The new antimissile tests China did, can they stop these Brahmos missiles?
Brahmos doesn't have the range to reach PLAAF bases but they can reach PLA positions and equipment e.g. SAM sites closer to areas of contention.
Chinese BMD tests are for anti-satellite, anti-warhead at mid phase/ terminal phase and the most recent BMD test performed was against hypersonic maneuvering vehicle as evidenced by huge turns being down by the interceptor. That's actually been the world first of intercepting a hypersonic target which is performing tight fast turns that change trajectory by significant range... enough to show interceptor zig zag with many kilometers of new trajectory travel.
These are not for Brahmos interception. It's overkill and BMD are designed for targets well within hypersonic speeds such as terminal phase or mid course warheads. For this purpose BMD missiles themselves require significant speed (well above intercept target's) to have a slight chance of success.
Brahmos can be intercepted with S-400, HQ-9, HQ-9B, HQ-16, HQ-16A/B, and possibly even HQ-17 because all these missiles (if they are positioned well) are capable of mach 3 or above energies. While Brahmos is a pretty large missile with a cold war era guidance and trajectory (not even upgraded Cold War era cruise missile intelligence e.g. radar avoidance, terrain following, low altitude flight, or expanded approach angles). Brahmos is only capable of relatively high altitude and straight path flight until homing into target and then it can reduce altitude depending on terrain only as it is in terminal phase.
Brahmos is also non-stealthy and relatively easy to detect compared to modern ordinance. Cruise missiles are more effective when they can follow terrain and approach from unexpected angles and can avoid radar e.g. now antique Silkworm variants KD-63 is able to do which is the least sophisticated one in PLA arsenal.
Oh and the cooperative technique where a single missile pops up above radar horizon and scans then relays info to rest of missiles is pretty old capabilities that's now more than common. Brahmos may include some version of that but its general flight path sort of makes that less useful and it's not operating at sea with flat terrain anyway here.
Last edited: