PLA missile defense system

Dong Feng MARV warhead (1991 technology)

Scratch said:

I [basically] agree with all of the problems you mentioned existing for BMD. But those won't make BMD useless by default. That won't stop China from all out nuclear attack on the US, but that's not the purpose of NMD; the US nuclear arsenal will.
At least initially, NMD will be a defensive line against kamikaze guys throwing around with BMs.

Click to expand...

We are in agreement that there are serious technical problems (e.g. failure to shoot down a ballistic missile under almost ideal test conditions) and countermeasures facing an existing BMD system. The following article is focused primarily on China's ASBM (i.e. anti-ship ballistic missile or "carrier killer").

However, we are interested in subsections (2) and (3) on China's MARV (i.e. "a maneuverable re-entry vehicle (MARV)"). By the way, you have to click on the newslink and go to the website to access the hotlinks. The most important point is that China's "Dong Feng MARV warhead is designed to evade Patriot and standard defense missiles."


DONG FENG MARV WARHEAD IS DESIGNED TO EVADE PATRIOT AND STANDARD DEFENSE MISSILES



"Saturday, March 28, 2009
PLAN ASBM development

I was contacted by Galrahn to read over a Chinese blog entry on PLAN's ASBM development (found here) and post my thoughts on it. I think that before you look further, there are some other good reads on this topic. Sean O'Connor has posted one of the better summaries on this regarding to OTH radar and ASBM threat. I have also written an entry in the past regarding ASBM threat, but it's really not that well researched. That one was based on an article that stated China has solved the difficulties surrounding hitting a moving target with a ballistic missile.

I think that the blog entry I read was definitely the best researched work on PLAN's ASBM plans. It listed many research papers that were written in Chinese and published years ago. As a result of that, I cannot possibly confirm that some of the things I've read are actually accurate. The sources that I can confirm on the Internet do seem to conform to what he was stating. I think in order to continue, it would be beneficial to read some of the resources that he mentioned. The include:
Sinodefence's Space Page
Sinodefence's Missile Page
Xianglong UAV Page
Yilong UAV page
The first one is important, because you can look through the current and future development in China's space industry. It's important to look through the communication, IMINT and EO satellites that China will use in this system.
In the second link, the important missiles to look for are DF-21 and possibly DF-15. In the third link, it lists China's probably most recent venture into HALE UAV. It's about 2/3 the size of Global Hawk or maybe even smaller. We don't have any figure on its endurance, but one would guess it's much less than that of Global Hawk due to the smaller size and less efficient engine. Although at this point, I would think that PLAN would be fine with an Asian Hawk. And the final link is an entry with information on China's version of Predator MALE UAV. The stats listed on that page were actually from its ddescription in the Zhuhai airshow, so I can verify that they are accurate. The two UAVs are both developed by Chengdu AC (the developer of J-10), so my guess is that Xianglong's endurance is comparable to Yilong (around 20 hours).

Reading through those links + Sean's blog entry are important in appreciating the rest of the ASBM system. I will try to make this out in Q&A format:

1. What caused China to start develop this system?
There are two main causes that drove this project. The first one is USA's Pershing II project. I guess this showed PLA the accuracy that can be achieved through MaRV warhead and active radar guidance. The second one is the Taiwan incident in 1996 when PLA's powerlessness against USN carrier group was on full display.

2. When did the project start and where is it now?
China probably started researching on MaRV right after Pershing II was deployed in 1984. By 1991, China had finished research on MaRV. According to the blog, there was a famous research paper in 1994 about attacking fixed target using MaRV technology. In 1999's national pride parade, they showed a missile with all the basic technology needed for the missile part of the ASBM system. If we look at the current status of the satellite constellations and reconnaissance platforms, we could probably say that the system has achieved some operational capability. The entire system needed for ASBM probably will not get set up until all the space assets and UAVs are online next decade.

3. Which missile are they using and what kind of improvements are they putting in?
It looks like DF-21 is the missile that ASBM is based on. It uses a solid propellant, is road-mobile, widely deployed and also have recently been improved to DF-21C. It's range of around 2000 km would perfectly cover the areas where future conflict is likely to be fought. Its range also would cover most of the areas that China's OTH-B radar would cover. It is also large enough to carry a large warhead needed to inflict damage on carrier while also holding a more complex guidance/seeker. They have put a MaRV warhead on DF-21 for maneuverability. In order to improve the penetration capability, they have added a third stage to it to provide unpredictable movement (I think the blog described it as some kind of oscillation). They have apparently made modifications to the warhead in order to lower its radar signature. They have also added a new multi-mode seeker that apparently has an active, passive radar and infrared seeker (I'm not sure how that works). It didn't mention how the missile would counter ESM of the fleet except for improving the seeker and getting more updated info from the sources that provided it initial targeting data.

4. What are the sources that provide targeting data for this ASBM system?
The blog basically listed 5 sources and they are:

* Reconnaissance Satellites - I think you can look at the Ziyuan and Yaogan series of satellites that have EO, CCD and SAR sensors as possibilities here. They could also be talking about the FY series, which is actually expected to be a constellation of Earth Observation satellites. I think it's important that in the 18th Committee on Earth Observation Satellites plenary and workshop in 2004, they announced they would launch over 100 Earth Observation satellites. I don't know enough about this to comment on which specific satellites I think will be used for scanning ships, but the blog did mention that China has used FY-2 series of satellites to track movement of targets. Another possibility is launching many short duration, micro-Earth Observation satellites in times of conflict. It mentioned that China can launch a 100 kg satellite on 12 hours notice. In peace mission 05. They launched an experimental satellite on August 2nd for detection/science experiment work. This operated for 27 days and returned to earth on August 29th after the conclusion of the exercise.
* Elint satellites - It mentioned something like USN's White Cloud Spaceborne ELINT System. The problem I have with this is that I can't find any mention of China having similar system anywhere.
* OTH Radar - Has a range of 800 to 3000 km. The accuracy in targetting is around 20 to 30 km. This can be improved to 2 to 3 km with improved algorithm. OTH radar can work with the recon satellites to provide more accurate targeting info.
* UAV - As mentioned above, China does have a robust UAV program going right now including the aforementioned XiangLong program. As we've seen in the Zhuhai airshow, they have numerous HALE and MALE UAV projects going. The major problem currently with Chinese UAV programs is that they simply don't have many small turbojet/turbofan engine series. As a result of having to work with what they have, the major design institute in AVIC-1 can't come up with the most optimal UAVs. I think that this will change in the next 10 years, so this part of the targeting system is behind recon satellites and OTH radar.
* Radio post - This is problem the most confusing one for me. The blog talked about working with elint satellites (which I don't think they have) to get the location of the carrier group through communications between ships and satellites/aerial assets.


5. How does the launching/attacking process work?
I think that in times of war, they would launch many micro-EO satellites that have short duration to increase reconnaissance in the area approaching Taiwan. Similar to US, they would have HALE UAVs to do advanced scouting in front of the war zone. The OTH radar will give the base initial idea of incoming fleet. This information would be combined with data of the recon satellites to provide a more precise and more accurate targeting data. The missile would be launched to the estimated position based on initial position + velocity, but this would obviously be off. Although, I think the movement of the carrier group will not be overwhelming. If the target is 2000 km away and the missile is traveling at mach 10 (343 * 3.6 * 10 = 10,000+ km/h) , it would get there in less than 12 minutes. During that time, if the fleet moves at 30 knots, it would move at most 6 knots or around 11 km from the original location. Still, if we add this to the initial precision problems of OTH radar + EO satellite, this could still cause the fleet to be outside the scanning area of the ASBM. In the cruising process, the missile would have to continuously communicate with the base through those new Data relay satellites (like TianLian-1 that they launched recently) to get more improve the precision. The ASBM will also likely veer off the path at this time, so it would need communication with Beidou-2 constellation in order to keep it on track. When it gets close to the target, the blog talked about 3 phases in its attack: high altitude guidance, high altitude gliding and low altitude guidance. I'm really not sure how accurate is the blog's description of the process. Its general theme is slowing down the speed of the missile as it gets closer to the target to maybe give the seeker more time to lock on to target and make unpredictable movements to penetrate defense.

6. What is the operational status of this system?
From all the past sources I've read, it seems like PLAN already considers this system to have achieved IOC. Normally, I don't read about a certain capability developed in a Chinese military magazine until after it is attained. From reading through different sources, it looks like IOC was probably in 2007 or 2008. As mentioned before, more elements in the system like UAV and satellites are getting added as time goes on, so I look at this as a continuously evolutionary process.

7. How beneficial is this system?
That I really would have no idea. I wouldn't even know how much damage would 1 missile cause on a carrier. I would think that if this system can even temporarily put one carrier out of commission and/or keep carrier groups further out from the mainland, it would've achieved its purpose.

8. Are there other launch platforms to this system?
I always thought that an-air launched version of ASBM from JH-7A is possible. There are certainly a large variety of short range ballistic missiles that JH-7A would be able to carry and provide updates for. I have not thought about launching ASBM from a SSBN, since that could easily be mistaken for a nuclear missile.

That's about it. I think a lot of resources on this are available to form an opinion.

Posted by Feng at 7:02 PM"

Is there any evidence to back this ASBM system. what i mean by that is photos, reports of tests, etc. Or is this just a collection of rumours?

With china military, you can only believe what you see, not what you read or hear, and even so it can be misleading.

Office of Naval Intelligence 47-page report

Orthan said:

Is there any evidence to back this ASBM system. what i mean by that is photos, reports of tests, etc. Or is this just a collection of rumours?

With china military, you can only believe what you see, not what you read or hear, and even so it can be misleading.

Click to expand...

Let's take a look at the "47-page report, entitled, 'A Modern Navy with Chinese Characteristics'" written by the Office of Naval Intelligence (ONI). "ONI is the oldest member of the United States Intelligence Community, and is also therefore by default the senior intelligence agency within the armed forces."

China's ASBM program is the "Most worrisome for the US Navy’s pre-eminence in the region...the ASBM’s peculiar flight path, involving a mid-course trajectory correction, will make it very difficult to intercept."



"Measuring The Chinese Fleet
January 27, 2010 · Posted in Industry News, Underwater Defence



A mistake by a US Navy intelligence official has given the world an unexpected peek into the secret world of China’s navy. The US Office for Naval Intelligence (ONI) committed the blunder of posting, on an open website, the agency’s assessment of the state of the Chinese navy. Before the ONI could rectify this indiscretion by pulling off the report, it had been downloaded and posted on publicly accessible websites.

The 47-page report, entitled, “A Modern Navy with Chinese Characteristics”, is still posted on the website of the Federation of American Scientists, a policy advocacy body at:

...
The PLA(N)’s most key acquisition, says the ONI report, is a sophisticated anti-air capability, which would allow its ships to operate in “distant seas”, far from land-based air-defence systems. The Luyang I class of destroyers, already formidable, have been followed by the Luyang II class and the Jiangkai II frigates, which are linked with an air-surveillance network as good as America’s world-standard Aegis system.

Submarines, both conventional and nuclear, will be a key deterrent in the PLA(N). The ONI report says that Beijing will replace its large number of low-tech submarines with “smaller numbers of modern, high-capability boats (submarines)”. But while the number of surface ships remains constant, today’s fleet of 62 submarines will increase over the next 10-15 years to 75. [In that time-frame, India’s submarine fleet will be about one-third that of China’s.]

Most worrisome for the US Navy’s pre-eminence in the region, is the programme to develop the world’s first Anti-Ship Ballistic Missile (ASBM), a variant of China’s Dong Feng – 21 missile. The ONI report reveals that the ASBM’s peculiar flight path, involving a mid-course trajectory correction, will make it very difficult to intercept."




"The Office of Naval Intelligence (ONI) was established in the United States Navy in 1882. ONI was established to "seek out and report" on the advancements in other nations' navies. Its headquarters are at the National Maritime Intelligence Center in Suitland, Maryland. ONI is the oldest member of the United States Intelligence Community, and is also therefore by default the senior intelligence agency within the armed forces."

"Official confirmation that [China] has advanced to the stage of actual testing."





"March 29, 2010

China Testing Ballistic Missile ‘Carrier-Killer’

Last week, Adm. Robert Willard, the head of U.S. Pacific Command (PACOM), made an alarming but little-noticed disclosure. China, he told legislators, was “developing and testing a conventional anti-ship ballistic missile based on the DF-21/CSS-5 [medium-range ballistic missile] designed specifically to target aircraft carriers.”

What, exactly, does this mean? Evidence suggests that China has been developing an anti-ship ballistic missile, or ASBM, since the 1990s. But this is the first official confirmation that it has advanced () to the stage of actual testing.

If they can be deployed successfully, Chinese anti-ship ballistic missiles would be the first capable of targeting a moving aircraft-carrier (click to open pdf file) strike group from long-range, land-based mobile launchers. And if not countered properly, this and other “asymmetric” systems — ballistic and cruise missiles, submarines, torpedoes and sea mines — could potentially threaten U.S. operations in the western Pacific, as well as in the Persian Gulf.

Willard’s disclosure should come as little surprise: China’s interest in developing ASBM and related systems has been documented in Department of Defense (.pdf) and National Air and Space Intelligence Center (.pdf) reports, as well as by the Office of Naval Intelligence (ONI) and the Congressional Research Service. Senior officials — including Secretary of Defense Robert Gates, Director of National Intelligence Dennis Blair (.pdf) and Chief of Naval Operations Admiral Gary Roughead — have pointed to the emerging threat as well.

In November 2009, Scott Bray, ONI’s Senior Intelligence Officer-China, said that Chinese anti-ship ballistic missile development “has progressed at a remarkable rate.” In the span of just over a decade, he said, “China has taken the ASBM program from the conceptual phase to nearing an operational capability.… China has elements of an [over-the-horizon] network already in place and is working to expand its horizon, timeliness and accuracy.”

When someone of Bray’s stature makes that kind of statement, attention is long overdue.

Equally intriguing has been the depiction of this capability in the Chinese media. A lengthy November 2009 program about anti-ship ballistic missiles (video) broadcast on China Central Television Channel 7 (China’s official military channel) featured an unexplained — and rather badly animated — cartoon sequence. This curious 'toon features a sailor who falsely assumes that his carrier’s Aegis defense systems can destroy an incoming ASBM as effectively as a cruise missile, with disastrous results.

The full program is available in three segments (parts 1, 2, and 3) on YouTube. Skip to 7:18 on the second clip to view this strange, and somewhat disturbing, segment.

Likewise, Chinese media seem to be tracking PACOM’s statements about this more closely than the U.S. press. The graphic above is drawn from an article on Dongfang Ribao (Oriental Daily), the website of a Shanghai newspaper.

Beijing has been developing an ASBM capability at least since the 1995-96 Taiwan Strait Crisis. That strategic debacle for China likely convinced its leaders to never again allow U.S. carrier strike groups to intervene in what they consider to be a matter of absolute sovereignty. And China’s military, in an apparent attempt to deter the United States from intervening in Taiwan and other claimed areas on China’s disputed maritime periphery, seems intent on dropping significant hints of its own progress.

U.S. ships, however, will not offer a fixed target for China’s DF-21D anti-ship ballistic missiles. Military planning documents like the February 2010 Joint Operating Environment (.pdf) and Quadrennial Defense Review (.pdf) clearly recognize America’s growing “anti-access” challenge, and the QDR — the Pentagon’s guiding strategy document — charges the U.S. military with multiple initiatives to address it.

In a world where U.S. naval assets will often be safest underwater, President Obama’s defense budget supports building two submarines a year and investing in a new ballistic-missile submarine. And developing effective countermeasures against anti-ship ballistic missiles is a topic of vigorous discussion in Navy circles. The United States is clearly taking steps to prevent this kind of weapon from changing the rules of the game in the Western Pacific, but continued effort will be essential for U.S. maritime forces to preserve their role in safeguarding the global commons."

Defense Secretary Robert Gates: "We ignore [China's ASBM] developments at our peril."

Though Defense Secretary Robert Gates never mentions China by name, he has raised the prospect of moving away from a carrier-centric Navy because of China's development of asymmetric weapons to defeat U.S. carriers.


"May 7, 2010 ... Speech by Secretary of Defense Robert M. Gates at the Navy .... why the Navy needs to rethink its carrier centric policy in this new era .... this year said the move would put carrier procurement on “a more fiscally sustainable path .... Or the cruises could drain away ships, money and sailors given ..."



"Gates To Navy: Anchors Away

Posted 06:16 PM ET


Four Chinese submarines lead 56 destroyers, frigates, missile boats, subs and planes off the port of Qingdao in April 2009 after tensions flared with the U.S. in the South China Sea. AFP/Getty Images/Newscom

Military Advantage: Our defense secretary proposes doing what no other foreign adversary has done: sink the U.S. Navy. We don't need those billion-dollar destroyers, he says. Meanwhile, the Chinese navy rushes to fill the vacuum.

Once Britannia ruled the waves, later to be replaced by America and its Navy. From the Battle of Midway to President Reagan's 600-ship fleet that helped win the Cold War, naval supremacy has been critical to the protection and survival of our nation.

Which is why we find the recent remarks of Defense Secretary Robert Gates to the Navy League at the Sea-Air-Space expo so disturbing. He seems to think naval supremacy is a luxury we can't afford and that, like every other aspect of our military, an already shrunken U.S. Navy needs to downsize.

"As we learned last year, you don't necessarily need a billion-dollar guided missile destroyer to chase down and deal with a bunch of teenage pirates wielding AK-47s and RPGs (rocket-propelled grenades)," Gates quipped.

We are not laughing.

Pubescent pirates aren't the only threat we face. Last month, a Chinese naval task force from the East Sea Fleet — including the imposing Sovremenny-class guided missile destroyers, frigates and submarines — passed through the Miyako Strait near Okinawa, a move that sent shock waves through Japan.

The exercise took place just days after warships from the North Sea Fleet returned from what China's army-navy called "confrontation exercises" in the South China Sea.

"Do we really need 11 carrier strike groups for another 30 years when no other country has more than one?" Gates asked. The answer is yes. Our national interests are global, in every ocean. Some will be in port, and others will be meeting commitments from the Persian Gulf to the Taiwan Strait.

It's well to consider the "new challenges," as Gates put it, in the form of anti-ship missiles in the hands of the Lebanese Shiite militia Hezbollah or the threat posed by Iran's arsenal of missiles, mines and speed boats near the Strait of Hormuz. But new challenges don't make the old ones go away. We must be prepared to meet them all.

"At the end of the day, we have to ask whether this nation can really afford a Navy that relies on $3 billion to $6 billion destroyers, $7 billion submarines and $11 billion carriers," Gates said.

The question is whether we can afford not to. Defense, unlike health care, is a constitutional imperative."




U.S. Department of Defense
Office of the Assistant Secretary of Defense (Public Affairs)
Speech

"Naval War College (Newport, RI)
As Delivered by Secretary of Defense Robert M. Gates, Newport, RI, Friday, April 17, 2009

Good morning. It’s a real pleasure to be here for my first visit as secretary to the Naval War College. Based on the weather I’m thinking I may move the Pentagon here.
...
In this respect, it is important to keep some perspective. For example, as much as the U.S. Navy has shrunk since the end of the Cold War, in terms of tonnage, its battle fleet, by one estimate, is still larger than the next 13 navies combined – and 11 of those 13 navies are U.S. allies or partners. In terms of capabilities, the over-match is even greater. No country in the rest of the world has anything close to the reach and firepower to match a carrier strike group. And the United States has and will maintain eleven until at least 2040. I might also note that we have a number of Expeditionary Strike Groups and will in the not-too-distant future will be able to carry the F-35.

Potential adversaries are well-aware of this fact, which is why, despite significant naval modernization programs underway in some countries, no one intends to bankrupt themselves by challenging the U.S. to a shipbuilding competition akin to the Dreadnought arms race prior to World War I. Instead, we’ve seen their investments in weapons geared to neutralize our advantages – to deny the U.S. military freedom of movement and action while potentially threatening our primary means of projecting power: our bases, sea and air assets, and the networks that support them.

This is a particular concern with aircraft carriers and other large, multi-billion dollar blue-water surface combatants – where the loss of even one ship would be a national catastrophe. We know other nations are working on ways to thwart the reach and striking power of the U.S. battle fleet – whether by producing stealthy submarines in quantity or developing anti-ship missiles with increasing range and accuracy. We ignore these developments at our peril.

The Royal Navy’s greatest defeat in World War II – the sinking of the capital ships H.M.S. Repulse and the brand new Prince of Wales by Japanese aircraft just days after Pearl Harbor – was due in part to a command with little appreciation for air power, and in particular the threat posed by a single, air-delivered torpedo."

"China has recently launched a series of satellites to support its ASBM efforts"


China's ASBM



"Anti-ship ballistic missile

The US Department of Defense has stated that China is developing a conventionally-armed[8] high hypersonic[1] land-based anti-ship ballistic missile (ASBM) based on the DF-21, with a range of up to 3,000 kilometres (1,900 mi). This would be the world's first and only ASBM and the world's first weapons system capable of targeting a moving aircraft carrier strike group from long-range, land-based mobile launchers.[9][10] These would combine manoeuvrable reentry vehicles (MaRVs) with some kind of terminal guidance system. Such a missile may have been tested in 2005-6, and the launch of the Jianbing-5/YaoGan-1 and Jianbing-6/YaoGan-2 satellites would give the Chinese targeting information from SAR and visual imaging respectively. The upgrades would greatly enhance China's ability to conduct sea-denial operations to prevent US carriers from intervention in the Taiwan Strait.[11]

China has recently launched a series of satellites to support its ASBM efforts[citation needed]:

* Yaogan-VII electro-optical satellite - 9 December 2009
* Yaogan-VIII synthetic aperture radar satellite - 14 December 2009
* Yaogan-IX Naval Ocean Surveillance System (NOSS) constellation (3 satellites in formation) - 5 March 2010.[12]"


Yaogan satellite

Re: "China has recently launched a series of satellites to support its ASBM efforts"

Looking at this Wiki article with a slightly different emphasis, there's a lot of subjunctiv in there:

Martian said:

This would be the world's first and only ASBM and the world's first weapons system capable of targeting a moving aircraft carrier strike group from long-range, land-based mobile launchers. These would combine manoeuvrable reentry vehicles (MaRVs) with some kind of terminal guidance system. Such a missile may have been tested in 2005-6, and the launch of the Jianbing-5/YaoGan-1 and Jianbing-6/YaoGan-2 satellites would give the Chinese targeting information from SAR and visual imaging respectively. The upgrades would greatly enhance China's ability to conduct sea-denial operations to prevent US carriers from intervention in the Taiwan Strait.

China has recently launched a series of satellites to support its ASBM efforts[citation needed]

Click to expand...

They may well have a program going and be on the way of establishing a survaillance network. But with no known test, the prospect of hitting a moving ship with a self guided BM warhead remains very questionable for the time being.

Re: "China has recently launched a series of satellites to support its ASBM efforts"

Scratch said:

Looking at this Wiki article with a slightly different emphasis, there's a lot of subjunctiv in there:



They may well have a program going and be on the way of establishing a survaillance network. But with no known test, the prospect of hitting a moving ship with a self guided BM warhead remains very questionable for the time being.

Click to expand...

I guess admiral Willard know better than you for sure


Last week, Adm. Robert Willard, the head of U.S. Pacific Command (PACOM), made an alarming but little-noticed disclosure. China, he told legislators, was “developing and testing a conventional anti-ship ballistic missile based on the DF-21/CSS-5 [medium-range ballistic missile] designed specifically to target aircraft carriers.”

What, exactly, does this mean? Evidence suggests that China has been developing an anti-ship ballistic missile, or ASBM, since the 1990s. But this is the first official confirmation that it has advanced (.pdf) to the stage of actual testing.


Read More

If you have time read the best documented ASBM program aka Project 2049 A long and exhausted study on Chinese ASBM program


Read also Sean O'Connor Blog
CONCLUSION

Over the horizon radar systems, once a source of long range early warning for Cold War enemies, have evolved to the point that their presence on the battlefield poses a serious threat to friendly forces. While many nations have developed OTH systems for various surveillance purposes, Chinese developments in this and other fields have effectively transformed the OTH from a missile warning system to a missile targeting system.

Well, again, I do not doubt the serious efforts and advancements in chinese survaillance and targeting systems, as well as continued development of the DF-21.
Yet, the sentence "developing and testing ..." can just as well indicate the test of a sub system in a wind tunnel. My point was / is, I've not yet come across a referance of an actual flight test, wich shouldn't be too difficult an issue, as I believe a BM flight into the yellow sea would be recognized by quite a few countries. I am aware of the at least two DF-21 MRBM tests in China, but again no referance if those missiles engaged moving targets on a test range, or just maneuvered randomly. And once more, besides that one sentence "developing and testing...", your sources also only point to potential tests in the near future or speak about how such a system would work if it was operational.
And even if such a test would happen soon and knock out a ship, it would be under ideal peace time test circumstances, saying nothing about it's wartime usefullness.

Scratch said:

Well, again, I do not doubt the serious efforts and advancements in chinese survaillance and targeting systems, as well as continued development of the DF-21.
Yet, the sentence "developing and testing ..." can just as well indicate the test of a sub system in a wind tunnel. My point was / is, I've not yet come across a referance of an actual flight test, wich shouldn't be too difficult an issue, as I believe a BM flight into the yellow sea would be recognized by quite a few countries. I am aware of the at least two DF-21 MRBM tests in China, but again no referance if those missiles engaged moving targets on a test range, or just maneuvered randomly. And once more, besides that one sentence "developing and testing...", your sources also only point to potential tests in the near future or speak about how such a system would work if it was operational.
And even if such a test would happen soon and knock out a ship, it would be under ideal peace time test circumstances, saying nothing about it's wartime usefullness.

Click to expand...

China has no functioning Aircraft carriere so it is moot point if you asking for actual testing in yellow sea with actual carriere .It will never happened But you can simulate target in Gobi dessert where China actually testing most of their balistic missile. I don't know how they do it . But the porgram has been going for at least 15 to 20 years. Now they have everything in place from Surveillance, Targeting and the actual missile. The technology as well has matured enough from concept to actual development of hardware and the supporting technology of tracking, targeting as proven by the Anti ballistic missile test. So I wouldn't discount it off hand that they never been tested. As one of the ONI Analyst said

In November 2009, Scott Bray, ONI’s Senior Intelligence Officer-China, said that Chinese anti-ship ballistic missile development “has progressed at a remarkable rate.” In the span of just over a decade, he said, “China has taken the ASBM program from the conceptual phase to nearing an operational capability.… China has elements of an [over-the-horizon] network already in place and is working to expand its horizon, timeliness and accuracy.”

When someone of Bray’s stature makes that kind of statement, attention is long overdue

Read More

I don't know which source are you referring to but it is not unusual to deploy a system while at the same time perfecting the system. eg US ABM deploy is Alaska while at the same time US is still testing the system.

Admiral Willard should know what is he talking about