If you're fine with speculations and rumors, the main difference between the A and B variants according to some, is the replacement of the steel motor casing with a composite one, and a reduction in warhead size from 150 kg into something under 100 kg, and a seeker upgrade.
PLAN Anti-ship/surface missiles
- Thread starter tphuang
- Start date
Thank you, I am happy with that.
Any rumours of an upgraded version coming?
antiterror13
Brigadier
HHQ-9 B version is already one of the best if not the best in the world. I think PLAN will have it upgraded and I sense no urgency at this stage
There is a rumour of HQ-9C, upgraded HQ-9B which incorporates an Active Radar Homing mode. So I'd imagine C version for HHQ is already there or very close
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I think they are all active from the get go. I think this is how it works. The difference being the early version requires the radar being able to track the location of the missile and send command guidance to it until the missile reaches the range of the seeker to the target, referred to as the catch basket.
The problem of this is that with a weaker radar, the radar will lose track of the missile based on the tail RCS of the missile and once that happens the command guidance doesn't know where the missile is and can't send guidance to it, and the missile seeker needs to go live. If the target isn't in the catch basket then the missile has a greater chance of missing. The result is the missile's effective range is the command guidance radar's range vs. the missile's tail RCS.
To extend the range, the fire control and command guidance radar needs to be more powerful and the missile tail RCS needs to be greater. That is what I suspect the followup version of the HQ-9 did. Then finally, going further to increase range, the missile now contains it's own flight telemetry and datalinks it's own tracking location to the radar, so no need for the CG radar to illuminate the tail of the missile to externally track it. So when the missile is far enough and disappears from the FCR, the FCR still tracks the missile via telemetry and continues to know the position and speed of the missile relative to the targets to continue to steer the missile to the target until the missile reaches catch basket range of the target then the active seeker goes live and the missile becomes truly autonomous at this point.
The better phrase for it would be TWS or Track While Scan.
TVM requires not just the missile internal flight telemetry, but also the missile to target closure rate from the seeker being sent to the base station while the target is illuminated by the ground FCR. The terminal phase of the missile is not autonomous but remains base controlled.
This is different from the HHQ-9. I already mentioned the S-band on the Type 346 cannot be used to track and measure closure on the HHQ-9 seeker which is far too small for this purpose. There is no data from the seeker being sent to the base station. The seeker has its own short wave frequency to match the seeker's array size and once the seeker lights up, the missile goes live and hunts on its own.
Even if TWS is described as an aircraft radar mode, but it is exactly how this SAM operates. Like one very big active radar guided missile, only that it's ground launched.
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Not sure I understand this part since if the weaker radar (I assume you mean the baseline 346?) eventually loses track of the tail of the outbound SAM, why would it still be able to track the nose of the inbound ASCM? Not to mention the tail of a missile is flat and wound seem to present a much higher RCS than the nose of a missile which is sloped and would naturally present a much smaller RCS.