Level Assault" from previous years to "Real Fire Confrontation." and assault by group of armies ". The units involved in the launches, namely several cruise missile and ballistic missile brigades, were chosen in a "random" and "unscheduled" manner according to official evidence.
The videos also show the presence of Chinese Air Force antiaircraft units, so it is not excluded that penetration and interception simulations have occurred, as was already the case. during the "Sky Sword 2016" where ten missiles MRBM DF-21C were fired in salvo and about twenty SAM systems of the air force simulated their interception.
Apart from the widely reported DF-10A cruise missiles, short and medium range ballistic missiles such as DF-15 and DF-16 also appeared in the reports. A salvo of ten ballistic missiles was also filmed, like the exercise carried out a few years ago on the Tibetan plateau.