Ideal PLA Ground Based Air Defence (SAM etc)??????

Totoro said:

I've went for greatest vehicle commonality i could get away with. Preference of tracked vehicles over wheeled ones is crucial, as mobility requirement calls for as little preparation as possible. Meaning, weight of the vehicle itself would have to be the stabilizing factor when deploying radar arrays, heavy missiles, etc. And with heavy vehicles one would have to go with tracks if one has to keep some sort of decent mobility.

Click to expand...

Precisely for the mobility reason I would go with wheeled vehicles mainly.
Being lighter than an armored(?) tracked vehicle makes them better suited for tactical / operational transport (air mobility). When setting up fire positions, I think a big missile launching vehicle should be on even ground anyway, and there it's not a big issue to put a truck on it's stabilizers (what's the english word for those hydraulic stilts?).
On anything that slightly resembles an unprepared path, I think a wheeled option is more mobile/agile and less maintenance intensive that a tracked one. And modern off road heavy duty trucks should be able to move through rough terrain also.
But generally I think you don't need a true cross country capability for long range SA assests. You can still place those camoed somewhere in the bushes rather quick if need be.
Having 3 radar sets, one active, one passive on standby, one on the move, and the ability to communicate with launchers in the vicinity should do quiet good. However, radio comm can be compromised. And if you go back to cable comm, your extreme mobility will again be decreased.
I think only organic, tactical SAM coverage with low-med range for maneuvering / fighting forces in the field needs to be tracked to go with them.

Btw, would it be doable and make sense to put up to 4 SRAAMs into the "nose" of a two-staged, radio guided HQ-9 like missile that brings the AAMs to the vicinity of the targets and releases them at great speed and altitude?
You don't have to launch 4 big missiles, the load of at least one vehicle, to engage 4 targets, but only one. This than lets it's "submunitions" do the work.

While for the missile launchers wheeled vehicles may be a valid options, i went with tracked due to commonality issues. Why use a separate vehicle for radar and for missile launch system? Tracked systems are more mobile on unprepared ground, no matter what, but we can agree to disagree. Reason why i believe its crucial to have radar systems on tracked platforms is reaction time. Taking even five minutes to stop/start radiating and moving out, let alone moving far away so a submunition laden weapon doesn't catch you, is far too long. It may've been good against shrikes, harms, etc, but tomorrow's DEAD assets are just too dangerous. Relocation time must be EXTREMELY short. I'm talking tens of seconds to start/stop radiating and getting on the move. I'm talking under two minutes to move away at least 500 meters.

Stabilizing a vehicle does take too much time to pull off. One needs to put the radar in a right position before the 'hydraulic stilts' D) can be moved. And that process needs to be fairly slow and gentle, we dont want the radar equipment to just drop 20-30 centimeters within a second. I seriously believe the whole process can't be done under 30 seconds. With getting the radar array in a position fit for transport, the whole timeframe is likely to turn into a few minutes. Far, far too much.

While it is true tracked vehicles require more maintenance one needs to remember they would be stationary for most of the time, with only periodic (albeit frequent) relocations. And no one said my approach would not be costly, both in direct monetary terms and in human resources needed to pull it all off. (it could be very well argued that a more active defense of airspace would be more cost effective, but that depends on too many things and that's not the point here)

While VHF radios could be compromised, the important comm links can not be. There is really no practical way to compromise or jam short wave, highly directional radio datalinks. Sure, if one gets close enough and in the right location, anything could be jammed, but if one can survive to do that, that means the local air defense assets have already been taken care of.

As for the 4 in 1 solution... well i guess anything is possible in theory. It'd take a bigger missile than a S300 to carry 4 asraam class AAMs though. Probably at least two meters longer and perhaps 10 or 20 cm wider. That means some 30% longer and 20-30% wider. And several hundred kg heavier, easely 30% or more heavier. Even if we develop a new AAM with folding wings and fins, the carrier missile would still be longer and noticably heavier. That'd all require whole new launching platforms.

All that doesn't mean its not doable. Fine, a longer, wider vehicle would be needed. Perhaps even tracked one, or some kind of semi trailer, part tracked, part wheeled. Whatever works. But i have another suggestion. Why go with proper AAMs? Rocket motors may not even be needed. Since very long ranged sam engagement are almost exclusively top down affairs, it may be better to just use relatively short rods with fins for terminal trajectory correction instead. Roughly speaking, the first half of an AAM. Let the gravity and velocity given by the carrier missile do most of the work. Would make the whole thing a bit cheaper per missile and perhaps the existing infrastructure could be used after all.

I'd like to go back briefly to that commonality issue. Have you thought of using other existing vehicles and modify them to your needs? Like taking an ARV or IFV and put a small radar and SAMs on it? But maybe since your building this vehicle family anyway ...
The SRWU is difficult I think. Having Mica like missiles stored already in vertical position would make the vehicle quiet top heavy I guess. And that again defeats the cross country mobility. And also uses up a lot of space that may not even be there in a transport plane. But then again I would think that at least SHORAD should be air transportable rather easily to stay with the maneuvering forces.

If you're defending fixed assets, such as an airport, you can't really move away too far. Against enemy munitions, you must have the capability to intercept the munition to survive. Most SAM systems cannot intercept enemy aircraft from 200+ km away, but the enemy aircraft can deploy air to ground munitions at that distance.

AGM-154: 120 km
HOPE/HOSBO: 160 km
Storm Shadow: >250 km
SLAM-ER: >280 km
JSSM: >370 km
TAURUS: 350 km - 500+ km

SRWU would be at most 20 cm taller than a Tor-m1. Whatever additional instability there may be due to added weight can be more than compensate with a heavier base. larger tracks and more powerful engine can then keep the mobility level the same as in tor. If all else fails i guess something more like tor is also not bad.

There will always be fixed assets to protect. Part of that protection will come from direct umbrella, with various sams and aaa systems positioned around the asset, but a large part, especially if the asset is at least somewhat inside your borders, will come from indirect protection. Either the delivery platforms or the weapons themselves (depending on the range, ability etc) will have to fly over some territory in order to reach their target.

Not knowing where a radar might light up or where it will be XX seconds after it stops radiating may be a huge threat. (actual weapon systems are not as important anyway) The more ground a plane or a missile has to cover to reach its target, and the thicker the AD network is over that cover, the higher the likelyhood a part of that attacking force or a salvo of missiles will be brought down. Every little bit helps.

An asset right next to the ad perimeter is much more likely to be toast (having to rely only on point defense AA systems) but if one has a few hundred or more kilometers of tactical depth to position a decent AD network, that asset way in the back becomes harder to attack.

But then again, we all knew that before.

If you would ask me.

I would prefer the deployment of S-300PMU2 would be nice. An additional 160 batteries.. Double than that of the current size would give China a better air defense coverage through out the country.

Regarding ramjet powered missiles, they make sense for very long ranges and speeds above Mach 4 or 5. For air launch an booster is not necessary. One may use a ducted rocket ramjet. The US pioneered this technology back in the 1960's and 1970's but so far has only applied it to a couple of target drones. Meanwhile the Soviets learned about what the US was doing and applied the technology to missiles like 3M80, Kh-31 and others.
Any ground based combat missile system must be highly mobile. We have all seen how modern Western SEAD forces can quickly dismantle a ground based air defence system. The radars and command posts must be airborn in something like an AWACS. The ground based launch vehicles must be small and highly mobile. Think SLAMRAAM, which is AMRAAM mounted on a HUMVEE. Since the missile uses active terminal homing, the initial waypoint can be dumped into the missile from an AWACS, UAV or other outboard source, ditto for mid point guidance, while the final engagement does not require any illuminator as or ground radar as TWS does. Also, a HUMVEE with six missiles on the roof does not present anything near the juicy target one of those big honking Russian TEL's used for S-300 or S-400 does.

Mu Shu Tortilla said:

Regarding ramjet powered missiles, they make sense for very long ranges and speeds above Mach 4 or 5. For air launch an booster is not necessary. One may use a ducted rocket ramjet. The US pioneered this technology back in the 1960's and 1970's but so far has only applied it to a couple of target drones. Meanwhile the Soviets learned about what the US was doing and applied the technology to missiles like 3M80, Kh-31 and others.

Click to expand...

No they didn't just apply it into drones. The system was moved into full service as the Telos, and it was the one of the main AD systems for USN ships. A similar ramjet missile, I think it was the Sea Fury, was used by the RN. The problem of these missiles is that the size (they're not very compact) which means you can't store much of them, and the fact that ramjets don't accelerate as well as rocket propulsion. So when these missiles are deactivated, they are turned into Coyote drones.

The idea of a supersonic ramjet missile might be okay against a slow moving ship, but not against a fast moving aircraft.

Any ground based combat missile system must be highly mobile. We have all seen how modern Western SEAD forces can quickly dismantle a ground based air defence system. The radars and command posts must be airborn in something like an AWACS. The ground based launch vehicles must be small and highly mobile. Think SLAMRAAM, which is AMRAAM mounted on a HUMVEE. Since the missile uses active terminal homing, the initial waypoint can be dumped into the missile from an AWACS, UAV or other outboard source, ditto for mid point guidance, while the final engagement does not require any illuminator as or ground radar as TWS does. Also, a HUMVEE with six missiles on the roof does not present anything near the juicy target one of those big honking Russian TEL's used for S-300 or S-400 does.

Click to expand...

Do you know the problem with that? The missiles you are talking about simply do not have the range of the air launched variant. They have to overcome air density and gravity, and you can expect their final range to be nothing more but a fraction of the AAM variant. Your AWACS or UAV would have to give a midpoint somewhere near the launch vehicle, because it ain't going to go far.

No no, Crobato, Talos was not a ducted rocket ramjet. It was a conventional ramjet with a booster. A ducted rocket ramjet uses the combustion chamber of the ramjet as a rocket. The entire aft end of the ramjet is packed with solid propellant. When it burns out airflow through the ramjet is sufficient to sustain the light it off and sustain the ramjet. The only US systems to use it are GQM-163A Coyote ( and even that needs a booster since it is shore launched only ) and a couple of R&D articles.
Here is the grandfather of 3M80, way back in the late 1960's on an old A-7 Corsair.



I think the old USSR saw this thing being tested and reacted with Kh-31 and 3M80. Only problem is the USN decided a subsonic missile was a better ship killer. The result was Harpoon.

Your argument regarding the suitability of ramjets for air launched high performance missiles does not stand up to examination. The follow on to Phoenix was to be a Sparrow sized ducted rocket ramjet multi-mode air intercept missile designed to exceed the performance of Phoenix. The program died when the USAF refused to participate, preferring AMRAAM, and forcing the Navy to develop a D model AMRAAM with sufficient range for the Navy's outer air battle needs. Even still, this missile has much higher performance than AMRAAM. You can see a prototype at the Museum of Naval Ordinance at China Lake.



It was to be called AIM-155, or Advance Air to Air Missile