What you are talking about is not a given. Has the PLAN or PRC ever demonstrated a capability to send mid-course changes to a ballistic missile in flight outside of the atmosphere? I am not aware of any documented tests of capabilities of that nature.
If the vessel is 1,500 km out to sea when the missile is launched, and it takes six or seven minutes for the missile to get there, the vessel will have been able to move something over 5 kilometers in any direction. This means there is an 80+ square kilometer area for the seeker to search and locate the target. I am not aware of a capability in the PRCs C4ISTAR to allow them to make course changes above the atmosphere. So, the missile now only has a few seconds to do so, in what is likely to be a very high electronic warfare environment especially designed to defeat the warhead if it survives physically to that point.
As the misile approaches, the vessel will continue to manuever and its escorts, and ultimately itself, will be shooting at the target, beginning with BMD and continuing right down to CIWS. You make the defeat of these electronic and physical defenses sound like a trivial and simple matter, and the re-acquisition of the target and manuevering as well. They are not, nor will they be.
And as a very complicated and sophisticated and difficult system, it simply cries out for full testing.
But, it has never been live, full-up tested to do this very thing. Simulations with the seeker head are one thing...and are required. Hitting static targets in the desert are another...and also required as you step up the testing ladder. Live tests with the entire sequence, going through all of the intricate C4ISTAR components to prove the very things you are asserting in this response are another thing, and in the end, equally and even more important if you want to have any high degree of confidence in the overall system.
Clearly apples and oranges comparisons on your part, plawolf, no matter how you spin it, just as you said...hehehe, both sides can spin it any way they want.
Trying to compare early and mid-level tests with the equally critical final full-up, live fire tests is simply not comparing the same things.
At the end of the day, this consistent comparison stands, as I said earlier on this thread:
The PLAN has not conducted full-up, live fire, documented tests against what they expect the DF-21D to attack, a manuevering carrier-sized vessel at sea. They do not need to conduct five missiles at once at this stage, nor do they need to employ a blizzard of sabot rounds...they will not be able to do those things if they cannot do it with one.
The US has conducted full-up, live fire tests against what they excpect the AEGIS BMD to attack, a BM coming in to attack the vessel...with great regularity and increasing success rates against increasingly diffult targets. That's the nature of testing once you have done it against a single, less sophisticated target.
This is a much more fundamental and basic question, final level, live fire, full up testing. On both systems. It is not related to the multiple threats, sabot rounds, etc., etc. you throw in. Perform a full-up live fire test against a single manuevering target at sea. Very fundamental.
That's the difference and it is a consistant expectation between the two systems. No spin necessary for that, just simple facts.
Now, I have no doubts that the PRC has tested the missile in computer simulations, and against static targets in the desert. I have never denied this. That is good, and necessary. But it is not complete.
The PRC has chosen to deploy the missile at this stage...and that is certainly their perogative, nor have I denied that they have done so. I have just called into question their level of testing.
As to overall deterence, as I said, the best thing the PLAN could do would be to obliterate a manuevering, carrier-sized target 1,000+ km to sea a number of times. Doing so would be a game changer. The US is steadily progressing and increasing an already proven capability in this regard.
But the PRC hasn't cponducted those very important final system tests, not even once, muich less numerous times to establish the systems reliability and consitancy. No spin will change that until they actually do. And until they have done so, the system is more in question by any measure, than if they had done so.
That is my only point. No talk, or explanation, or rationalization will change that until they simply do so.
But, once again, we are in a circular arguement that is not going to change one way or another until those types of criteria are filled. Until then, things are simply what they are. I accept that, while pointing out the incomplete nature of the tests.
I agree that the PRC has deployed a missile system. I have never denied it.J-XX said:
How effective a system can be gauged based on the level of tests. They are missing the final, most critical system level tests.
As to the US having no counter. That is simply not true. The US has been developing BMD against this type of threat for years, and has conducted full-up live fire tests against such missiles on a regular basis, with an overall 75% success rate over the life of 70+ such tests, and a more recent success rate against more difficult missiles of 90% or more.
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