PLAN Anti-ship/surface missiles
- Thread starter tphuang
- Start date
The YJ-83 with dual seeker looks really similar to HF-2. Even the position of the IR seeker is practically the same. HF-2 picture below
As for the second picture, isn't it Russian Kh-35/maybe it's derivative? We can see at the bottom left at least 4 launcher containers, so I think it's a screenshot of the Russian Bal/Bal-E Coastal defense complex launch exercise. I'm not sure if Russia ever markets and exported Bal/Bal-E though. Picture of Bal launcher below.
The YJ-83 with dual seeker looks really similar to HF-2. Even the position of the IR seeker is practically the same. HF-2 picture below
As for the second picture, isn't it Russian Kh-35/maybe it's derivative? We can see at the bottom left at least 4 launcher containers, so I think it's a screenshot of the Russian Bal/Bal-E Coastal defense complex launch exercise. I'm not sure if Russia ever markets and exported Bal/Bal-E though. Picture of Bal launcher below.
I think you are right in both counts.
Very interesting booster rocket trajectory - almost horizontal. Assuming it's footage of this "new" missile. Don't think it'll be hypersonic because of that.
But why does an "almost horizontal booster rocket trajectory" exclude a hypersonic missile?
Well I'm certainly not an expert on this but so far the only information us observers have on hypersonic maneuvering weapons (so not counting ballistic missile warheads and various rockets) is that they are either air launched (think the weapon the H-6 was spotted carrying, Kinzhal, AGM-183) where they still carry a rocket booster. Air launched from altitude and at speed but still using a sizeable rocket booster that probably allows the payload to climb to even greater heights before detachment.
The other types are vehicles like the DF-ZF carried on the DF-17 rocket. Avantgard HGV is probably something similar i.e. some SRBM/MRBM/IRBM/ICBM boosted weapon. The Indian test HGV last year was also vertically boosted by a sizeable rocket.
HGVs are (from what I understand) going to go into Sanger trajectory or Qian Xuesen's "wave riding" within the atmosphere. Someone correct me if I'm wrong. Either way, the vehicle will need to pick up enough speed to sustain a controlled and maneuverable hypersonic flight. Some of the best SAMs (non-BMD) really only accelerate themselves to topping out around Mach 4 maybe Mach 5. So if you're shooting your payload pretty much horizontally, your HGV needs to be powered either air breathing or with its own rocket propulsion otherwise it's unlikely the energy imparted will be enough to give the payload much range. We've never seen this method been done like those examples above. The DF-100's booster trajectory is also pretty much vertical.
Then again there have been plenty of scramjet testing and years of "leaks" of new breakthroughs and milestones. It's not impossible that the rocket is simply boosting a small air breathing HGV with an efficient kinetic warhead. That should be actually easier to manage thermodynamically and cheaper than a vehicle the size of DF-ZF that probably will want to be carrying nuclear warhead/s. The kinetic energy alone should be enough to deal decent damage against a ship. Due to lower flight profile, range would be sacrificed for lower observability. But this probably can't be fired from a PLAN warship so coastal defense positioned on islands?