fatman17
PDF THINK TANK: CONSULTANT
- Joined
- Apr 24, 2007
- Messages
- 32,563
- Reaction score
- 98
- Country
- Location
Opinion: China’s Radar and Missile Work Means More Than Fighters
China’s defense plans are not aircraft-centric
Dec 1, 2014 Bill Sweetman | Aviation Week & Space Technology
Credit: Bill Sweetman/AW&ST
If anything at last month’s Zhuhai show was wearing fishnets and high heels, it was the Shenyang FC-31 stealth fighter. It was a reminder that China has flown two stealth fighter designs. (The Chengdu J-20 was absent, except for the detailed models flying off the shelves of the official souvenir store.) But the prototype was hidden except when it was flying, and not much detail was available. The display was notable for dense and visible wingtip vortices like the trademark contrails of the F-35, and eruptions of smoke from engines—most likely Russian RD-93s.
That is important, because until China manufactures its own fighter engines, it cannot build Chengdu J-10B or Sukhoi-based fighters for its own air force, let alone export and support them, without approval from Vladimir Putin’s desk. The indigenous fighter and trainer engines on display were the same as seen two years ago.
What was new and important on the Chinese military’s outdoor static line at Zhuhai was a mix of mature and new technology. And by “mature” I mean the 1950s-design Xian H-6M bomber, with something suspiciously like a Norden bombsight visible through the windows of the bombardier station. But the bomber was surrounded by guided weapons, some seen for the first time in public (see photo).
Zhuhai was full of new missile hardware, from the 7,700-lb. CX-1 ramjet-powered anti-ship and land-attack missile down to the QW-19 man-portable air defense system. Not many of those missiles were individually surprising. The CX-1 is different in small details from the Russian-Indian BrahMos but very similar in specifications. Two-stage, short-range surface-to-air missiles borrow the concept invented for Russia’s KBM Tunguska and Pantsyr systems, and so on.
What is impressive, however, is how many new Chinese missiles there are, and how they fit together.
One visible trend is the reuse of components to meet different mission needs. Since it appeared at Zhuhai in 2012, the CM-400AKG air-to-surface missile has gathered a lot of attention as a high-supersonic anti-ship weapon. This year, the exhibit strongly suggested that the CM-400AKG shares a motor and warhead with the surface-to-surface SY400 ballistic missile and a passive radar seeker with the new B611MR semi-ballistic anti-radiation missile. The B611MR in turn has a common motor and controls with the M20 GPS/inertially guided missile, and both are intended to use the same mobile launcher and command-and-control system as the CX-1. That is how China can roll out so many missile types so quickly.
A “system of systems” approach was evident in the biggest thinly coded message at Zhuhai. That was the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) air defense lineup, centered on the gigantic JH-27A VHF active, electronically scanned array radar—the first of its type in service anywhere. Just to the left of it were smaller AESAs, one operating in UHF and the other in the centimetric S-band: that is, complementary sensors cued by the VHF radar to track stealthy targets.
At a conference in London the following week, a senior retired U.S. Air Force commander pooh-poohed counterstealth efforts. I don’t know where such confidence originates, because nothing like the JH-27A and its companion radars exists in the West and so we know little of how they work.
Farther down the line were three vehicles—a radar/command vehicle, short-to-medium-range LY-60D/HQ‑6D surface-to-air missile and Norinco LD-2000 seven-barrel 30-mm gun. They constitute a point-defense system against both attacking aircraft and weapons such as precision-guided munitions.
The system is truck-mounted and road-mobile, as are the big and conspicuous radars that stood next to them on display. It is most likely intended to protect those high-value movable assets from even a well-executed destruction of enemy air defense operation. Will it be 100% effective? No. Does it make DEAD much more difficult? Assuredly.
Stealth fighters get the attention even though they smoke like Humphrey Bogart, but there is a lot of PLA money going into reconnaissance-strike complexes that can hold power-projection forces at risk from far beyond the horizon, and radars that are designed to detect, track and target stealth aircraft. That’s the rabbit, and we take our eyes off it at our peril.
Gallery: See Bill Sweetman’s photos of Chinese defense technology on display at the Zhuhai air
show. AviationWeek.com/ZhuhaiTech
China’s defense plans are not aircraft-centric
Dec 1, 2014 Bill Sweetman | Aviation Week & Space Technology
Credit: Bill Sweetman/AW&ST
If anything at last month’s Zhuhai show was wearing fishnets and high heels, it was the Shenyang FC-31 stealth fighter. It was a reminder that China has flown two stealth fighter designs. (The Chengdu J-20 was absent, except for the detailed models flying off the shelves of the official souvenir store.) But the prototype was hidden except when it was flying, and not much detail was available. The display was notable for dense and visible wingtip vortices like the trademark contrails of the F-35, and eruptions of smoke from engines—most likely Russian RD-93s.
That is important, because until China manufactures its own fighter engines, it cannot build Chengdu J-10B or Sukhoi-based fighters for its own air force, let alone export and support them, without approval from Vladimir Putin’s desk. The indigenous fighter and trainer engines on display were the same as seen two years ago.
What was new and important on the Chinese military’s outdoor static line at Zhuhai was a mix of mature and new technology. And by “mature” I mean the 1950s-design Xian H-6M bomber, with something suspiciously like a Norden bombsight visible through the windows of the bombardier station. But the bomber was surrounded by guided weapons, some seen for the first time in public (see photo).
Zhuhai was full of new missile hardware, from the 7,700-lb. CX-1 ramjet-powered anti-ship and land-attack missile down to the QW-19 man-portable air defense system. Not many of those missiles were individually surprising. The CX-1 is different in small details from the Russian-Indian BrahMos but very similar in specifications. Two-stage, short-range surface-to-air missiles borrow the concept invented for Russia’s KBM Tunguska and Pantsyr systems, and so on.
What is impressive, however, is how many new Chinese missiles there are, and how they fit together.
One visible trend is the reuse of components to meet different mission needs. Since it appeared at Zhuhai in 2012, the CM-400AKG air-to-surface missile has gathered a lot of attention as a high-supersonic anti-ship weapon. This year, the exhibit strongly suggested that the CM-400AKG shares a motor and warhead with the surface-to-surface SY400 ballistic missile and a passive radar seeker with the new B611MR semi-ballistic anti-radiation missile. The B611MR in turn has a common motor and controls with the M20 GPS/inertially guided missile, and both are intended to use the same mobile launcher and command-and-control system as the CX-1. That is how China can roll out so many missile types so quickly.
A “system of systems” approach was evident in the biggest thinly coded message at Zhuhai. That was the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) air defense lineup, centered on the gigantic JH-27A VHF active, electronically scanned array radar—the first of its type in service anywhere. Just to the left of it were smaller AESAs, one operating in UHF and the other in the centimetric S-band: that is, complementary sensors cued by the VHF radar to track stealthy targets.
At a conference in London the following week, a senior retired U.S. Air Force commander pooh-poohed counterstealth efforts. I don’t know where such confidence originates, because nothing like the JH-27A and its companion radars exists in the West and so we know little of how they work.
Farther down the line were three vehicles—a radar/command vehicle, short-to-medium-range LY-60D/HQ‑6D surface-to-air missile and Norinco LD-2000 seven-barrel 30-mm gun. They constitute a point-defense system against both attacking aircraft and weapons such as precision-guided munitions.
The system is truck-mounted and road-mobile, as are the big and conspicuous radars that stood next to them on display. It is most likely intended to protect those high-value movable assets from even a well-executed destruction of enemy air defense operation. Will it be 100% effective? No. Does it make DEAD much more difficult? Assuredly.
Stealth fighters get the attention even though they smoke like Humphrey Bogart, but there is a lot of PLA money going into reconnaissance-strike complexes that can hold power-projection forces at risk from far beyond the horizon, and radars that are designed to detect, track and target stealth aircraft. That’s the rabbit, and we take our eyes off it at our peril.
Gallery: See Bill Sweetman’s photos of Chinese defense technology on display at the Zhuhai air
show. AviationWeek.com/ZhuhaiTech
