PLA Anti-Air Missile (SAM) systems

Hi,
for that long range missile what kind of jet will able to operate it,
weight, how much fuel guidance system and speed by the time missile
fired on the target, target will be moving away from that point, another
thing which come to mind if the opponent can also lock on that missile
and fire their own missile towards the on coming missile to intercept it
so much to do for 2000 miles of kilometres range
thank you

China has been studying SAM concepts which utilize waverider design configurations for at least 13 years.

Maybe the 2000-kilometer super-duper SAM (or further for AAM-variant) concept isn't exactly far-fetched. Having a (hypothetical) average speed of Mach 8-10 means a travel time of around 9 to 12 minutes over 2000 kilometers.

Posted by @Captain小潇 on Weibo.

Stealthflanker said:

wasn't that "2000 km range SAM's" were just a research paper with no real relation to real project ?

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Saw an allegation somewhere that fundings have been allocated for further work on the concept/project.

Whether that particular claim is true or not, I have zero idea. So take the claim with a big pinch of salt.

ACuriousPLAFan said:

China has been studying SAM concepts which utilize waverider design configurations for at least 13 years.

Maybe the 2000-kilometer super-duper SAM (or further for AAM-variant) concept isn't exactly far-fetched. Having a (hypothetical) average speed of Mach 8-10 means a travel time of around 9 to 12 minutes over 2000 kilometers.

Posted by @Captain小潇 on Weibo.

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I mean, this is cool and all, but what exactly would you use to guide a missile with that sort of range? Even with networked sensors 2000 km doesn't seem reasonable.

totenchan said:

I mean, this is cool and all, but what exactly would you use to guide a missile with that sort of range? Even with networked sensors 2000 km doesn't seem reasonable.

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Say you have an AWACs flying over Japan or in the Western Pacific. It has to emit radar waves as standard.

If it works against fighters and is deployed in large numbers, you'd be looking at all of Japanese airspace being denied.

(Note: Until/unless more information/evidences/indications appear, discussions surrounding the "super-duper SAM" should be taken as academic exercises only.)

totenchan said:

I mean, this is cool and all, but what exactly would you use to guide a missile with that sort of range? Even with networked sensors 2000 km doesn't seem reasonable.

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Through integrated, networked collaboration of efforts across multiple types of platforms (e.g. satellites, ground-based (including OTH), air-based and/or sea-based radar systems etc), a 2000-kilometer super-duper SAM kill can be achievable. Albeit, needless to say, such efforts will be very challenging, though certainly not impossible to accomplish.

AndrewS said:

Say you have an AWACs flying over Japan or in the Western Pacific. It has to emit radar waves as standard.

If it works against fighters and is deployed in large numbers, you'd be looking at all of Japanese airspace being denied.

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Given the capabilities of the super-duper SAM and its associated systems - Even with serial production, individual unit costs of the super-duper SAM won't be cheap.

Therefore, instead of targeting enemy fighters - Aerial platforms with greater strategic significance will be the most likely targets, namely strategic bombers, tankers and special mission aircrafts (AEW&C, EW, ELINT, SIGINT, ASW, BACN etc).

Other than those, enemy hypersonic missiles and nuclear-tipped standoff cruise missiles (AGM-181) could (and perhaps should) be priority targets for the super-duper SAM system as well.

ACuriousPLAFan said:

Through integrated, networked collaboration of efforts across multiple types of platforms (e.g. satellites, ground-based (including OTH), air-based and/or sea-based radar systems etc), a 2000-kilometer super-duper SAM kill can be achievable. Albeit, needless to say, such efforts will be very challenging, though certainly not impossible to accomplish.



Given the capabilities of the super-duper SAM and its associated systems - Even with serial production, individual unit costs of the super-duper SAM won't be cheap.

Therefore, instead of targeting enemy fighters - Aerial platforms with greater strategic significance will be the most likely targets, namely strategic bombers, tankers and special mission aircrafts (AEW&C, EW, ELINT, SIGINT, ASW, BACN etc).

Other than those, enemy hypersonic missiles and nuclear-tipped standoff cruise missiles (AGM-181) could (and perhaps should) be priority targets for the super-duper SAM system as well.

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I would expect such a SAM to be comparable to (or based on) the DF-17.
And my best guess on the cost of a DF-17 is $2 Million.
So if you add on a AAM seeker, you end up with roughly the same cost as the Meteor AAM.

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If you think about it, the Chinese military has to build long-range ISR capabilities anyway to track the US Navy in the Western Pacific and also the activity on airbases in Japan.

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Yes, large vulnerable aircraft would definitely be priority targets and would be easier to hit.
But if they can get it to work against fighter aircraft as well, it would be worth fielding larger numbers for those fighter sized aircraft.

Everything here is all very speculative at this point though.

There's no way what looks like a glide vehicle hypersonic SAM would have the sort of accuracy already to hit fighter sized, agile targets. At best, maybe if you pack it with a large enough proximity detonated warhead with a great fragmentation zone, it could be somewhat effective against large and slow aircraft. A millisecond timing error is enough to put it so far off a fighter the whole exercise is not worth pursuing... at least as a combat platform. It would have to be these series made engineering marvels and if that's the case, it wouldn't be affordable or easy enough to build enough of. The sweet spot would be something designed to target large aircraft like AWACS and tankers.

ougoah said:

There's no way what looks like a glide vehicle hypersonic SAM would have the sort of accuracy already to hit fighter sized, agile targets. At best, maybe if you pack it with a large enough proximity detonated warhead with a great fragmentation zone, it could be somewhat effective against large and slow aircraft. A millisecond timing error is enough to put it so far off a fighter the whole exercise is not worth pursuing... at least as a combat platform. It would have to be these series made engineering marvels and if that's the case, it wouldn't be affordable or easy enough to build enough of. The sweet spot would be something designed to target large aircraft like AWACS and tankers.

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It's not a timing issue, but more about terminal manoeuvrability of the HGV.
You see existing AAMs with the ability to pull up to 40G, although 12G seems more common.

My guess is that if you wanted an HGV SAM to work against fighter-sized aircraft, you would need thrust vectoring of some sort.
And there are existing SAMs which do use thrust vectoring like the AAM-5 which isn't that expensive.
So thrust vectoring looks affordable in terms of additional unit production costs.

But we'll just have to see what, if anything turns up in a few years.

ougoah said:

There's no way what looks like a glide vehicle hypersonic SAM would have the sort of accuracy already to hit fighter sized, agile targets. At best, maybe if you pack it with a large enough proximity detonated warhead with a great fragmentation zone, it could be somewhat effective against large and slow aircraft. A millisecond timing error is enough to put it so far off a fighter the whole exercise is not worth pursuing... at least as a combat platform. It would have to be these series made engineering marvels and if that's the case, it wouldn't be affordable or easy enough to build enough of. The sweet spot would be something designed to target large aircraft like AWACS and tankers.

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A hypersonic SAM would be looking down on the target aircraft, the effective maneuverability of the target would be less.
The aircraft might not even be looking to see the HGV coming.

China could be exploring a new paradigm of air defense/denial. Instead of ground based SAM that lob missiles upwards, have high flying platforms that implement denial/destroy from above.

It's challenging, but if they can make it work it may become another AShBM moment of realisation for her opponents. Imagine the pilots knowing they have no possibility of escape the moment those missiles are launched.