Some fanboys again? But mentioning "counter to your counter" or "check mate" doesn't clarify the situation any better. The ASBM is indeed serving its purpose now and the near future.
PLAN Aircraft Carrier programme...(Closed)
- Thread starter bd popeye
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No one said it wasn't serving its purpose.
plawolf
Lieutenant General
Just playing devil's advocate here, but a couple of scenarios for you to consider.
1) Why does China have to conduct an AShBM test by itself? If China wanted to disguise such a test, as it would be in China's interests to do so, it could conduct AShBM tests under the cover of conventional missile tests.
All the warning and cordoning procedures would be similar and met. You'd just be shooting off some AShBMs in addition to the conventional missiles advertised.
China could further confuse observers by conducting an AShBM tests along with amphibious assault exercises by parking a few target ships close to an island its forces are staging a simulated storming against (which in itself would not be an unrealistic scenario to practice, and has a lot of merit for doing, for example testing missile seekers against background clutter interference).
It could fire off conventional IRBMs at land based targets on the island, while at the same time shooting standard AShMs at the seaborne targets.
Choose an island with large cliffs, park a target ship in from of the cliff facing the mainland, and that should effectively shield the ship from any standard observation assets the likes of the US and allies would deploy so they would not be able to tell what hit the ship.
Even if they observed terminal manoeuvring on the incoming BMs, that would likely be chalked down to anti missile-defence penetration manoeuvring.
Conduct this exercise in the Bohai region, which is enclosed by the Liaoning and Shandong peninsulas, effectively making it a contained Chinese sea, where outside observation assets cannot get within dozens or even hundreds of miles of the test zone, and they will have a fair chance to keeping any such test under wraps.
2) Why does such test necessarily have to be conducted out at sea? China could conceivably place a target ship in one of its major inland lakes to target.
Given the short flight time of the missiles, and the fact that China can monitor foreign observation assets, they could conduct the test at a time when no one else has anything overhead or pending, and have everything cleared up or relocated before anyone can re-task space based assets to take a look.
Place the launcher between the lake and know standard ballistic missile test ranges, and it would be very easy to dismiss such an incident as a failed conventional missile test.
That's just two scenarios off the top of my head.
The point being that if China really wanted to, there are plenty of ways it can hide or disguises such a missile test such that it would be hard, if not impossible, for the most independent and diligent intelligence analysts to be able to conclusively say what happened.
There is value in staging unambiguous, highly public demonstration tests, and I think the PLA will do exactly that if tensions risk so high that direct conflict looks like a real possibility.
But there is also value, and methods, in which even in this day and age, the PLA could still hide the true nature of top importance tests from foreign observer with some effort and smart.
The need to do test the entire system, simply put, to ensure that they work in the environment they were designed for. In the end...that's how you find out, and every nation, including the PRC does such testing.
It is true that with a long standing design, that has already been tested many times, and where there are no fundamental changes to the environment or the expectations/mission, you can get away with using components that have already been tested.
But the DF-21D is a new innovation...something that has not been done before. A mission that these systems have not been designed for before. To know that its new-found capabilities will work is something that they need to...and one day will...test.
As to testing it under the cover of a conventional test...they have not done that either in terms of testing the system with all of its sensors, locating, targeting, retargeting, maneuvering, etc. against a maneuvering vessel at sea. When that happens, it will be big news.
I look forward to the day it does.
Because that is the environment it is designed for.
The ability to find the target in a vast area at sea, the ability for the target to move many miles in numerous directions once the missile is launched, the weather patterns, the salinity of the air and humidity and other atmospheric conditions at sea are not something that a lake will replicate.
But, we have been over all of these many times.
As an engineer who has worked on large military programs, including missile programs (THAADS) I can tell you that they will ultimately test the system. Until they do...they may position them, but they will never be fully operational and the PRC will not know assuredly that they will work as designed.
They are spending far too much money and the efforts of far too many very knowledgeable scientists engineers, etc. on this program not to.
Time will tell...and I know we can go around and around about it...in fact over the years we here on SD have done just that.
I stand by my statements...but I have made them and there is really not much more to be said.
plawolf
Lieutenant General
Umm, I'm not getting it, why could they not test all of that in the first scenario I described?
The only thing they will not simulate in that experiment would be the manoeuvring target part, but given the relative speeds we are talking about (M10 or M20 missile vs 30+knots ship), would it make any meaningful difference if the ship is moving or stationary?
How many bog standard subsonic AShM tests are even conducted against moving, never mind manoeuvring targets?
If they wanted to test midcourse course updates, they could easily initially aim the missile for 20-30 miles away from where the ship is parked, and gradually feed the missile updated locational data to simulate a moving target to see if the missile could adjust its course such that when it enters terminal stage, it is close enough to get the target within its own active sensors.
At that point, it really doesn't matter at all if the ship is moving or not since it could not move far enough, fast enough to make any meaning full difference.
The moving target scenario could easily be simulated as above.
As for the rest, forgive me, but do you really think things like salinity and humidity would make any meaningful difference to such tests?
Even just within the general "sea" category, you are going to have a vast range of salinity and humidity values across the world's various seas, oceans and waters. Even supposed constants like sea level can change depending on the lunar cycle.
Surely at some point one has to draw a line of what are relevant variables, and what simply does not make an appreciable difference?
Getting back on topic.
I had seen pictures of this before, but had not seen this video of the Liaoning. Especially from the 1:00 point on showing the joint naval task force.
And this one...though of activities that are a couple of years old, it is a good video compilation of J-15 activity aboard the Liaoning that I had not seen before. The video graphic is a CGI you can ignore, and you have to wait about 25 seconds for the actual video to start...but after that it is fine.:
I had seen pictures of this before, but had not seen this video of the Liaoning. Especially from the 1:00 point on showing the joint naval task force.
And this one...though of activities that are a couple of years old, it is a good video compilation of J-15 activity aboard the Liaoning that I had not seen before. The video graphic is a CGI you can ignore, and you have to wait about 25 seconds for the actual video to start...but after that it is fine.:
I think it was shown on our forum around the time Liaoning was commissioned. Was that lost with the loss of the previous CV thread?
Well, this is simply too far fetched IMHO. Given the status of that ship just last month, I see no way that vessel, as a completed carrier, could be launched this year. Just no way.From Marine Forum Daily News:
China's first domestically-built carrier, currently (allegedly since Aug, 2013) under construction in Dalian, will be launched by year end, possibly on 26 Dec, Mao Zedong's birthday
Unless there is another, completely hidden ship somewhere that we do not know about.
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