chinese long range cruise missiles

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China is building long-range cruise missiles launched from ship containers .

China is likely to build a variant of its YJ-18 long-range cruise missile that could be fired from shipping containers. This variant would be called the YJ-18C. This new weapon could help China turn its fleet of freighters into potential warships, and commercial ports would then become missile bases.

Actually, the new missile variant is in its flight testing phase. This missile would be a land-attack variant of an advanced anti-ship missile that would be deployed in launchers appearing to be standard international shipping containers from the outside. Such containers are being used all around the world for moving millions of tons of goods, and are often placed on the deck of large freighters.

The YJ-18C is China's version of the Club-K cruise missile built by Russia that also uses a launcher disguised as a shipping container. Israel also is working on a container-launched missile called the Lora. Rick Fisher, a China military affairs expert, said he is not surprised China is copying the Russian Club container-launched missile. "It fits with China's penchant for seeking asymmetric advantages against its enemies," he said.

Fisher said China also showcased precision-guided multiple-launch rockets concealed in a shipping container-launcher, similar to the Club-K concept during a military show in 2016.

The weapon system also could be sold to Iran or North Korea as China has done in the past with other weapons systems, including long-range missile launchers that were transferred to North Korea.

Such container missiles could also be deployed on commercial ships that can sail off U.S. coasts or within American ports prior to a conflict. It would then be an incredible advantage for China in an open armed conflict against the U.S. armed forces. Retired Navy Capt. Jim Fanell, a former Pacific Fleet intelligence chief, said a containerized YJ-18 anti-ship cruise missile would add a significant threat to the Navy given the volume of Chinese container ships that enter U.S. ports on the west and east coast, well within the range of the vast majority of the U.S. fleet.

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A Potent Vector: Assessing Chinese Cruise Missile Developments

By Dennis M. Gormley, Andrew S. Erickson, and Jingdong Yuan Joint Force Quarterly 75

The numerous, increasingly advanced cruise missiles being developed and deployed by the People’s Republic of China (PRC) have largely flown under the public’s radar. This article surveys PRC cruise missile programs and assesses their implications for broader People’s Liberation Army (PLA) capabilities, especially in a Taiwan scenario.

This article draws on findings from a multiyear comprehensive study of Chinese cruise missiles based exclusively on open sources. More than 1,000 discrete Chinese-language sources were considered; several hundred have been incorporated in some form. In descending level of demonstrated authority, these Chinese sources include PLA doctrinal publications (for example, Science of Campaigns ) describing how cruise missiles might be used in operational scenarios; specialized technical analyses ( Winged Missiles Journal ) from civilian and military institutes detailing many specific aspects of such weapons and their supporting infrastructure; didactic PLA discussions ( Modern Navy and People’s Navy ); generalist deliberations on the development trajectory and operational use of cruise missiles ( Naval and Merchant Ships and Modern Ships ); and unattributed speculation on a variety of Web sites. To be accessible to a general audience, this article includes only a fraction of the several hundred citations found in the full study, together with several related sources.

These Chinese sources were supplemented with a wide variety of English-language sources, including—in descending level of demonstrated authority—U.S. Government reports, analyses by scholars and think tanks, and online databases. The authors drew on their combined technical, arms control, and Chinese analysis experience to compare and assess information for reliability.

The result is a study whose details must be treated with caution, but whose larger findings are likely to hold.

YJ-62 antiship cruise missile launched by transporter erector launcher (Courtesy Sino Defense )

China’s military modernization is focused on building modern ground, naval, air, and missile forces capable of fighting and winning local wars under “informatized conditions.” The principal planning scenario has been a military campaign against Taiwan, which would require the PLA to deter or defeat U.S. intervention. Beijing is now broadening this focus to its Near Seas (Yellow, East, and South China seas) more generally.

The PLA has sought to acquire asymmetric “assassin’s mace” technologies and systems to overcome a superior adversary and couple them to the command, control, communications, computers, intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance (C4ISR) systems necessary for swift and precise execution of short-duration, high-intensity wars.

A key element of the PLA’s investment in antiaccess/area-denial (A2/AD) capabilities is the development and deployment of large numbers of highly accurate antiship cruise missiles (ASCMs) and land-attack cruise missiles (LACMs) on a range of ground, naval, and air platforms. China’s growing arsenal of cruise missiles and the delivery platforms and C4ISR systems necessary to employ them pose new defense and nonproliferation challenges for the United States and its regional partners.

Military Value

Chinese writers rightly recognize cruise missiles’ numerous advantages. Cruise missiles are versatile military tools due to their potential use for precision conventional strike missions and wide range of employment options. Although China appears heavily focused on precision conventional delivery, cruise missiles could also be employed to deliver nuclear, biological, or chemical weapons. Due to their superior aerodynamic flight stability compared to ballistic missiles, cruise missiles—by conservative estimates—enlarge the lethal area for biological attacks by a factor of 10.

Modern cruise missiles offer land, sea, and air launch options, allowing a “two-stage” form of delivery that extends the already substantial range of the missiles themselves. They may also be placed in canisters for extended deployments in harsh environments. Because cruise missiles are compact and have limited support requirements, ground-based platforms can be highly mobile, contributing to prelaunch survivability. Moreover, cruise missiles need only rudimentary launch-pad stability, enabling shoot-and-scoot tactics.

Since cruise missile engines or motors do not produce prominent infrared signatures on launch, they are not believed to be detectable by existing space-warning systems, reducing their vulnerability to post-launch counterforce attacks. The potential combination of supersonic speed, small radar signature, and very low altitude flight profile enables cruise missiles to stress naval- and ground-based air defense systems as well as airborne surveillance and tracking radars, increasing the likelihood that they will successfully penetrate defenses. 1 Employed in salvos, perhaps in tandem with ballistic missiles, cruise missiles could saturate defenses with large numbers of missiles arriving at a specific target within a short time.

At the same time, optimal employment of cruise missiles imposes significant requirements: accurate and timely intelligence, suitable and ideally stealthy and survivable delivery platforms, mission planning technology, command, control, and communications systems, and damage assessment. China has lagged in these areas, but its experts recognize their importance, and the relevant Chinese organizations are working hard to make progress.

Institutional and Organizational Actors

China began introducing ASCMs into its inventory in the late 1950s. The Fifth Academy under China’s Ministry of National Defense was assigned the lead role in coordinating national efforts in ASCM research, design, and licensed production. Established in 1956 with U.S.-trained scientist Qian Xuesen as its first director, the Fifth Academy was instrumental in China’s cruise missile development. Acting on guidance from the Central Military Commission, in 1958 the PLA Navy (PLAN) headquarters built an ASCM test site at Liaoxi, Liaoning Province.

Following several bilateral agreements, the Soviet Union transferred Type 542 KS-1 Komet (North Atlantic Treaty Organization [NATO] designation: SSC-2A Salish) shore-to-ship and Type 544 P-15 Termit (NATO designation: SS-N-2A Styx) antiship missiles, models, and technical data to China beginning in 1959. Moscow was to assist Beijing with these and other missile programs. The P-15 would provide the basic foundation for China’s future development of more advanced ASCMs and eventually LACMs.

In 1960, Nanchang Aircraft Manufacturing Company established an assembly line to initiate ASCM production; it would later produce Shangyou-, Haiying-, and Yingji-series ASCMs. Despite the departure of Soviet advisors in September 1960, China conducted its first successful missile test that November. In 1964, China’s first ASCM, a license-produced version of the P-15, passed factory tests. The following year, its first flight test was successful. In late 1967, the resulting “Shangyou-1” missile was approved for production, and it entered service in the late 1960s. 2

As part of China’s efforts to develop an indigenous defense industry base, cruise missile programs received high-level political support from the beginning. In 1969, Zhou Enlai reportedly approved the establishment of a Military Industry Enterprise Base to produce ASCMs. Top leaders allocated funding and human capital and helped protect programs from political interference during the Cultural Revolution.

Yet this support has an important caveat: political leaders placed the highest priority on nuclear and ballistic missile programs given their strategic deterrence function. Cruise missiles, while prioritized more highly than aircraft and some other armaments, suffered from their logical application as armaments for the air force and navy and were subordinated to ground forces. Moreover, as the early Nanchang connection indicates, ASCMs were initially developed within China’s aviation industry. This fact, and the industry’s connection to a politically suspect PLA Air Force (PLAAF), imposed significant limitations.

Cruise missile programs therefore encountered more problems and registered slower progress than their ballistic missile counterparts. Not until the late 1960s and early 1970s was China able to produce its own modified derivatives of early Soviet-model cruise missiles. While recent years have witnessed remarkable progress in ASCMs such as the YJ-62 and LACMs such as the YJ-63/AKD-63 and DH-10, China continues to rely on foreign technological support—particularly Russian and Ukrainian design assistance.

To address persistent problems in its defense research, development, and acquisition system, China has converted numbered ministries to corporations, encouraged competition (with mixed results), and separated military requirements and evaluations (General Armaments Department) from civilian defense industry management and production (formerly the Commission of Science, Technology, and Industry for National Defense, now the State Administration for Science, Technology, and Industry for National Defense). China has simultaneously worked to maximize access to foreign technology and employs an extensive bureaucracy to facilitate its transfer (very effectively) and absorption (less effectively).

China’s cruise missile design, research, development, and manufacturing are now concentrated in a single business division within one of two state aerospace conglomerates, the China Aerospace Science and Industry Corporation (CASIC) Third Academy. One of seven design academies under CASIC—which has over 100,000 employees—the Third Academy is China’s principal research and development (R&D) and manufacturing entity for cruise missiles; all others are secondary. Established in 1961, the Third Academy has been involved in the design and development of 20 types of cruise missiles, including the indigenous Haiying- and Yingji-series and their export versions. 3 Today, it boasts 10 research institutes and 2 factories, with over 13,000 employees, including 2,000 researchers and around 6,000 technicians.

China’s aviation industry remains involved in cruise missile R&D and production. Hongdu Aviation Industry Group (formerly Nanchang Aircraft Manufacturing Company), under Aviation Industry Corporation of China, produced Feilong-series cruise missiles for export. 4

Finally, for three decades China has marketed a wide range of indigenously produced cruise missiles (and other weapons systems) through China Precision Machinery Import and Export Corporation (CPMIEC), the CASIC Third Academy’s export management branch. Established in 1980, CPMIEC is a member of the Xinshidai Group and jointly owned by CASIC and the Chinese Aerospace Science and Technical Corporation.

Antiship Cruise Missile Developments

Like other nations, China has come to regard ASCMs as an increasingly potent means of shaping the outcome of military conflicts and thereby also strengthening peacetime deterrence. China has developed its own advanced, highly capable ASCMs (the YJ series) while also importing Russian supersonic ASCMs, which have no operational Western equivalents. (See table 1 for a list of Chinese ASCMs.)

China’s most sophisticated and threatening imported Russian ASCMs include the 3M80E and 3M80MVE Moskit (NATO designation: SS-N-22 Sunburn) and the 3M54E Klub (NATO designation: SS-N-27B Sizzler). China’s Sovremenny -class destroyers (Project 956E and 956EM) boast the supersonic Sunburn ASCMs that were first delivered to China in 2000–2001. The Project 956E ships carry the early 3M80E missile with a range of 120 kilometers (km), while the Project 956EM destroyers have the 3M80MVE that has an optional longer range (240 km) through the incorporation of a second, high-altitude flight profile setting. But this longer range comes at a price, as a 3M80MVE missile using the higher altitude profile would be detectable at much greater distances and thus more vulnerable to attacks from advanced air defense systems, such as Aegis. Both missiles execute sea-skimming attacks at an altitude of 7 meters and perform terminal maneuvers to reduce the target’s point defense systems effectiveness. The Sunburn is reported to have a speed of Mach 2.3 and has a 300-kilogram (kg) semi-armor piercing warhead. 5

Eight of China’s Kilo -class submarines are Project 636M variants fitted with the Klub-S missile system, which includes the 3M54E/SS-N-27B Sizzler ASCM—also known earlier as Novator Alpha. This missile is unique in that it combines a subsonic, low-altitude approach with a supersonic terminal attack conducted by a separating sprint vehicle. The 3M54E’s cruise range is 200 km at a speed of Mach 0.6–0.8. This is followed by the release of a solid-rocket-propelled, sea-skimming sprint vehicle that travels the last 20 km to the target at a speed of Mach 2.9. The 3M54E ASCM has a 200-kg semi-armor-piercing warhead.

As in so many other areas, even as China seeks the best foreign systems available, it continues to develop increasingly capable indigenous systems. Of China’s foremost indigenous ASCMs, the YJ-82 and YJ-83/83K are the most widely deployed, while the YJ-62 is among the most advanced. The YJ-82 is a solid-rocket-propelled, submarine-launched missile contained in a buoyant launch canister that is, for all intents and purposes, identical to the U.S. submarine-launched Harpoon. While credited with a range of 42 km, the lack of a solid-rocket booster, as with the surface-ship-launched YJ-8/8A, strongly suggests that the YJ-82’s range will be shorter. The missile has a speed of Mach 0.9 and a terminal sea-skimming attack altitude of 5 to 7 meters, and it carries a 165-kg high-explosive fragmenting warhead. 6

The YJ-83/83K missile represents an evolutionary improvement over the YJ-8/8A and the exported C802. Entering service with the PLAN in 1998–1999, the YJ-83 missile has the same propulsion system as the export C802 missile but uses an indigenous CTJ-2 turbojet instead of the French-made TRI 60-2. By replacing the bulky electronics and inertial reference unit (IRU) of the YJ-8/8A/C802 with digital microprocessors and a strap-down IRU, additional volume was made available to increase the YJ-83’s range to 180 km at a speed of Mach 0.9. The air-launched YJ-83K has a rated range of 250 km at the same speed. Both the YJ-83 and 83K possess a slightly larger high-explosive fragmenting warhead of 190 kg. The YJ-83 is the main ASCM of the PLAN and is currently outfitted on virtually every surface combatant in active service. The YJ-83K can be carried by large and small aircraft alike and has been seen on JH-7/A fighter-bombers and H-6 bombers. The export variant of the YJ-83/83K is the C802A and the air-launched C802AK. 7

In September 2005, China unveiled the C602 ASCM for the first time. The small-scale model was clearly larger than the one of the C802 nearby, and the system brochure boasted of a longer range (280 km), global positioning system (GPS) guidance—an unprecedented claim—and a larger semi-armor-piercing warhead (300 kg). The missile size was roughly consistent with large round launch canisters that had started showing up on coastal defense test sites and the Type 052C destroyers then under construction in 2004. The indigenous YJ-62 is very similar to the YJ-83 technologically and largely reflects an evolutionary change in size. While many journals, articles, and Web sites quote the YJ-62’s range as 280 km, this value is only appropriate to the export C602. China has limited the range of its export cruise missiles in conformance with the Missile Technology Control Regime restrictions of 300 km. The YJ-62 itself has a true range on the order of 400 kms. The long range likely necessitated the need for satellite navigation, and the YJ-62 is described as having the ability to use both GPS and Beidou constellations. The missile’s speed is between Mach 0.6 and 0.8, and it executes a sea-skimming terminal attack at 7 to 10 meters. With the exception of the Type 052C destroyers, the YJ-62 is only deployed in mobile coastal defense batteries. 8

Finally, China has been working diligently on producing its own supersonic cruise missiles after the failed YJ-1/C101 and HY-3/C301. Both the YJ-12 and YJ-18 are undergoing tests and represent the next phase in China’s ASCM capabilities. The YJ-12 appears to be a considerably lengthened Russian Kh-31–type missile and is speculated to have a range of 250 km and a speed of Mach 2.5. The YJ-12 is probably an aircraft-carried weapon only. Thus far, only certain H-6 bombers have been seen with a long pylon necessary to support a large missile with an integrated ramjet/booster propulsion system. 9

The YJ-18 appears to be a Chinese copy of the 3M54E Klub. This missile has been described as having a cruise range of 180 km at Mach 0.8 and a sprint range of 40 km at Mach 2.5 to 3.0. It has been reported to be submarine torpedo tube–capable, which is consistent with the CH-SS-NX-13 missile discussion in the Department of Defense’s 2010 and 2011 annual reports to Congress. The YJ-18 has also been characterized as being able to be launched from a surface ship’s vertical launching system (VLS), which is consistent with the capabilities of the generalized or universal VLS being fitted to the new Type 052D destroyer. 10

Along with the growing improvements in ASCM performance, the PLAN has begun to expand its training and has become more diverse and realistic in recent years with increasing focus on cruise missile operations. Beijing has furnished its ASCMs with improved guidance and has started to implement satellite navigation capabilities. Most of the PLAN warships now have a dedicated over-the-horizon (OTH) targeting system, either the Russian-supplied Mineral-ME, or the indigenous version. Still, OTH targeting remains a challenge.

Chinese researchers are studying how to best overcome Aegis defenses and target adversary vulnerabilities. ASCMs are increasingly poised to challenge U.S. surface vessels, especially in situations where the quantity of missiles fired can overwhelm Aegis air defense systems through saturation and multi-axis tactics. More advanced future Chinese aircraft carriers might be used to bring ASCM- and LACM-capable aircraft within range of U.S. targets.

A consistent theme in Chinese writings is that China’s own ships and other platforms are themselves vulnerable to cruise missile attack. But China appears to believe it can compensate by further developing its capacity to threaten enemy warships with large volumes of fire.

Land-Attack Cruise Missile Developments

China has deployed two subsonic LACMs, the air-launched YJ-63/AKD-63 with a range of 200 km and the 1,500+ km-range ground-launched DH-10. (See table 2 for a list of Chinese LACMs.) Both systems benefited from ample technical assistance from foreign sources, primarily the Soviet Union/Russia. The first-generation YJ-63 is an air-launched LACM that employs an electro-optical (EO) seeker with man-in-the-loop steering via a command data link. This missile reportedly reached initial operating capability in 2004, was first seen in 2005 in Internet photography, and is right at the cusp as to when China incorporated satellite navigation in some of their weapons systems. It is currently unknown if the YJ-63/AKD-63 has this ability. 11 In addition to the YJ-63, two other LACMs use some sort of a command data link to feed back the data gathered from the EO sensor: the YJ-83KH and the K/AKD-88. 12 The second-generation DH-10 has a satellite navigation/inertial guidance system, but may also use terrain contour mapping for redundant midcourse guidance and a digital scene-matching sensor to permit an accuracy of 10 meters. Development of China’s Beidou / Compass navigation-positioning satellite network is partly intended to eliminate dependence on the U.S. GPS for guidance.

Beijing has purchased foreign systems and assistance to complement its own indigenous LACM efforts. From Israel, it has received Harpy antiradiation drones with standoff ranges of 400+ km. It is conceivable that China may also have the Russian Klub 3M-14E SS-NX-30 LACM, which can be launched from the PLAN’s Project 636M Kilo -class submarines and deliver a 400-kg warhead to a range of 300 km. But there is little evidence at present to support this possibility.

While current DH-10 ground-launch cruise missiles and YJ-63/AKD-63 air-launched systems are most relevant for a Taiwan contingency, there are strong signs that China is expanding its inventory to include both air-launched and ship-launched LACMs. An air-launched version of the DH-10, called the CJ-20, has reportedly been tested on the H-6 bomber, which has the capability to carry four CJ-20 LACMs externally.

China’s Weapon Test Ship Dahua 892 has experimented with on-deck canister launchers that contain either YJ-18 ASCMs or DH-10 LACMs for at-sea testing. 13 Although most PLAN surface combatants have a limited capacity of 8 to 16 canister launchers—meaning tradeoffs between ASCMs and LACMs—China’s apparent interest in a sea-launched DH-10 strongly suggests that future PLAN destroyers, such as the new Type 052D, will likely be equipped with a new vertical launching system, with a greater capacity to carry both ASCMs and LACMs.

Should China add large numbers of air- and sea-launched LACMs to its already substantial inventory of ground-launched cruise missiles, it would significantly extend the range of the PLA’s capacity to employ LACMs to deal with contingencies beyond Taiwan and the rest of its immediate maritime periphery. 14 Time and dedicated effort will increase the PLA’s ability to employ LACMs, even in challenging combined-arms military campaigns.

Cruise Missile Platforms

A given type of cruise missile can typically be launched from many different platforms. Over the past decade, the PLA has commissioned numerous new, modernized ships, submarines, and aircraft capable of launching cruise missiles. China has produced a new array of frigates and destroyers that carry sophisticated medium- to long-range ASCMs, and some PLAAF/PLAN aviation aircraft can carry LACMs in addition to ASCMs. Song -, Kilo -, and Yuan -class diesel submarines are equipped with Russian and indigenous ASCMs. Shang -class nuclear-powered submarines have or will have ASCMs, as will their Type 095 follow-ons when they enter service. 15 China thus appears to be making a concerted effort to develop its delivery capabilities from air, surface, and subsurface platforms simultaneously. In the near term, China will likely continue to expand its cruise missile inventory and precision delivery capabilities.

Cruise Missile Employment, Doctrine, and Training

China’s new ASCM and LACM programs—like its current military modernization efforts more broadly—are focused on preparing for contingencies in the Taiwan Strait and other proximate disputed areas, which clearly include the possibility of U.S. intervention. The land, sea, and air components of such a contingency would involve ASCMs and LACMs. China appears to believe in the value of large-scale attacks in all three domains.

Since President Bill Clinton’s decision to deploy two aircraft carriers to waters near Taiwan in response to China’s March 1996 ballistic missile tests, PLA planners have focused on U.S. aircraft carriers as the main threat to the success of such PLA missions. Chinese strategists have thus sought ways to target U.S. carrier strike groups (CSGs); Chinese specialists are acutely aware of carrier vulnerabilities, having conducted a wide variety of research directed toward threatening aircraft carriers with “trump cards” such as cruise missiles. Aegis ships are also viewed as essential targets; without their protection, carriers are much more vulnerable to attack.

Various Chinese writings and the logical employment of forces China has been developing suggest that in the event of a maritime conflict with U.S. forces, the PLAN is likely to undertake massive multi-axis ASCM attacks against U.S. CSGs and their Aegis air defense perimeters. The PLAN’s focused experimentation and training in long-range sea strike, its variety of indigenous ASCM weapons, and modernization of ASCM delivery platforms may yield a high probability of success for this effort.

Potential Employment in a Taiwan Scenario

Chinese ASCMs and LACMs could be used in conjunction with other A2/AD capabilities to attack U.S. and partners’ naval forces, land bases, and sea bases that would be critical for U.S. efforts to respond to a Chinese attack on Taiwan. While cross-Strait relations are relatively stable at present, Beijing worries that that could change, and in any case wants to achieve reunification in peacetime, supported in part by its increasing military advantage over Taiwan.

Operating in tandem with China’s huge inventory of conventionally armed ballistic missiles, LACMs could severely complicate Taiwan’s capacity to use its air force to defend against Chinese attacks. Chinese military planners view LACMs as particularly effective against targets requiring precision accuracy (for example, airfield hangars and command and control facilities). They also view large-salvo attacks by LACMs and ballistic missiles as the best means to overwhelm enemy missile defenses.

Chinese planners emphasize the shock and paralytic effects of combined ballistic and LACM attacks against enemy airbases, which could greatly increase the effectiveness of follow-on aircraft strikes. These effects depend significantly on the number of launchers available to deliver missiles. China currently has between 255 and 305 ballistic missile and LACM launchers within range of Taiwan, which are capable of delivering sustained pulses of firepower against a number of critical airfields, missile defense sites, early warning radars, command and control facilities, logistical storage sites, and critical civilian infrastructure such as electrical distribution. 16

Proliferation Implications

If China’s past record of proliferating ballistic missiles and technology is any indication of its intentions vis-à-vis cruise missile transfers, the consequences could be highly disruptive for the nonproliferation regime and in spreading A2/AD capabilities. China has sold ASCMs to other countries, including Iran. Beijing is suspected of furnishing Pakistan with either complete LACMs or components for local assembly.

China is not a full member of the 34-nation Missile Technology Control Regime (MTCR) but has pledged to adhere to the MTCR’s guidelines for missile and missile technology exports. Beijing began seeking MTCR membership in 2004 but has thus far been denied due to concerns about its poor proliferation record. The reason why China represents a critical wildcard regarding the further spread of cruise missiles is that Beijing’s current compliance with its pledge to follow MTCR guidelines is problematic, especially regarding cruise missiles and unmanned aerial vehicles. China needs not only to improve its commitment to address shortcomings in implementation and enforcement but also to work with exporters on improving their compliance with export control regulations and increase its own governmental capacity to deal with the explosive growth of exporting industries across China’s huge landmass. This would require significant efforts on China’s part. However, if China becomes a fully compliant MTCR member, it would be an important achievement in limiting widespread LACM proliferation.

China has invested considerable resources both in acquiring foreign cruise missiles and technology and in developing its own indigenous cruise missile design and production capabilities. These efforts are bearing fruit in the form of relatively advanced ASCMs and LACMs deployed on a wide range of older and modern air, ground, surface-ship, and subsurface platforms.

To realize the full benefits, China will need additional investments in all the relevant enabling technologies and systems required to optimize cruise missile performance. Shortcomings remain in intelligence support, command and control, platform stealth and survivability, and post-attack damage assessment, all of which are critical to mission effectiveness. To employ cruise missiles to maximum effect, the PLA needs to be able to locate targets at a distance, to deploy its air, surface, and submarine platforms within range of those targets, and then to execute a complex, carefully orchestrated joint air and missile campaign—potentially over many days. Operational success also requires accurate, near-real-time intelligence and post-attack assessment capabilities.

A successful campaign depends on both human and technical factors—extremely well-trained military personnel who have practiced these routines in diverse ways over many years and the command and control architecture needed to deal with complex combined-arms operations. Chinese planners envision establishing a Firepower Coordination Center within the Joint Theater Command, which would manage the application of air and missile firepower. Separate coordination cells would be created to deal with missile strikes, airstrikes, special operations, and ground and naval forces. Absolutely critical to achieving the delicate timing separating waves of missile strikes designed to leverage the effectiveness of subsequent aircraft attacks is developing the skill to coordinate and deconflict large salvos of missiles and waves of aircraft operating in multiple sectors. Chinese doctrine calls for such attacks, but the PLA’s ability to execute such a complex joint campaign against a capable adversary has never been demonstrated.

JH-7A fighter-bomber carrying KD-88 land-attack cruise missiles and drop tanks (Courtesy Sino Defense )

The future development of China’s cruise missile systems will depend on multiple factors. One is the role of ASCMs/LACMs in Chinese defense doctrines and military campaign strategies and their relative cost-effectiveness compared to other weapons systems. Second, cruise missile development, and indeed China’s overall defense modernization, will be determined by the government’s priorities as Beijing assesses its economic, social, and defense needs against the security environment and real and perceived threats. Third, U.S. military developments, including missile defenses, its own deployment and use of offensive weapons, and its intentions, will influence how China will react and thus the role of cruise missiles within PLA doctrine and force structure. Finally, the capabilities of China’s defense industry will continue to be a critical factor in whether Chinese cruise missiles can continue to develop and close the technical gap with other major powers such as the United States and Russia.

ASCMs and LACMs have significantly improved PLA combat capabilities and are key components in Chinese efforts to develop A2/AD capabilities that increase the costs and risks for U.S. forces operating near China, including in a Taiwan contingency. Effective ASCMs give the PLAN an expeditionary capability and the ability to deploy and take on other navies. LACMs give China new conventional strike options. These apply most to Taiwan, where ground-, air-, and sea-based systems could be employed, but some Chinese LACMs also have the range to reach Japan and the U.S. territory of Guam and will provide a limited capability wherever the PLAN can deploy. China plans to employ cruise missiles in ways that exploit synergies with other strike systems, including using cruise missiles to degrade air defenses and command and control facilities to enable follow-on airstrikes.

Defenses and other responses to PRC cruise missile capabilities exist, but they require greater attention and a more focused effort. They include the development of more effective missile defenses, technical countermeasures, and creative operational responses. Missile defenses against large-volume Chinese LACM threats will need special attention, if the poor U.S. performance against Iraq’s primitive and small number of LACMs in Operation Iraqi Freedom is an indicator of U.S. weaknesses vis-à-vis such threats. JFQ

• To be sure, the combination of all three of these aspects is difficult to achieve. A supersonic missile is usually not stealthy, particularly from an infrared perspective, and such missiles tend to fly higher to get decent engagement ranges. To delay detection and thereby reduce reaction time, subsonic missiles typically use low-altitude flight profiles. Combining all of them into one missile is difficult to do, and China currently lacks a missile with all three of these characteristics. Information presented by Christopher P. Carlson at the Workshop on Open Source Exploitation, sponsored by Naval War College and Potomac Foundation, Vienna, VA, March 3, 2014.
• A good synopsis of Chinese antiship cruise missiles (ASCM) development can be found in Wang Wei, “Development of the PLA-Navy’s Anti-ship Missile,” Shipborne Weapons 5 (May 2008), 35–47.
• For instance, the HY-2/4 ASCMs have been exported as the C-201/201W.
• This series is essentially defunct, having not competed well with the export versions of the HY and YJ series.
• Russia’s Arms and Technologies: The XXI Century Encyclopedia—Naval Weapons , Volume III (Moscow: Arms and Technologies Publishing House, 2001); Machine Building Design Bureau marketing brochure—3M80E antiship attack missile-weapon complex. For 3M80MVE characteristics, see the Tactical Missiles Corporation JSC Web site at <http://eng.ktrv.ru/production_eng/323/507/541/?PHPSESSID=b56ca0fa59423f9a752a0ccdc67eb72a>.
• Christopher P. Carlson, “China’s Eagle Strike—Eight Anti-Ship Cruise Missiles: YJ-81, YJ-81, and C802 (Part 2),” Defense Media Network, February 6, 2013, available at < www.defensemedianetwork.com/stories/chinas-eagle-strike-eight-anti-ship-cruise-missiles-yj-81-yj-82-and-c802/ >.
• “C602: Anti-Ship Missile Weapon System,” China National Precision Machinery Import and Export Corporation marketing brochure, 2010.
• Christopher P. Carlson, “YJ-12 Photographic Analysis,” February 2014; “Chinese YJ-12 Supersonic Anti-Ship Missile Revealed,” Chinese Military Review , January 2013, available at < http://chinesemilitaryreview.blogspot.com/2013/01/chinese-yj-12-supersonic-anti-ship.html >.
• Christopher P. Carlson, “Deciphering the Eagle Strike-8 Family of Anti-Ship Cruise Missiles,” presentation at Workshop on Open Source Exploitation.
• "PLA’s Tactical Air-To-Surface Missiles (Part 1),” SinoDefence , February 18, 2014, available at < http://sinodefence.com/2014/02/18/plas-tactical-air-to-surface-missiles-part-1/ >.
• Pan Wenlin, “Small Gas-Turbine Unit and China’s Antiship Cruise Missiles,” Shipborne Weapons 8 (August 2010), 14–25; “KD-63 (YJ-63), K/AKD-63,” Jane’s Air-Launched Weapons , January 28, 2014, available at < www.janes.com >.
• “Navalized DH-10 LACM,” China Defense Blog , July 25, 2012, available at < http://china-defense.blogspot.com/2012/07/navalized-cj-10-lacm.html >.
• James C. Bussert, “China Destroyer Consolidates Innovations, Other Ship Advances,” Signal , December 1, 2013, available at < www.afcea.org/content/?q=node/11972 >.
• Military and Security Developments Involving the People’s Republic of China 2013 , Annual Report to Congress (Washington, DC: Office of the Secretary of Defense, 2013), 4, available at < www.defense.gov/pubs/2013_china_report_final.pdf >.
• Military and Security Developments Involving the People’s Republic of China 2009 , available at < www.defense.gov/pubs/pdfs/China_Military_Power_Report_2009.pdf >. Figures were derived from the chart on page 66 of the 2009 report. Only CSS-6 and CSS-7 missile launchers and DH-10s were considered. As the most important factor in delivering pulses of power, missile launchers (not missiles) were the focus. Like aircraft launched from carriers, missiles launched are the appropriate measure of the intensity of fire within a unit of time.

How Are China’s Land-based Conventional Missile Forces Evolving?

Conventionally armed (non-nuclear) missiles have become an increasingly important component of military power. They can be employed to deter threats or project power hundreds or thousands of kilometers away. As part of sweeping efforts to modernize the People’s Liberation Army (PLA), China has developed one of the most powerful land-based conventional missile arsenals in the world. China’s conventional missile forces have significantly reshaped the security landscape in the Indo-Pacific region, and the US and other regional actors are steadily adapting their own capabilities in response.

China’s Growing Conventional Missile Arsenal  

China’s land-based conventional missile capabilities have developed significantly over the last several years. According to the US Department of Defense (DoD), China’s missile forces in 2000 “were generally of short range and modest accuracy.” In the years since then, China has developed the world’s “ largest and most diverse ” arsenal of ground-launched ballistic and cruise missiles. 1

The PLA Rocket Force, which maintains and operates China’s land-based conventional and nuclear missiles, has fielded multiple new missile systems over the last several years. 2 Many of these missiles are capable of carrying both conventional and nuclear payloads. The analysis on this page focuses on China’s conventionally armed missiles, and therefore excludes intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs), submarine-launched ballistic missiles (SLBMs), and certain other systems that only carry nuclear warheads. 3

Tracking China’s Land-based Conventional Missile Forces

As China has developed its conventional missile forces over the last few decades, it has focused heavily on fielding systems that possess greater range and accuracy . This affords the PLA an enhanced ability to conduct precision strikes farther from China’s territory. In particular, China has prioritized the fielding of intermediate-range ballistic missiles (IRBMs), with maximum ranges between 3,000-5,000 kilometers (km). According to the IISS, the number of IRBM launchers in China’s arsenal grew from zero in 2015 to 72 in 2020. This accounts for roughly 56 percent of the growth in China’s total arsenal over this period.

China’s arsenal of IRBMs consists entirely of the Dong Feng-26 (DF-26). With a maximum range of 4,000 km, the DF-26 can fly farther than any other Chinese missile besides nuclear ICBMs and SLBMs. It is reportedly the first and only land-based missile in China capable of conducting conventional strikes against the US territory of Guam, which is home to an American Air Force base. There is also reportedly a variant of the DF-26 that can strike ships at sea. Notably, the DF-26 is likely “ hot swappable ,” or capable of rapidly switching between conventional and nuclear warheads. Each PLA Rocket Force brigade operating the DF-26 is equipped to carry out both conventional and nuclear missions. 

Excludes nuclear-only systems, including ICBMs, SLBMs, and the DF-21A/E.

The PLA Rocket Force has also been fielding a growing number of medium-range ballistic missiles (MRBMs), with ranges of 1,000-3,000 km. China had an estimated 42 MRBM launchers in 2013. By 2020, this figure had more than doubled to 94 launchers. The DF-21D MRBM has been behind much of this growth. Between 2013 and 2020, China’s inventory of DF-21Ds grew from just six to 30.

A conventionally armed variant of the older, nuclear-armed DF-21, the DF-21D has an estimated range of 1,550 km. Unlike its predecessor, the DF-21D is equipped with a maneuverable re-entry vehicle, which significantly enhances the missile’s accuracy. The DF-21D is believed to be the world’s first operational anti-ship ballistic missile, and is often referred to as a “ carrier killer ” for its alleged ability to strike aircraft carriers.  

Interested in learning more about the missile capabilities of China and other countries? The CSIS Missile Defense Project maintains a collection of information on global missile systems, with illustrations and up-to-date information on their capabilities and history.

The Rocket Force is likewise fielding more ground-launched cruise missiles (GLCMs). Between 2013, and 2020, China’s inventory of GLCM launchers grew from 54 to 70. China unveiled its newest cruise missile, the Changjian-100 (CJ-100), at a parade in 2019 commemorating the 70 th anniversary of the country’s founding. 4 The CJ-100 is believed to have a range of up to 2,000 km, but few details have been publicly revealed.

China’s short-range ballistic missile (SRBM) forces have not experienced similar growth. According to IISS, China’s inventory of SRBM launchers actually fell from 252 in 2013 to 189 in 2020. As a share of China’s full conventional arsenal, SRBM launchers declined from about 72 percent of the total to just 45 percent over the same period.

Estimates of China’s missile forces by the DoD show slightly different figures, but similar trends. According to the DoD, the PLA Rocket Force possessed 200 IRBM launchers in 2020 – a massive uptick from as recently as 2016, when the DoD assessed that it had none . From 2010 to 2020, the number of MRBM and GLCM launchers roughly doubled, while the number of SRBM launchers remained essentially unchanged.

China’s conventional missile arsenal is largely unique in the world. The United States and Russia do not possess significant land-based conventional missile forces. This is because the Intermediate-range Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty prohibited the two Cold War superpowers from developing or deploying land-based missiles with ranges of 500-5,500 km from 1987 until the United States’ withdrawal in 2019. If Beijing had been a signatory to the INF Treaty, roughly 95 percent of China’s missiles would be non-compliant.

India has made progress in developing increasingly capable missile forces to deter attacks from Pakistan and China, but its arsenal is smaller than China’s and generally consists of shorter-range weapons. For example, India’s Prithvi class of ballistic missiles has a maximum range of only 350 km and makes up most of India’s arsenal of short-range ballistic missiles. The Indian military fields some longer-range systems, including the Agni-2 MRBM (maximum range of 3,500 km) and the Agni-3 IRBM (maximum range of 5,000 km), but these are dual-capable systems that are believed to primarily carry nuclear payloads.

The Role of Land-based Conventional Missiles in China’s Military Strategy 

For decades, the PLA primarily sought to improve its missile capabilities to better ensure its ability to launch retaliatory nuclear strikes. While deterring nuclear attacks remains a top priority, China’s leaders have attached growing importance to the role of conventional land-based missile capabilities for both deterrence and warfighting.

Alongside conventional missiles, nuclear missiles form a core component of China’s defense capabilities. What steps is Beijing taking to modernize its nuclear missile arsenal? Find out .

China’s pursuit of conventional precision strike capabilities can be traced back to around the end of the Cold War. China’s 1998 defense white paper made clear that the risk of a nuclear world war declined with the conclusion of the Cold War, but the risk of “local wars” remained. For China’s leaders, the US’ success during the 1990-1991 Gulf War provided the first glimpse of how conventional precision strike capabilities could be used to win local wars. The conflict also revealed the extent to which China’s missile capabilities lagged behind those of major powers.

Not long after the Gulf War, leaders in Beijing were again reminded of the need for China to enhance its missile capabilities. During the 1995–1996 Taiwan Strait Crisis, the US deployed two aircraft carrier fleets to the area around Taiwan. The move left Chinese leaders concerned about the ability of the US to project power so close to China’s shores.

This experience is believed to have contributed to Beijing’s pursuit of anti-ship missiles, like the DF-21D and anti-ship variant of the DF-26, along with other missile capabilities that could deter unwanted interventions along its periphery. Together with air and sea defenses, this capability is known as anti-access and area denial (A2/AD).

Click image to enlarge

The geographic distribution of PLA Rocket Force brigades provides insight into the roles that different conventional missile systems might play in implementing A2/AD. For example, many of the Rocket Force brigades fielding the short-range DF-15B and DF-11A are clustered in coastal provinces along the Taiwan Strait. They would thus be the most likely to engage in a potential Taiwan contingency. Reports suggest they are capable of striking Taiwan within just 6-8 minutes after launching, or even less.

Similarly, brigades operating anti-ship missiles like the DF-21D and DF-26 are situated primarily in China’s southern and northern provinces, putting them within range of virtually the entire South and East China Seas, as well as US military forces in South Korea, Japan, and Guam. Notably, only one Rocket Force brigade is located in far-western China, which indicates that PLA leaders assess there is a lower potential need to conduct conventional strikes against ground targets in Central and South Asia. 5

“Other” includes brigades that operate nuclear-only systems, including ICBMs, SLBMs, and the DF-21A/E.

In terms of specific targets, China’s 2008 defense white paper states that the country’s conventional missile forces are charged with conducting precision strikes against “key strategic and operational targets of the enemy.” These targets would include reconnaissance and early warning systems, electronic countermeasure systems, anti-air and anti-missile systems, as well as military bases. By neutralizing these enemy capabilities early in a conflict, the Rocket Force aims to establish the conditions necessary for China’s naval, air, and other forces to conduct their own operations.

The mission set that China has laid out for its land-based conventional missiles differs in important ways from the role that conventional missiles play in other countries’ military strategies. For instance, while much of China’s missile forces are aimed at deterring threats along its maritime periphery, the bulk of India’s land-based missile force is largely geared toward deterring threats along its land border with Pakistan and, increasingly, China.

“The [PLA Rocket Force] plays a critical role in maintaining China’s national sovereignty and security.” — China’s 2019 Defense White Paper

In the US and Russian militaries, land-based conventional missiles have played a minimal role thanks to the limitations put in place by the INF Treaty. However, this may be changing. The US withdrew from the INF Treaty in August 2019 in response to Russia’s fielding of the SSC-8 (9M729) ground-launched intermediate-range cruise missile, which was not compliant with the treaty. The US withdrawal was also motivated by concerns that the treaty left US missile capabilities hamstrung as China rapidly built up its arsenal.

After withdrawing from the INF Treaty, the US carried out two tests , in August and December 2019 respectively, of ground-launched missiles that would have been previously prohibited by the treaty. Additionally, a day after the US withdrew from the INF Treaty, US Defense Secretary Mark Esper expressed his desire for the US to place ground-launched intermediate-range missiles in Asia. So far, however, allies in the region like Australia and South Korea have stated that they have no plans to host any US land-based missiles.

While the US has not yet deployed land-based missiles to the Indo-Pacific, Chinese officials have already voiced their opposition to the US doing so. Fu Cong, director of the Chinese Foreign Ministry’s Department of Arms Control, warned that “China will not stand idly by and will be forced to take countermeasures should the US deploy intermediate-range ground-based missiles in this part of the world.” It remains to be seen whether the US will field new land-based capabilities in the Indo-Pacific, but if Washington does so, it could mark a significant development in the US’ military presence in the region.

The Evolving Indo-Pacific Security Landscape 

As China’s missile capabilities continue to evolve, the security landscape in the Indo-Pacific region is poised to shift significantly in the years to come. Specifically, the advent of hypersonic weapons could undermine existing ballistic missile defense systems established by the US, Japan, and India.

One of the most significant systems in the region is the sea-based US Aegis Ballistic Missile Defense (BMD) System. Aegis is an integrated collection of sensors, computers, software, displays, weapon launchers, and weapons. Together, they facilitate the interception of short to intermediate-range ballistic missiles. The US Navy will possess 48 Aegis BMD-capable ships in 2021 and is projected to increase this to 65 by 2025. 6 Seven of the destroyers in Japan’s Maritime Self Defense Force also operate the Aegis BMD system, with an eighth set to enter service in 2021. 7

India has constructed its own two-tiered missile defense system to deal with missile threats posed by Pakistan and China. Made up of the Prithvi Air Defense and Advanced Air Defense interceptors, the system is engineered to defend against both exo- and endo-atmospheric missiles. According to the Indian government, the tests for the missile defense program were successfully completed by January 2020.

While these missile defense systems might provide some security against enemy missiles, their effectiveness is being eroded by advancements in hypersonic missile technology. Hypersonic weapons, which primarily include hypersonic glide vehicles (HGVs) and hypersonic cruise missiles, are able to travel above five times the speed of sound (Mach 5, or 1.72 km/s) for sustained periods. Their speed and maneuverable flight path 8 make them difficult to track and intercept.

China developed one of the world’s first HGVs primarily to overcome US missile defense systems. China first tested a prototype HGV known as the DF-ZF in January 2014, and tested it at least eight more times through 2017. The DF-17 , as the weapon is now known, can travel at Mach 5-10 (1.72-3.43 km/s) for 1,800-2,500 km. China publicly revealed the DF-17 at a military parade in October 2019, indicating it is likely operational.

Other countries are racing to develop their own hypersonic weapons. In December 2019, Russia stated that it successfully deployed the hypersonic Avangard system, which Russia claims can travel at Mach 20 (6.86km/s) and fly more than 6,000 km. In March 2020, the US tested a hypersonic glide body in a long-range flight test, continuing years of its own research and development. India first successfully tested a short-range hypersonic missile demonstrator in September 2020.

Multiple states are building defense systems to respond to the threat posed by hypersonic missiles. In March 2020, Russia claimed that its S-400 missile defense system successfully destroyed all hypersonic missiles in a live-fire exercise. The US has initiated multiple programs to develop hypersonic missile defense, including the Glide Breaker , the Hypersonic Defense Weapon System , the Regional Glide Phase Weapon System , 9 and the Hypersonic and Ballistic Tracking Space Sensor . Since 2020, the US Missile Defense Agency has been investigating ways to integrate hypersonic glide vehicle defense mechanisms into the US’ existing ballistic missile defense architecture, including Aegis.

Country: China

17 items, page 1 of 0.

DF-12 / M20

Originally designed for export, the DF-12 (M20 / CSS-X-15) is a single-stage, solid-fueled ballistic missile with an advertised range of 280 km. The missile was first offered for sale in 2011 and entered service with the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) in 2013. Domestic variants of the missile are estimated to reach ranges over 400km. DF-12...

Private: HN-3

Private: hn-2, hong niao series (hn-1/-2/-3).

The Hong Niao series (HN-1/-2/-3) of short- and intermediate-range cruise missiles began development in the late 1970s. These ground-, ship-, submarine-, and air-launched cruise missiles were initially based on designs of the X-600, similar to the HY-2 Silkworm. The primary goal of the HN series was to create a nuclear-capable cruise missile with a range...

The JL-2 (Ju Lang-2, CSS-NX-14) is a Chinese intercontinental-range submarine-launched ballistic missile. China likely developed the SLBM jointly with the DF-31 land-based ICBM beginning in 1970. As of 2016, China deploys four Jin-class nuclear ballistic missile submarines each armed with 12 Ju Lang-2 SLBMs. Chinese plans call for the production of a total of 12...

DF-41 (Dong Feng-41 / CSS-X-20)

The DF-41 (Dong Feng [East Wind]-41, CSS-20) is Chinese road-mobile intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM). It has an operational range of up to 15,000 km, making it China’s longest-range missile, and is reportedly capable of loading multiple independently-targeted warheads (MIRV). DF-41 Development China’s Academy of Launch Vehicle Technology (CALT) began developing the DF-41 in July 1986....

DF-31 (Dong Feng-31 / CSS-10)

The DF-31 (Dong Feng [East Wind]-31 / CSS-10) is a Chinese intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM). The three-stage, solid-fueled missile has an estimated range of 7,000 – 11,700 km. China first deployed the DF-31 in 2006, and has developed two successive variants: the DF-31A and DF-31AG. DF-31 development and specifications China’s state-owned Academy of Launch Vehicle...

The DF-5 (Dong Feng-5 / CSS-4) is a silo-based intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM). It was the first ICBM that China developed, and has the longest range of any missile currently in its arsenal. These missiles are capable of delivering large nuclear payloads throughout the United States and Western Europe. DF-5 Development China began developing the...

DF-21 (CSS-5)

The DF-21 (Dong Feng-21, CSS-5) is a medium-range, road-mobile ballistic missile. In service since 1991, it was China’s first road-mobile missile to use solid propellant. China has developed new DF-21 variants, including a dual nuclear/conventional capable variant (DF-21C) and another designed as an antiship ballistic missile (DF-21D). In 2016, the U.S Department of Defense revealed...

The DF-15 (M-9; Dong Feng-15; NATO: CSS-6) is a short-range, road-mobile, solid-fueled ballistic missile developed by the People’s Republic of China. It has a maximum range of 600 – 900 km and can deliver a 500 – 750 kg payload, with conventional warheads optimized for precision strike, bunker-busting, and anti-runway operations. It is capable of...

The DF-16 (Dong Feng-16 / CSS-11) is a road-mobile, solid-fueled, short-range ballistic missile developed and deployed by China. China first publicly displayed the missile during a 2015 military parade. DF-16 Development China’s CASIC Academy of Launch Technology began developing the DF-16 in the 2000s. It was likely a replacement to China’s older DF-15 and DF-11...

The DF-26 (Dong Feng-26) is a Chinese intermediate-range ballistic missile (IRBM). With its range of 4,000 km, it is China’s first conventionally-armed ballistic missile capable of striking Guam. The missile—China’s first nuclear-armed system “that can conduct precision strikes”—can be armed with a conventional or nuclear warhead. An antiship variant, the DF-26B, was tested in 2020....

The DF-11 (Dong Feng-11 / M-11 / CSS-7) is a Chinese short-range ballistic missile (SRBM) with a range of up to 600 km. It was the PRC’s first conventionally-armed SRBM, and its export version, the M-11, is thought to be the basis for Pakistan’s Ghaznavi missiles, among others. DF-11 Development China began development of the M-11...

Missiles of China

The People’s Republic of China is in the process of building and deploying a sophisticated and modern missile arsenal, though one shrouded in secrecy due to intentional ambiguity and unwillingness to enter arms control or other transparency agreements. Beijing features its missiles most prominently in its developing anti-access/area denial doctrines, which use a combination of...

The DF-4 (Dong Feng-4, CSS-3) is a two-stage, transportable, liquid-fueled intermediate to intercontinental ballistic missile (IRBM/ICBM) that entered service in 1980. It was expected to be decommissioned by 2005, but one brigade remains operational near Lingbao, Henan province. DF-4 Development Development of the DF-4 began in 1965, in parallel with the DF-3 (CSS-2). The missile was...

The DF-17 (Dong Feng-17) is a Chinese medium-range missile system equipped with a hypersonic glide vehicle. U.S. officials first confirmed the existence of DF-17 prototypes (DF-ZF/Wu-14) in 2014. DF-17 Development China has invested significant resources in the DF-17 and its other hypersonic weapon programs. The People’s Liberation Army (PLA) has reportedly done so to counter...

The YJ-18 (Yingji [Eagle Strike]-18) is a Chinese cruise missile with variants for antiship and land-attack missions. It is reportedly derived from the Russian 3M-54E “Klub” missile and entered service around 2014. YJ-18 Development The YJ-18 was developed by the China Aerospace Science and Industry Corporation (CASIC) Third Academy starting around the mid-1990s. In 2009,...

Center for International Maritime Security

Fighting DMO, Pt. 8: China’s Anti-Ship Firepower and Mass Firing Schemes

Read Part 1 on defining distributed maritime operations. Read Part 2 on anti-ship firepower and U.S. shortfalls. Read Part 3 on assembling massed fires and modern fleet tactics. Read Part 4 on weapons depletion and last-ditch salvo dynamics. Read Part 5 on salvo patterns and maximizing volume of fire. Read  Part 6  on platform advantages and combined arms roles. Read Part 7 on aircraft carrier roles in distributed warfighting.

By Dmitry Filipoff

Introduction

China’s arsenal of anti-ship weapons is truly a force to be reckoned with, and is superior to that of the United States in many respects. These weapons and the tactics that make use of them can be at the forefront of China’s ability to deny U.S. forces access to the Western Pacific. As both great powers build up and evolve their anti-ship firepower, it is critical to assess their respective schemes of massing fires, and how these schemes may compete and interact in a specific operational context, such as a war sparked by a Taiwan contingency. Whichever side wields the superior combination of tools and methods for massing fires may earn a major advantage in deterrence and in conflict.  

China’s Anti-Ship Missile Firepower

China has assembled a wide array of anti-ship missiles and naval force structure for generating massed fires. These weapons and the way they have been distributed across platform types come together to form an outline for how China can mass fires against warships. These weapons should be assessed through a framework of the specific traits that highlight their mass firing potential, including launch cell compatibility, platform compatibility, range, maximum flight time, numbers of weapons procured, and numbers of weapons fielded per platform.

China’s main anti-ship missiles are the YJ-12, YJ-18, YJ-83, DF-21, and DF-26. The YJ-12 serves as a primary weapon for bombers and coastal launchers; the YJ-18 is a primary weapon for submarines and large surface warships; the YJ-83 is fielded by multirole aircraft and surface warships smaller than destroyers; and the DF-21 and DF-26 ballistic missiles are China’s most long-ranged land-based anti-ship weapons. 1 While there are other anti-ship missiles in China’s inventory, those appear relatively uncommon compared to these five weapons.

Each of these weapons, save for perhaps the YJ-83, is relatively modern and introduced into China’s anti-ship arsenal within the past 10-15 years. 2 While the recency of introduction suggests the inventory may not be deep enough for a major conflict, China’s precise weapon procurement rates are not as publicly discernible compared to U.S. forces. However, the U.S. Department of Defense has stated that China conducted more than 135 ballistic missile live firings for testing and training in 2021, which “was more than the rest of the world combined,” excluding conflict zones. The DoD made the same remark about 2020, with China firing 250 ballistic missiles that year, and earlier again for 2019, but with no accompanying figure. 3 These firing rates suggest that China has invested in a robust missile production industrial base and recognizes the value of building out deep inventories of precision weapons.

The YJ-83 is a relatively common Chinese anti-ship missile that is widely fielded across its surface and air forces. It is similar to the Harpoon in being a smaller, shorter-ranged weapon that is not compatible with vertical launch cells. For warships, it is primarily fielded in box launchers aboard Chinese frigates, corvettes, and small missile boats. Multirole aircraft can field this weapon as well, making it the primary anti-ship missile for non-bomber PLA aircraft, such as land- and carrier-based aviation. 4

The lack of launch cell compatibility makes it fielded in relatively low numbers aboard the compatible platforms. The short range and low magazine depth forces the extensive concentration of platforms to mass large enough volumes of fire. The range of the weapon is short enough that aviation can be forced to concentrate in large numbers within or near the limits of modern shipboard air defenses, although attacking aircraft may still have enough space to fire and then dive to spoil semi-active illumination. Like Harpoon, the greater the proportion of YJ-83s in a mass firing sequence, the greater the risk the force will incur.

The YJ-18 strongly stands out in the PLA arsenal for being its only widely fielded anti-ship missile that is compatible with vertical launch cells. 5 It is fielded aboard China’s large surface combatants, the Type 52D destroyer and Type 55 cruiser, and a torpedo tube-compatible version of the weapon is fielded aboard PLA submarines. 6 By combining a long range of more than 300 miles with launch-cell compatibility, the YJ-18 offers a strong capability for the Chinese surface fleet to distribute across wider areas and still combine large volumes of fire. Primarily because of the YJ-18, it is starkly clear that large U.S. surface warships are heavily outgunned by their Chinese equivalents, and must compensate for the disparity in offensive firepower with superior tactics, defenses, and combined arms methods.

The YJ-12 has similar range to the YJ-18 and is compatible with a larger variety of launch platforms, including coastal launchers and bombers, but crucially it lacks launch cell compatibility. 7 The range of China’s bombers and the roughly 300-mile range of the weapon could allow bombers to reach out at long distances, concentrate aircraft well beyond the range of warship air defenses, and fire effectively first. By being compatible with bombers, this weapon can be at the forefront of China’s ability to fire on warships at extreme ranges from the mainland.

The YJ-12 and YJ-18 feature terminal sprint capability, a major force multiplier that is absent from U.S. anti-ship missiles. By accelerating to around Mach 2.5-3.0 after breaking over the horizon view of a warship, these missiles can offer less than half the reaction time for the target warship to react compared to subsonic weapons. 8 This allows the missile to cross much more distance from the horizon before the warship can make its first intercept, and reduces the time it takes the missile to get inside the minimum engagement range of major warship defenses. By substantially reducing reaction time, terminal sprint allows lethal effect to be achieved with less volume of fire compared to a slower weapon. These weapons still fly at subsonic speed for most of their flight to maximize range, especially when traveling at sea-skimming altitude. This strengthens the imperative to intercept sea-skimming missiles with aviation well before they can activate their deadly terminal sprint capability against warships.

China’s DF-21D and DF-26 anti-ship ballistic missiles offer critical asymmetric advantages by offering a combination of especially high speed and long range, allowing them to be at the forefront of China’s ability to mass fires against warships. This combination of traits also allows these weapons to combine fires with a large variety of other platforms and payloads on a theater-wide scale. If a Chinese platform is firing anti-ship missiles at a naval formation within the second island chain, the defenders cannot discount the possibility that the salvo could be bolstered by high-end ballistic fires launched from the Chinese mainland. However, if the concentrations of these land-based launch platforms are maintained at their widely separated bases across the mainland, then this will lessen the overlap between their fields of fire and dilute their delivery density. 9

With the anti-ship Tomahawk, the U.S. may soon finally have anti-ship firepower that is more widespread and long-range than what resides within China’s arsenal. But it is a major assumption to think China’s anti-ship capability will remain static in the next 10-15 years as the U.S. builds up its anti-ship Tomahawk inventory. The state of advantage could change if China fields anti-ship weapons similar in design to the Tomahawk, or fields more of its novel missile types, such as the YJ-21 anti-ship missile that was reportedly test fired from a Type 55 cruiser in 2022. 10 The YJ-21 could stand to be the first hypersonic, launch-cell compatible, anti-ship missile for Chinese surface forces. While forthcoming variants of the SM-6 could stand to offer similar capability to U.S. forces, it will likely be subject to multiple factors that dilute its anti-ship potential as described in Part 2 . 11 China has clearly demonstrated a strong interest in developing advanced anti-ship missile capability, and will be motivated to maintain its edge.

Key Elements of China’s Naval Force Structure

China’s force structure features much more variety than the U.S. military in terms of the platform types that can field long-range anti-ship firepower. Select elements and traits of this growing force structure deserve to be highlighted in light of their ability to contribute to mass fires.

Within the past decade China’s surface fleet has emerged as a major force in its own right. After producing multiple short-run variants, several modern warship designs entered serial production, dramatically increasing numbers and capability. Today China’s surface fleet is mainly composed of about eight cruisers, 30 destroyers, 30 frigates, 50 corvettes, and 60 fast-attack missile boats. 12 Most of the PLA surface fleet’s capability to fire large volumes of long-range anti-ship missile firepower is concentrated in its large surface combatants, a force of nearly 40 warships that was built within the past ten years. If current production trends hold, this force of large surface combatants could double to around 80 warships within the next decade. 13

The asymmetry of certain scenarios and force structure can allow PLA surface warships to take on more favorable missile loadouts compared to the U.S. Navy. Given its expeditionary nature, the U.S. surface fleet faces greater pressures to split its magazine depth across multiple missions, including anti-ship, anti-air, anti-submarine, and land-attack missions. If the Chinese surface fleet is operating within the second island chain, much of the demand for land-attack capability could be offloaded to forces on the Chinese mainland, such as by having bombers, multirole aircraft, and ballistic missiles filling the demand for land-attack strikes. While Chinese frigates and corvettes have virtually no long-range anti-ship or land-attack capability, their anti-submarine capability could alleviate further demand on the larger surface combatants. The U.S. Navy by comparison does not feature frigates or corvettes, which concentrates its surface fleet’s division of labor in its large surface combatants.

By being spared of the need to devote considerable magazine space to land-attack and anti-submarine weapons, China’s large surface combatants could allocate a larger proportion of their magazines to anti-air and anti-ship weapons than equivalent U.S. warships. This advantage could give China’s surface fleet more capability and staying power on a ship-for-ship basis when it comes to fleet-on-fleet salvo combat.

China’s surface forces can be significantly bolstered by non-military elements. China’s coast guard and maritime militia feature numerous vessels, and its commercial shipping fleet is massive. While these ships feature little in the way of firepower, they can considerably enhance the distribution of Chinese forces and complicate targeting by allowing the Chinese surface fleet to mask its presence among these more numerous vessels. China could also reap considerable gains in the ability to mass fires and pose a far more distributed threat if it opts to extensively field containerized launchers that could fire weapons and decoys from commercial ships. 14 Missile seekers that are programmed to avoid striking contacts that look like civilian vessels may struggle to differentiate these threats. The threat of hidden arsenal ships residing within China’s massive shipping fleet could pose an especially distributed challenge.  

China’s naval service fields bombers within its force structure, unlike the U.S. military. The H-6J variant is optimized for maritime strike and can carry up to six YJ-12 missiles, an increase from the four missiles the H-6G can carry. 15 This increased carrying capacity translates into fewer platforms needing to concentrate around a target to mass enough fires.

These bombers are relatively limited compared to their American counterparts with regard to magazine depth. An American B-1B bomber can launch 24 LRASM missiles, a volume of fire that is four times greater than what an H-6J can muster, and with similar weapons range. 16 The U.S. can launch a greater volume of fire from its bombers by fielding cruise missiles that are small enough to be compatible with internal rotary launchers, substantially increasing the magazine depth per bomber. By comparison, YJ-12s are large enough weapons that they can only be carried via external hardpoints, limiting the magazine depth of the platform.

However, as mentioned in Part 2 , the U.S. Air Force is procuring so few LRASM weapons that long-range anti-ship capability is almost non-existent for the air service. 17 The fact that China has dedicated maritime strike bombers within its naval service suggests it is less likely to grossly under-resource their inventory of anti-ship weapons.

The PLAN operates about 50 attack submarines, where all but a few are diesel-electric, which limits their range and endurance compared to nuclear-powered submarines. 18 A critical shortfall is the lack of vertical launch cells in all PLAN diesel-electric submarines. They are confined to firing anti-ship missiles from their handful of torpedo tubes, which severely restricts their volume of fire. 19 But the ability of these submarines to field anti-ship missiles with terminal sprint capability may allow them to compensate for low volume of fire by launching close-range, high-speed missile attacks against warships.

China fields hundreds of land-based multirole aircraft that could be critical in a naval conflict, including for growing or attriting volumes of fire and securing information advantage. 20 Land-based aircraft tend to have longer range than carrier-based aircraft, but most of China’s land-based aircraft are fielded by the PLA Air Force, which will naturally have less familiarity and practice operating over maritime spaces than PLA naval aviation. 21 But these aircraft will still likely operate over or near maritime spaces in a Taiwan contingency, making them a considerable factor in naval operations.

Among the many trends of China’s evolving naval force structure, its growing inventory of aircraft carriers stands to substantially tilt the naval balance in critical ways. The U.S. ability to overwhelm China’s naval forces will be enhanced by its expanding arsenal of new anti-ship weapons, but maybe not as much as hoped for because of China’s carriers. A world in which the U.S. military has finally built up enough anti-ship Tomahawks and LRASMs to mass fires against warships is also likely to be a world where China has built around six aircraft carriers, if current production trends hold. 22 China is poised to substantially change the balance of naval aviation in the Pacific during the same timeframe it will take the U.S. Navy to field enough weapons to mass anti-ship fires. China’s newfound carrier capability will then be poised to heavily attrit America’s newfound anti-ship capability, which will further drive up the volume of fire the U.S. will have to muster.

But while China may be on track to field more carriers in the Pacific than the U.S. Navy, the U.S. may maintain a critical edge by fielding increasing numbers of the F-35 aboard carriers. It is unclear if China’s carriers will field as many 5 th generation aircraft, potentially giving the U.S. major advantages in sensing, networking, and battle management functions that are powerful force multipliers for massing fires.

Nonetheless, the following dueling concepts of operation for mass fires take place in a hypothetical future 10-15 years from now, with both sides fielding considerable carrier aviation capability, and with China able to project a substantial amount of multirole naval aviation over the Philippine Sea.

China versus the U.S. and Competing Schemes of Mass Fires

The U.S. and China have developed forces that assemble massed fires in different ways. In looking at how a potential conflict may play out, it is critical to conceptualize how these different schemes would interact and oppose one another. A comparison of mass firing schemes highlights each nation’s advantages and disadvantages in the context of the other’s capabilities, and forms an outline for how kinetic exchanges could transpire.

What all of China’s mainstay anti-ship weapons have in common is that they can travel to the limits of their range in roughly 30 minutes. The firing sequences of Chinese massed fires will typically be much shorter and concentrated than that of U.S. forces, such as those that rely heavily on Tomahawks (Figure 1). There will be comparatively less opportunity to counter PLA massed fires after they begin, where a shorter mass firing sequence reduces the defender’s opportunity to reposition defensive airpower to attrit inbound salvos, launch interruptive strikes against waiting archers, and organize last-ditch salvos and their contributing fires. The PLA will benefit from a faster decision cycle compared to forces using much longer firing sequences, where multiple rounds of PLA massed fires could fit into the time it takes to mount a single firing sequence using Tomahawks that are launched near the limits of their range. The emphasis will instead be more about complicating the PLA decision to fire through distribution and other means, carefully pre-positioning airpower to attrit salvos soon after they are launched, and striking PLA archers early enough that they cannot initiate massed fires.

U.S. forces may typically have longer firing sequences by virtue of the Tomahawk’s long range and subsonic speed. However, the longer flight time of the mainstay U.S. anti-ship weapon will give it more opportunity to grow the volume of fire and more ability to leverage waypointing tactics, especially to increase the complexity of threat presentation and to feint attacks in a bid to trigger last-ditch fires. This long range and flight time also translates into more opportunity to maneuver across different salvo patterns, and more ability to recover from deception in pursuit of new contacts. China will be hard pressed to match these advantages, especially when its anti-ship weapons that rival the range of Tomahawk are ballistic missiles that are much more constrained in their ability to maneuver and reorient along their fixed ballistic trajectories.

However, the long range and flight time of Tomahawk gives the defender more opportunity to bring airpower to bear against salvos, and where the range of Tomahawk could outstrip the range of friendly escorting aircraft. Mass firing sequences that heavily depend on Tomahawk will have to strongly emphasize salvo patterns and waypointing tactics to compensate for the weapon’s survivability challenges and to preserve as much volume of fire as possible. These specific challenges and tactics also make Tomahawk especially dependent on naval aviation to provide critical information and air defense support to Tomahawk salvos. If PLA warships manage to get within range of Tomahawk-equipped warships, then many of the advantages that come with Tomahawk’s longer range and flight time will be minimized.

China may hold a critical advantage with respect to interruptive strikes, which are used to disrupt an active firing sequence as it is unfolding. China’s anti-ship ballistic missiles can offer plenty of options for interruptive strikes by virtue of their high speed and long range. Warships that are suspected of being waiting archers in a lengthy firing sequence can be attractive targets for ballistic missile strikes, encouraging those warships to launch earlier and leverage waypointing to artificially increase their time to target. But this comes at the expense of frontloading the firing sequence and reducing the distribution of fires across time. China’s potentially superior ability to launch interruptive strikes could then shift the overall interaction between competing schemes of mass fires. China’s superior interruptive ability can lead to the opponent frontloading their firing sequences, which subsequently affords China more time and opportunity to bring defensive airpower to bear against the incoming salvos, while also giving China more time to organize last-ditch salvos and their contributing fires.

Anti-ship ballistic missiles can cast a shadow over the air defense doctrines of numerous forces operating within the weapons engagement zone, where warships may be forced to split their attention between sea-skimming and ballistic threats simultaneously. Warships deeper in the battlespace may be forced to radiate active sensors for the sake of defending more distant friendly forces from incoming ballistic threats, since being deeper in the battlespace can translate into more opportunity to make midcourse intercepts of those ballistic threats. By being forced to radiate and launch against ballistic threats, these warships could be highlighting their positions to the adversary. But the ability to shoot down ballistic threats will be a critical form of insurance against China’s ability to leverage its potential superiority in interruptive strikes. In this sense, effective ballistic missile defense can interrupt China’s interruptive strikes, and shift the balance of advantage in the ensuing interactions between competing schemes of massed fires.

China’s Multiple Layers of Massed Fires

China’s ability to mass anti-ship fires can be understood in terms of multiple layers. These layers are a function of the range of the weapons and the platforms that field them. Each layer of land-based anti-ship capability adds a new combination of platform types for growing the volume of fire and increasing the complexity of threat presentation. Within these more fixed layers of land-based capability, naval forces can be maneuvered to augment the density of the overlapping fields of fire. While weapons range and platform range are not enough on their own to extrapolate precise concepts of operation, they are an important point of departure for outlining options and limits.

The longest-ranged layer of how China can start to combine anti-ship fires from across land-based platform types is a mix of DF-26 ballistic missiles and bombers. These two delivery systems are China’s most far-reaching options for delivering anti-ship missile firepower, and could come together to threaten naval targets starting at around 1,800 miles from the mainland. 23

Massing fires from this limited combination of platforms poses its own set of challenges, especially by having only two main sources of firepower to draw upon. If bombers are destroyed before they can fire, PLA commanders would be forced to compensate by increasing the expenditure of their most high-end anti-ship weapons. Alternatively, if the kill chains enabling the ballistic missiles are undermined or uncertain, the transiting bombers would have virtually no options to increase their volume of fire while in flight, and may be forced to close with targets to secure targeting information for platforms other than themselves.

Bomber sorties could feature large numbers of aircraft to build a greater margin of overmatch to ensure the volume of fire can remain overwhelming in the face of unforeseen challenges and attrition. This was essentially Soviet naval aviation’s doctrine for distant anti-carrier group strikes, where upwards of 70-100 bombers would fly more than a thousand miles from their bases and then heavily concentrate within 250 miles of a carrier battle group to mass fires. 24 The need to mass fires at extremely long range confined the Soviet Navy’s options to gambling a major amount of its bomber force structure in each individual carrier attack, while being limited to homogenous force packages to produce mass fires instead of leveraging combined arms tactics. PLA naval aviation is perhaps in the more favorable position of being able to combine bomber fires with ballistic fires at extreme ranges, allowing fewer bombers to be risked per strike, and being able to compensate for bomber attrition in a timely manner with high-speed ballistic weapons.

Even so, China may not want to risk sending unescorted bombers into distant oceans and risk losing these valuable platforms to opposing carrier air wings, where air wings can better optimize themselves for early warning and air defense when reacting to especially long-range attacks. 25 Even with the possibility of combining fires with ballistic missiles, the bombers still have to concentrate their platforms inside a 300-mile radius of the target to launch fires. This could present a lucrative and concentrated target for U.S. carrier aircraft, where only a handful of fighters would be enough to credibly threaten a concentration of unescorted bombers. And the fighters can preserve the anti-air threat to bombers even if the bombers drop below the radar horizons of their target warships. Extensive aerial refueling would be required to ensure the bombers have enough aerial escorts that can accompany them on long-range strikes and contend against carrier air. The limitations imposed by refueling copious amounts of smaller escorting aircraft to extreme range could constrain the range of the larger bomber platforms, despite the extensive reach of those aircraft.

While China certainly has some ability to combine fires at the initial 1,800-mile layer, it remains a highly unfavorable scheme for massing fires, especially due to the challenge of providing extreme range aerial escort to bomber forces and a potentially heavy reliance on its most high-end anti-ship weapons.

With the twin overlapping threats of bombers and DF-26s starting at around 1,800 miles from the Chinese mainland, U.S. naval forces can travel another thousand miles closer to China before encountering the next major layer that adds another combination of land-based air and missile forces. These forces include a mix of hundreds of multirole aircraft such as the JH-7, J-10, and J-16 platforms that can field the YJ-83 anti-ship missile. 26 The DF-21D anti-ship ballistic missile also comes into range at around 900 miles from the Chinese mainland, assuming the launchers are near the coastline. 27

This distance is still beyond the range of unrefueled U.S. carrier air strikes, allowing air wings to focus mainly on defense. But this distance is also roughly where U.S. warships and bombers would first be able to fire on Taiwan and the Chinese mainland with land-attack cruise missiles, creating a strong incentive for the PLA to mount a strong naval and air defense at this distance.

Attacking Chinese multirole aircraft would need to heavily concentrate in large numbers within 100 miles of their targets to mass overwhelming fires with the short-ranged YJ-83. But these aircraft are much better able to defend themselves against carrier aircraft compared to bombers and can diversify their loadouts to include a mix of anti-air and anti-ship weapons. If U.S. aircraft are unable to prevent these PLA aircraft from firing their anti-ship weapons, then the number of aerial targets will drastically multiply after they launch their volume of fire. U.S. aircraft will be forced to divide their attention and anti-air weapons between firing on enemy aircraft and firing on enemy missiles that are roughly ten minutes away from impacting friendly warships. And once PLA aircraft fire their anti-ship missiles, they could be well-positioned to attack the U.S. aircraft attempting to attrit the salvos.

U.S. carrier aircraft can certainly be in a position to inflict similar dilemmas on an adversary with their own anti-ship strikes. But a critical difference is that the aforementioned PLA land-based multirole aircraft have longer range than the U.S. Navy’s F/A-18 aircraft, and airfields can have a higher sortie generation rate than carriers. 28 These advantages can give them more opportunity to inflict these dilemmas and with potentially greater numbers on their side.  

However, projecting substantial airpower to nearly 800 miles beyond China’s mainland will still create major demands for aerial tanking capability. To make the most of tankers to extend range, this in-flight refueling would have to take place near potentially contested areas, such as the airspace near Taiwan, the Ryukus, and the Batanes island chain. If the airspace around these locales can be effectively contested, China may be severely limited in its ability to project land-based aircraft in large numbers over the Philippine Sea, forcing China’s carriers to be alone in providing multirole airpower beyond the first island chain.

The next major layer of PLA anti-ship firepower begins roughly 300 miles from the mainland. In this layer, coastal YJ-12 batteries and YJ-83s fired from short-range Type 22 missile boats pose an especially distributed form of massing anti-ship fires. These assets can help the PLA project sea denial over much of the East China Sea, the northern areas of the South China Sea, and over the maritime approaches to Taiwan. The fleet of 60 missile boats in particular could be valuable in contesting sections of the Batanes and Ryukyu island chains and the maritime approaches leading toward expeditionary advance bases posted on those islands. 29

These three main layers of combined anti-ship capability have more limited dispositions due to being fielded by land-based forces and small surface warships. On top of these more static land-based layers, China’s surface and submarine forces are able to dynamically extend the scope and concentration of China’s ability to mass fires against warships, and provide a maneuvering base of offensive fire. But these forces have their own limits to survivability and their ability to generate large volumes of fire.

Chinese submarines could arguably pose some of the earliest missile threats U.S. forces face by deploying far and away from the Chinese mainland, but their volume of fire is especially constrained due to the lack of vertical launch cells. Chinese submarines could still stalk certain areas such as Yokosuka, where they could fire on depleted warships returning from the fight, divert frontline assets to local submarine hunting patrols, and generate uncertainty around the maritime approaches to critical naval bases. Chinese submarines could also make major contributions to preserving the broader PLA anti-ship missile inventory by making a priority of torpedoing U.S. large surface combatants, which boast large missile magazines and considerable air defense capability.

China’s fleet of large surface combatants, primarily the Type 52D destroyers and Type 55 cruisers, could add significant volume to a mass firing scheme. However, it is debatable how far forward China is willing to employ these ships from the mainland in a high-end conflict. The need for airpower to be on hand to improve survivability for these ships and their salvos, and to provide critical airborne information functions, limits how far these ships can be confidently deployed. If China extends a surface force from beyond the umbrella of airpower’s critical enablers, those surface forces may be alone in contending with hostile salvos and airpower, especially from U.S. carrier air wings. Sending surface warships beyond the range of supporting aviation and into the weapons range of opposing aviation is a recipe for defeat in detail.

The struggle to maintain a substantial amount of multirole aviation out to a thousand miles from the mainland imposes significant liabilities on any mass firing scheme China can assemble at this distance. But until China can confidently field a significant number of its own carrier air wings, the bulk of naval-enabling airpower will have to come from land-based aviation that may be hard-pressed to fight in distant waters. For now, the U.S. may be heavily advantaged in being able to maintain robust combined arms relationships between its surface and carrier air forces regardless of the distance between those forces and land-based airfields. In the near-term, China’s ability to make the most of its surface fleet’s contributions to massed fires will be heavily constrained by the range and sustainability of land-based airpower, and its limited ability to overlay airpower’s critical enablers over distant maritime spaces.

In designing the overall scheme of massed fires with these limitations in mind, China’s surface fleet fits well within the second main layer of China’s anti-ship firepower. By leveraging a combination of YJ-18s launched by ships and YJ-83s launched by multirole aircraft, China can substantially lessen the burden on its bombers and land-based ballistic missiles to mass fires. Instead, it can focus on using much more common platforms and missiles to generate massed fires while posing a more distributed threat.

The similar range of the YJ-12 and the YJ-18 means China’s surface and bomber forces need to concentrate within a similar ring around a target to combine fires. Through combined arms methods, warships could provide critical air defense and sensing support to friendly aircraft and provide a protective screen from which their airpower can leverage. Carrier air wings that pursue bombers and multirole aircraft could be led into Chinese warship air defenses.

The range differential between the the YJ-12, YJ-18, and YJ-83 is small enough to create a disposition where PLA aircraft and warships can readily provide critical enablers to one another, rather than the more divided nature of having U.S. airpower travel far forward to support Tomahawk salvos fired from upwards of a thousand miles away. While the similar ranges of China’s primary anti-ship cruise missiles can certainly increase force concentration, their similar ranges also create a foundation for force-multiplying combined arms relationships and closely integrated force packages.

The second main layer of anti-ship firepower at around 800-1,000 miles from the mainland appears the most preferable to China. But maintaining a robust scheme for massing fires at this distance will not just be a function of the available combinations of capability. For China, it is a critical operational imperative.

Buffering the Pacific: Competing Mass Fires in Operational Context

China’s potential schemes of massed fires have to be assessed in a specific operational context. While there are many dimensions to future contingencies, a core operational challenge for China in a Taiwan contingency is to maintain a maritime buffer zone out to around a thousand miles from the mainland. If U.S. and allied forces can get within this range, they can launch large volumes of land-attack cruise missile fires against China and Taiwan that can considerably complicate PLA operations. If China cannot effectively contest a maritime buffer out to this distance, it would have to devote considerable airpower toward cruise missile defense over oceanic spaces, when that airpower may be sorely needed for operations elsewhere. Preempting the looming threat of hundreds of land-attack cruise missiles launching from U.S. warships and bombers is therefore a critical operational imperative for China. As opposing forces contest sea control, the success of the anti-ship effort will unlock or deny options for follow-on power projection that could have decisive effects on a campaign.

A key question then is what sorts of combined arms relationships can China maintain out to this critical distance from the mainland, what schemes of massed fires those relationships would yield, and how those schemes of massed fires would interact with those of opposing expeditionary forces. The previous section highlighted how at about 800-1,000 miles from the mainland, China’s combined arms relationships for massed fires can consist of bombers, anti-ship ballistic missiles, and land-based aviation. China’s surface and submarine forces can be maneuvered to add to this mix, which considerably increases the potential volume of fire and complexity of threat presentation.

China would be in the challenging position of having to maintain a maritime defense that is forward enough to hold U.S. surface forces at risk before they can launch land-attack fires, but not so far forward that it outstrips the PLA’s ability to add more platform types to its combined arms scheme of massing fires. It also cannot be so far forward that surface forces outstrip their ability to be well-supported by aviation in the critical air defense mission, or else those surface forces could be alone in facing withering anti-ship fires. The need to maintain substantial PLA surface warships near the outer edge of a buffer zone would also limit their maneuver space compared to the opposing expeditionary forces that can leverage the broader expanse of the Philippine Sea and adjacent waters. This asymmetry in maneuver space would simplify the scouting and targeting challenges for expeditionary forces facing warships that are tasked with reinforcing a buffer zone. But these surface warships are critical for providing a major base of fire that can persist at the outer edge of the buffer zone, or otherwise a disproportionately large volume of the available firepower would have to come from more transient platforms such as aircraft.

U.S. forces can impose some of these buffering dilemmas today because the land-attack Tomahawk missile is widely fielded across its surface warships. Those warships would still have to lean very heavily on U.S. submarines and carrier aviation to destroy opposing surface and air forces in advance, where those forces could prevent U.S. warships from reaching firing areas that are within Tomahawk range of Taiwan or China.

The dynamic significantly changes if China’s anti-ship capability remains constant enough that the U.S. can secure a major range advantage with the anti-ship Tomahawk. This range advantage would threaten to split apart the combined arms relationships the PLA is able to maintain in a distant maritime buffer. The anti-ship Tomahawk would force the PLA to depend more on the platforms that are better able to reach out and threaten U.S. warships while circumventing Tomahawk firepower by attacking from different domains. These platforms include aviation, submarines, and ballistic missiles, but each of these has significant disadvantages, such with respect to sustainability, volume of fire, and survivability. This scheme may be the only combined arms mix that could have a chance of attacking distant surface forces before they could fire first against an outranged surface fleet.

A key challenge then is how to maintain a robust mass firing scheme within a forward maritime defense when the defender’s anti-ship capability is heavily outranged. If the defender’s surface force can be more easily fired upon first, then it can threaten to remove a major base of fire that is undergirding the combined arms scheme for much of the maritime buffer.

A surface force that is outranged or at risk of aerial attack must rely on more creative and combined arms tactics to compensate for the inferior ability to fire effectively first. This disadvantage especially requires a force to place heavier emphasis on scouting, counter-scouting, deception, and stealth. By securing distinct advantage in these specific areas, a force can earn vital proximity to an adversary with longer-ranged weapons, or induce them to launch wasteful fires, or complicate their decision to fire at all. Airpower is valuable for executing these specific tactics that help warships compensate for a disadvantage in the ability to fire first, but a distant buffer zone increases these challenges by diluting aviation’s availability while limiting the surface maneuver space.

A force that is more likely to be fired on first may be forced to focus much of its initial strategy on optimizing for defense, so it can absorb enough volume of fire in the hopes of then transitioning to a more offensive posture that has better options against a depleted adversary. But if the adversary is firing with weapons of much longer range, then they can more effectively withdraw from the battlespace without coming under fire themselves. The buffering defenders may have to content themselves with inflicting weapons depletion more so than platform attrition, and maintaining sea denial rather than seizing sea control.

China has unique options for reinforcing a maritime buffer even if its surface forces could one day face major disadvantages in their ability to fire first. By filling the forward edge of the buffer zone with copious amounts of state-owned commercial shipping, China could vastly complicate the sensory picture of the battlespace. China’s surface warships could then lurk among these large commercial vessels, and work with aviation to challenge scouts that attempt to probe and make sense of the morass of maritime contacts. Submarines may struggle to use sonar to isolate warship contacts amidst the heavy churning of many commercial ships. Anti-ship missiles may need to rise above sea-skimming altitudes to dodge commercial ships and discover warship contacts, potentially exposing themselves to more defensive fires and offering more early warning to an adversary. China’s uniquely asymmetric ability to leverage large fleets of state-owned commercial shipping in naval warfare deserves careful consideration, especially within the context of maritime active defense.

While China’s commercial fleets can vastly increase the complexity of its naval threat presentation, the U.S. has its own unique advantages that can provide similar effects. The long reach of the Tomahawk broadens the geography of firing areas enough to where the U.S. can capitalize on alliance advantages. The Tomahawk has long enough range to where it can be fired from within the complex littoral geography of the Japanese and Philippine home islands and into a variety of Indo-Pacific maritime spaces. This could allow U.S. forces to circumvent maritime buffers or fire upon them from their littoral margins, which are mostly allied territories. This concept is somewhat similar to the Cold War-era concept of hiding carriers within Norwegian Fjords to launch strikes against the Soviets. 30 Warships traditionally rely on broad oceanic maneuver to be a major enabler, but operating from labyrinthine littoral terrain can also complicate detectability and enhance the complexity of threat presentation even if it comes at the expense of maneuver space.

While operating within fixed geography can certainly help adversaries localize naval forces, it may be more difficult to mass fires against warships residing within these littorals. Operating from these areas substantially increases the opportunity for warships to leverage friendly land-based air defense and aviation for support, increasing the volume of fire required to overwhelm warships. The challenges of navigating over littoral terrain can also force missile salvos to engage in tactically unfavorable behavior. Anti-ship missiles may have to depart from sea-skimming altitudes when flying over land, or burn more range to maintain themselves over water at low altitudes while taking more circuitous routes toward littoral contacts. Although it may increase warship findability in some respects, littoral firing areas could improve defensibility enough to compensate. The U.S. can carefully consider how the Maritime Strike Tomahawk opens up vast opportunity for launching massed fires against opposing fleets from friendly littorals.

Figure 2 highlights how these competing fields of fire overlap, and how firing areas located within these island littorals offer key advantages. These littorals can help U.S. forces circumvent a PLA buffer zone and bring those forces within Tomahawk range of Taiwan and the mainland coast. These separate areas also offer a substantial degree of overlap for combining fires over key geography. Tomahawk-equipped forces lurking within the complex littorals of Kyushu and the central Philippines will be able to combine and mass fires with one another over Taiwan and a substantial area of the Philippine Sea. 

These dueling schemes of massed fires therefore look to increase their complexity of threat presentation with unconventional means. China’s navy could aim to preserve its maritime buffer by lurking within a vast array of commercial vessels, and the U.S. Navy may seek to circumvent or damage the buffer from within a web of allied island geography. While this hardly makes for a traditional view of maneuvering battle fleets exchanging heavy fire, modern navies may be driven toward such methods by the unforgiving ferocity of naval salvo combat and its overriding insistence on firing effectively first.

Conclusion  

China’s ability to mass fires against warships is a product of a truly historic evolution. China was a third-rate maritime power only two decades ago, but it has transformed into a force that heavily outguns the U.S. Navy in major respects. China has clearly stolen a march on the U.S. when it comes to developing advanced anti-ship firepower, and now the U.S. is racing to close the gap. But it will still be many years before the U.S. has the tools in place to have decent options for massing fires. By then, the Chinese naval arsenal may have become something even more fearsome.

Part 9 will focus on the force structure implications of DMO and massed fires.

Dmitry Filipoff is CIMSEC’s Director of Online Content and Community Manager of its naval professional society,  the Flotilla . He is the author of the “ How the Fleet Forgot to Fight” series   and coauthor of “ Learning to Win: Using Operational Innovation to Regain the Advantage at Sea against China . ”  Contact him at  [email protected].

1. For PLA anti-ship cruise missile capabilities and platform compatibility, see:

Dr. Sam Goldsmith, “VAMPIRE VAMPIRE VAMPIRE The PLA’s anti-ship cruise missile threat to Australian and allied naval operations,” Australian Strategic Policy Institute, pg. 10, April 2022,  https://ad-aspi.s3.ap-southeast-2.amazonaws.com/2022-04/Vampire%20Vampire%20Vampire_0.pdf?VersionId=tHAbNzJSXJHskd9VppGNRcTFC4hW7UqD .

For ballistic missile capabilities, see:

“Military and Security Developments Involving the People’s Republic of China,” U.S. Department of Defense, pg. 64-67, 2022, https://media.defense.gov/2022/Nov/29/2003122279/-1/-1/1/2022-MILITARY-AND-SECURITY-DEVELOPMENTS-INVOLVING-THE-PEOPLES-REPUBLIC-OF-CHINA.PDF/ .

2. For Y-18 and DF-26 introduction timeframes, see:

Michael Pilger, “China’s New YJ-18 Antiship Cruise Missile: Capabilities and Implications for U.S. Forces in the Western Pacific,” U.S.-China Economic and Security Review Commission, October 28, 2015, https://www.uscc.gov/sites/default/files/Research/China%E2%80%99s%20New%20YJ-18%20Antiship%20Cruise%20Missile.pdf .

For YJ-83, YJ-12, and YJ-18 introduction timeframes, see:

Dennis M. Gormley, Andrew S. Erickson, and Jingdong Yuan, “A Potent Vector: Assessing Chinese Cruise Missile Developments,” Joint Force Quarterly 75, September 30, 2014, https://ndupress.ndu.edu/Media/News/News-Article-View/Article/577568/a-potent-vector-assessing-chinese-cruise-missile-developments/ .

For DF-21D introduction timeframe, see:

Andrew S. Erickson, “Chinese Anti-Ship Ballistic Missile Development and Counter-intervention Efforts,” Testimony before Hearing on China’s Advanced Weapons Panel I: China’s Hypersonic and Maneuverable Re-Entry Vehicle Programs U.S.-China Economic and Security Review Commission, February 23, 2017, https://www.uscc.gov/sites/default/files/Erickson_Testimony.pdf . 

3. For assessments of PLA ballistic missile firing rates across China Military Power Report editions, see:

“Military and Security Developments Involving the People’s Republic of China,” U.S. Department of Defense, pg. 64, 2022, https://media.defense.gov/2022/Nov/29/2003122279/-1/-1/1/2022-MILITARY-AND-SECURITY-DEVELOPMENTS-INVOLVING-THE-PEOPLES-REPUBLIC-OF-CHINA.PDF .

“Military and Security Developments Involving the People’s Republic of China,” U.S. Department of Defense, pg. 60, 2021, https://media.defense.gov/2021/Nov/03/2002885874/-1/-1/0/2021-CMPR-FINAL.PDF .

“Military and Security Developments Involving the People’s Republic of China,” U.S. Department of Defense, pg. 55, 2020, https://media.defense.gov/2020/Sep/01/2002488689/-1/-1/1/2020-DOD-CHINA-MILITARY-POWER-REPORT-FINAL.PDF .

4. For YJ-83 capabilities, see:

Dr. Sam Goldsmith, “VAMPIRE VAMPIRE VAMPIRE The PLA’s anti-ship cruise missile threat to Australian and allied naval operations,” Australian Strategic Policy Institute, pg. 10, 13, 16, 20, April 2022,  https://ad-aspi.s3.ap-southeast-2.amazonaws.com/2022-04/Vampire%20Vampire%20Vampire_0.pdf?VersionId=tHAbNzJSXJHskd9VppGNRcTFC4hW7UqD .

5. Michael Pilger, “China’s New YJ-18 Antiship Cruise Missile: Capabilities and Implications for U.S. Forces in the Western Pacific,” U.S.-China Economic and Security Review Commission, October 28, 2015, https://www.uscc.gov/sites/default/files/Research/China%E2%80%99s%20New%20YJ-18%20Antiship%20Cruise%20Missile.pdf .

8. For terminal sprint capability, see:

Michael Pilger, “China’s New YJ-18 Antiship Cruise Missile: Capabilities and Implications for U.S. Forces in the Western Pacific,” U.S.-China Economic and Security Review Commission, pg. 2, October 28, 2015, https://www.uscc.gov/sites/default/files/Research/China%E2%80%99s%20New%20YJ-18%20Antiship%20Cruise%20Missile.pdf .

9. Gerry Doyle and Blake Herzinger, Carrier Killer: China’s Anti-Ship Ballistic Missiles and Theater of Operations in the early 21st Century , Helion & Company, pg. 49, 2022.

10. Amber Wang, “Chinese military announces YJ-21 missile abilities in social media post read as warning to US amid tension in Taiwan Strait,” South China Morning Post, February 2, 2023, https://www.scmp.com/news/china/military/article/3208763/chinese-military-announces-yj-21-missile-performance-social-media-post-read-warning-us-amid-tension .

11. “U.S. Hypersonic Weapons and Alternatives,” Congressional Budget Office, pg. 45, January 2023, https://www.cbo.gov/system/files/2023-01/58255-hypersonic.pdf .

12. For Chinese surface fleet ship types and numbers, see:

“Military and Security Developments Involving the People’s Republic of China,” U.S. Department of Defense, pg. 53-54, 2022, https://media.defense.gov/2022/Nov/29/2003122279/-1/-1/1/2022-MILITARY-AND-SECURITY-DEVELOPMENTS-INVOLVING-THE-PEOPLES-REPUBLIC-OF-CHINA.PDF .

Ronald O’Rourke, “China Naval Modernization: Implications for U.S. Navy Capabilities—Background and Issues for Congress,” Congressional Research Service, pg. 8, 27-33, December 1, 2022, https://crsreports.congress.gov/product/pdf/RL/RL33153/265 .

Tayfun Ozberk, “China Launches Two More Type 052DL Destroyers In Dalian,” Naval News, March 12, 2023, https://www.navalnews.com/naval-news/2023/03/china-launches-two-more-type-052dl-destroyers-in-dalian/ .

13. Based on the aforementioned sources listed in reference #12, China built roughly 30 destroyers and eight cruisers in a ten-year period from 2012-2022.

14. Ronald O’Rourke, “China Naval Modernization: Implications for U.S. Navy Capabilities—Background and Issues for Congress,” Congressional Research Service, pg. 13-14, December 1, 2022, https://crsreports.congress.gov/product/pdf/RL/RL33153/265 .

15. “Military and Security Developments Involving the People’s Republic of China,” U.S. Department of Defense, pg. 60, 2022, https://media.defense.gov/2022/Nov/29/2003122279/-1/-1/1/2022-MILITARY-AND-SECURITY-DEVELOPMENTS-INVOLVING-THE-PEOPLES-REPUBLIC-OF-CHINA.PDF .

16. Oriana Pawlyk, “B-1 Crews Prep for Anti-Surface Warfare in Latest LRASM Tests,” Military Times, January 3, 2018, https://www.military.com/dodbuzz/2018/01/03/b-1-crews-prep-anti-surface-warfare-latest-lrasm-tests.html .

17. “Department of Defense Fiscal Year (FY) 2023 Budget Estimates,” Navy Justification Book Volume 1 of 1 Weapons Procurement, Navy, Page 1 of 10 P-1 Line #16, (PDF pg. 261), April 2022, https://www.secnav.navy.mil/fmc/fmb/Documents/23pres/WPN_Book.pdf .

18. Ronald O’Rourke, “China Naval Modernization: Implications for U.S. Navy Capabilities—Background and Issues for Congress,” Congressional Research Service, pg. 8, December 1, 2022, https://crsreports.congress.gov/product/pdf/RL/RL33153/265 .

19. Captain Christopher P. Carlson, “Essay: Inside the Design of China’s Yuan-class Submarine,” USNI News, August 31, 2015, https://news.usni.org/2015/08/31/essay-inside-the-design-of-chinas-yuan-class-submarine .

20. The Military Balance 2022: The Annual Assessment of Global Military Capabilities and Defense Economics, The International Institute of Strategic Studies, Routledge, pg. 259-261, February 2022, https://www.iwp.edu/wp-content/uploads/2019/05/The-Military-Balance-2022.pdf .

21. Ian Burns McCaslin and Andrew S. Erickson, “Selling a Maritime Air Force The PLAAF’s Campaign for a Bigger Maritime Role,” China Aerospace Studies Institute, pg. 15-16, April 2019, https://www.airuniversity.af.edu/Portals/10/CASI/documents/Research/PLAAF/2019-04-01%20Selling%20a%20Maritime%20Air%20Force.pdf .

22. For PLA carrier production rates, see: “Military and Security Developments Involving the People’s Republic of China,” U.S. Department of Defense, pg. 55, 2022, https://media.defense.gov/2022/Nov/29/2003122279/-1/-1/1/2022-MILITARY-AND-SECURITY-DEVELOPMENTS-INVOLVING-THE-PEOPLES-REPUBLIC-OF-CHINA.PDF .

23. For DF-26 range, see:

For H-6J bomber range, see:

“Military and Security Developments Involving the People’s Republic of China,” U.S. Department of Defense, pg. 60, 2022, https://media.defense.gov/2022/Nov/29/2003122279/-1/-1/1/2022-MILITARY-AND-SECURITY-DEVELOPMENTS-INVOLVING-THE-PEOPLES-REPUBLIC-OF-CHINA.PDF .

24. Maksim Y. Tokarov, “Kamikazes: The Soviet Legacy,” U.S. Naval War College Review, Volume 1, 67, 2014, pg. 13, https://digital-commons.usnwc.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1247&context=nwc-review .  

25. Lieutenant Commander James A. Winnefeld, Jr., “Winning the Outer Air Battle,” U.S. Naval Institute Proceedings , August 1989,  https://www.usni.org/magazines/proceedings/1989/august/winning-outer-air-battle . 

26. For JH-7 YJ-83 compatibility, see:

Dr. Sam Goldsmith, “VAMPIRE VAMPIRE VAMPIRE The PLA’s anti-ship cruise missile threat to Australian and allied naval operations,” Australian Strategic Policy Institute, pg. 13, April 2022,  https://ad-aspi.s3.ap-southeast-2.amazonaws.com/2022-04/Vampire%20Vampire%20Vampire_0.pdf?VersionId=tHAbNzJSXJHskd9VppGNRcTFC4hW7UqD .

For J-16 compatibility, see:

Andreas Rupprecht, “Images show PLAAF J-16 armed with YJ-83K anti-ship missile,” Janes, February 18, 2020, https://www.janes.com/defence-news/news-detail/images-show-plaaf-j-16-armed-with-yj-83k-anti-ship-missile .

For J-10 compatibly, see: “New Cruise Missile Confirmed For China’s J-10C Fighter: An Anti-Ship Weapon to Boost Export Prospects?” Military Watch Magazine, March 4, 2022, https://militarywatchmagazine.com/article/new-cruise-missile-confirmed-for-china-s-j-10c-fighter-an-anti-ship-weapon-to-boost-export-prospects .

27. For DF-21 range, see:

28. Air bases can employ “elephant walks” where large numbers of aircraft are surged from an airfield in a back-to-back manner that is not feasible for carriers. Damaged airbase runways are also generally easier to repair than damaged carrier flight decks, such as by using fast-drying concrete that can be ready in several days.

For considerations for air base sortie generation, see:

Christopher J. Bowie, “The Anti-Access Threat and Theater Air Bases,” Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments, 2002, https://csbaonline.org/uploads/documents/2002.09.24-Anti-Access-Threat-Theater-Air-Bases.pdf .

For carrier sortie generation rates, see:

“CVN 78 Gerald R. Ford Class Nuclear Aircraft Carrier (CVN 78),” December 2021 Selected Acquisition Report (SAR), pg. 4, April 28, 2022, https://www.esd.whs.mil/Portals/54/Documents/FOID/Reading%20Room/Selected_Acquisition_Reports/FY_2021_SARS/22-F-0762_CVN_78_SAR_2021.pdf .

“Appendix D: Aircraft Sortie Count,” (for Operational Desert Storm), https://www.history.navy.mil/research/library/online-reading-room/title-list-alphabetically/u/us-navy-in-desert-shield-desert-storm/appendix-d-aircraft-sortie-count.html .

29. Ronald O’Rourke, “China Naval Modernization: Implications for U.S. Navy Capabilities—Background and Issues for Congress,” Congressional Research Service, pg. 40, August 1, 2018, https://crsreports.congress.gov/product/pdf/RL/RL33153/222 .

30. “Vice Admiral Hank Mustin on New Warfighting Tactics and Taking the Maritime Strategy to Sea,” Center for International Maritime Security, April 29, 2021, https://cimsec.org/vice-admiral-hank-mustin-on-new-warfighting-tactics-and-taking-the-maritime-strategy-to-sea/ .

Featured Image: The Type 55 guided-missile destroyer Nanchang (Hull 101) attached to a naval vessel training center under the PLA Northern Theater Command steams in tactical formation to occupy attack positions in an undisclosed sea area during a recent 10-day maritime training exercise. (eng.chinamil.com.cn/Photo by Zou Xiangmin)

6 thoughts on “Fighting DMO, Pt. 8: China’s Anti-Ship Firepower and Mass Firing Schemes”

I hope the added range of the new 21″ variant of SM-6 can also provide our forces a similar option to the Chinese by providing a simultaneous long range cruise and ballistic threat to their fleet.

Our bomber force will be essential, but we need more shooters and we need more rounds coming by other means. P-8s UAVs and other manned fighters can help, but at some point there becomes a need for more ships.

What if the Russians work with the Chinese ? China is expert at producing technology that is sourced from others. Kinzhal is variously reported to have a range of 1500KM – 3000 KM and can be launched from aircraft of ships. Something like this would vastly complicate US fleet operations, would it not ?

If the US ends up in a shooting war with China, it will be because the US miscalculated.

We can talk about mass firing schemes etc all we want. But when the first large US surface combatant is lost with all hands those firing schemes will decline in priority. If even a single US aircraft carrier is lost the shock to the American public, who will probably not be very engaged in the scheming, will suddenly wake up. And when they find after a month or 2 that they can no longer buy cell phones, computers, refrigerators or washing machines, or get their cars repaired due to the “chip drought” that is going to have a more profound impact on the outcome of the war than actual war fighting.

Refer to recent Pentagon leaks about Mach 10 DF-27 hypersonic carrier killer maneuverable glider with 8,000 km range and invulnerable to US missile defence. This implies US major surface combatants are at risk potentially all to way to Hawaii, the Mediterranean, the Indian ocean and northern Australia depending on the launch location from well within China’s borders. With a $US 18 trillion economy where every dollar gets 5-10 more bang for the buck than the US, China has the industrial wherewithal and motivation to mass produce the DF-27, DF-17 and YJ-21 for which the U.S doesn’t have an answer. If China’s suborbital hypersonic glider (dubbed by Milley as a Sputnik Moment), China in theory can sink US carriers and amphibious ships docked on the East coast or sailing in the Atlantic.

“invulnerable to US missile defence” Initially, yes. There are a number of countermeasures being explored (if not already nearing deployment).

Also, Chinese HGV tests that miss the target by ~24 miles (even without defender’s countermeasures) definitely present questions.

As for economy: where did you get “5-10 more bang for the buck” from? 2021 China/US GDP(PPP) was ~$27 trillion/$23 trillion, so quite even.

As the DF-27 is invulnerable to US missile defense, just like the threat of DF-21, the U.S. CVBG must stay away from coast to perform the active AAW, so air force shall perform anti-missile mission. God bless America.

Very good article that puts the spot light on why the Philippines just might be the deciding factor in any shooting conflict in the ( Philippine Sea ) SCS . The US is limited to only Defensive action for the Philippines and so far cannot direct any offensive actions from any Base in the Philippines. That must/has to change if China is to be challenged from a Complete take over of the SCS . Without the Philippine Bases the US will need to tharwart a China take over its just a matter of time ……

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Taiwan says seeking long-range cruise missiles from u.s..

TAIPEI, April 19 (Reuters) - Taiwan is seeking to acquire long-range, air-launched cruise missiles from the United States, a defence official said on Monday, as the Chinese-claimed island bolsters its forces in the face of increasing pressure from Beijing.

While Taiwan is developing its own long-range missiles, to give it an ability to strike back deep into China in the event of war, it has also looked to the United States to help provide it more advanced weaponry.

Asked in parliament which weapons systems Taiwan wants to buy but the United States has not yet said it can, Lee Shih-chiang, head of Taiwan's defence ministry's strategic planning department, named Lockheed Martin Corp's AGM-158.

"We are still in the process of seeking it" from the United States, Lee said. "Communication channels are very smooth and normal."

He did not elaborate.

The AGM-158 JASSM - standing for Joint Air-to-Surface Standoff Missile - can have a range of almost 1,000 km (621 miles) depending on the model, and be fixed to aircraft including F-16s, which Taiwan operates.

Lockheed Martin says the missile is designed to destroy high-value, well-defended, fixed and relocatable targets, and be launched far enough away to keep the launch aircraft well away from enemy air defence systems.

China has stepped up military activity near Taiwan, as it tries to force the government in Taipei to accept Beijing's claims of sovereignty.

Taiwan's armed forces, dwarfed by China's, are in the midst of a modernisation programme to offer a more effective deterrent, including the ability to hit back at bases far from China's coast in the event of a conflict.

Taiwan's armed forces have traditionally concentrated on defending the island from a Chinese attack.

But President Tsai Ing-wen has stressed the importance of developing an "asymmetrical" deterrent, using mobile equipment that is hard to find and destroy, and capable of hitting targets far away from Taiwan.

Washington, Taipei's main foreign arms supplier, has been eager to create a military counterbalance to Chinese forces, building on an effort known within the Pentagon as "Fortress Taiwan".

Beijing views Taiwan as sovereign Chinese territory, and has never renounced the use of force to bring it under its control. (Reporting by Ben Blanchard; Editing by Jacqueline Wong)

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US Navy warships in the Red Sea are fighting off missiles new to combat that are 'way faster' than anything else, destroyer captain says

• US Navy warships in the Middle East have been facing off against anti-ship ballistic missiles.
• The Houthis introduced these missiles into combat for the first time in late 2023.
• The captain of an American destroyer said they are "way faster" than anything else.

US Navy warships operating in the Red Sea have been intercepting deadly ballistic missiles that are "way faster" than anything else, according to the commanding officer of an American destroyer that has shot them down.

Anti-ship ballistic missiles are a dangerous weapon that no military had ever faced in combat until recently when the Houthis started firing them into key Middle Eastern waterways late last year as part of their ongoing attacks on international shipping lanes.

Since then, the Iran-backed rebels have fired dozens of anti-ship ballistic missiles into the Red Sea and Gulf of Aden. US warships in the region have intercepted these missiles on numerous occasions, though some of the weapons have struck commercial vessels. Civilians were killed during an attack in March.

An anti-ship ballistic missile "is just way faster than anything else, Cmdr. Jeremy Robertson, captain of the guided-missile destroyer USS Carney, told reporters during a media event on Monday. He said that while the missiles are a challenge, "we have certain capabilities to be able to detect stuff like that."

The Carney was the first US warship in the region to intercept Houthi threats in the fight that began in October 2023. The destroyer was involved in dozens of engagements during its monthslong deployment — destroying anti-ship ballistic missiles , land-attack cruise missiles, and drones — and it also carried out multiple strikes against the rebels inside Yemen.

The Houthis maintain a sizable arsenal of anti-ship ballistic missiles, according to an analysis by the the International Institute for Strategic Studies think tank.

Some of the missiles are Iranian in origin, while others just contain parts from Tehran. US Central Command has not identified specific missiles that have been used in any of the Houthi attacks, but ballistic missiles, generally, fly at faster speeds than cruise missiles.

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The anti-ship ballistic missile "threat is very challenging — it's very dynamic, and it's very fast," Robertson said. "These are certainly very dangerous areas, and every interaction is completely different from one another."

Robertson said that his sailors work very quickly to engage these missiles because they must. From start to finish, the complex process of detecting a threat, making sure it's real, sorting the trajectory, and engaging, may last "anywhere from nine to 20 seconds," he said.

The Carney was ready for the threat though. "Our systems are doing exactly what we've designed them to do," Robertson said. "We have training pipelines that build on this threat as well, and so we certainly do a lot of training to make sure the team is ready to handle that threat."

During a visit to the Red Sea earlier this year, Business Insider spoke with Navy officers aboard USS Dwight D. Eisenhower , an aircraft carrier, and USS Gravely , a destroyer, about the Houthi anti-ship ballistic missile threat .

They similarly praised the combat systems on their warships for working as intended and said their sailors are properly leaning and training to defeat the threats.

Anti-ship ballistic missiles emerged as a growing concern for the US military long before the conflict with the Houthi conflict began, as Washington looks across the Pacific at China and its growing arsenal of formidable, long-range missiles.

A potential clash between the US and China would unfold across the maritime domain , making anti-ship capabilities a crucial factor.

Experts, including former Navy officers, previously told BI that the Houthi anti-ship missile capabilities don't quite stack up against what China has in its arsenal . Still, the ongoing engagements in the Middle East are providing the Navy with valuable, first-ever combat experience — and information — to deal with these dangerous missiles.

The Carney has also taken on other missile threats beyond those launched by the Houthis during its lengthy deployment.

Last month, after the destroyer moved out of the Middle East and into the eastern Mediterranean Sea, it used its SM-3 interceptors for the first time to shoot down an Iranian medium-range ballistic missile amid Tehran's unprecedented aerial attack against Israel.

The Carney finally returned home to Mayport, Florida on Sunday to wrap up a deployment that lasted more than seven months.

"I could not be more proud of what the Carney team has done since September," Chief of Naval Operations Adm. Lisa Franchetti said aboard the warship earlier this month, welcoming the crew back to the US.

"Called to action on the very first day that you entered the US 5th Fleet, you conducted 51 engagements in six months," Franchetti said. "The last time our Navy directly engaged the enemy to the degree that you have was way back in World War II."

Watch: See the hectic flight deck of a US warship fighting Houthis in the Red Sea

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US to Bolster Nuclear Deterrence with Sea-Launched Cruise Missiles Amid Growing Threats

I n a decisive move to counter the expanding nuclear capabilities of adversaries like Russia, the United States is pressing forward with the development of a new nuclear sea-launched cruise missile (SLCM-N). This step marks a significant shift in the nation’s nuclear posture and demonstrates a commitment to maintaining a credible deterrent against the potential use of nuclear weapons by other global powers.

As outlined in congressional testimony by administration officials, the SLCM-N program has garnered the green light from Congress, which has underscored the necessity of such a development in the face of a less constrained nuclear environment. Indeed, after years of analysis and debate, the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2024 has mandated the initiation of the SLCM-N program, with an eye on operational capability by 2034.

The program’s reintroduction harkens back to the Cold War era, during which similar missiles were deployed on submarines. However, these were retired by 2010, leading to a disparity in regional nuclear capabilities that U.S. allies have taken note of. Russia currently maintains around two thousand tactical nuclear weapons.

The SLCM-N would provide a strategically positioned, sea-based deterrent that could be launched from either surface ships or attack submarines (SSNs), potentially filling a gap in the U.S.’s regional deterrence capabilities. Its deployment would also serve as a tangible reassurance to allies and signify to adversaries that the coercive or military use of nuclear weapons would come with unfathomable risks.

The pursuit of this program does not come without its challenges. The Department of Defense and the National Nuclear Security Administration are already engaged in extensive nuclear weapon replacement programs, stretching their capabilities. To ensure success, Congress must closely monitor the SLCM-N’s progress, ensuring that a competent and adequately staffed program office is established, and that development is grounded in existing technology to control costs.

For instance, modifications to current or planned missiles could save significant expenses, rather than creating a new developmental program from the ground up. An example of such adaptability is the Long Range Stand Off missile (LRSO), currently under development and potentially suitable for submarine use. The Tomahawk sea-launched cruise missile, a fifth-generation missile, could also be examined for this purpose.

Relevant articles:

– The US is building a nuclear sea-launched cruise missile. Congress must make sure it’s built right. , Atlantic Council

– The Nuclear Sea-Launched Cruise Missile: Worth the Investment for Deterrence , The Heritage Foundation

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Navy's HALO Hypersonic Anti-Ship Missile Planned For Ships, Submarines, As Well As Jets

An air-launched air-breathing hypersonic anti-ship cruise missile that is now in development for the U.S. Navy could also arm its ships and submarines. This would give Navy surface and subsurface fleets an entirely new category of naval strike capability. The service has already described its future hypersonic anti-ship missile as essential for tackling advanced naval threats in high-end conflicts, such as one in the Pacific against China .

Details about the Navy's plans for what is formally called the Hypersonic Air-Launched Offensive Anti-Surface Warfare (HALO) program were included in documents posted online as part of a recent contracting announcement . The announcement was not about HALO, specifically, but had to do with the award of a sole-source contract to Lockheed Martin to support the integration of the AGM-158C Long-Range Anti-Ship Missile (LRASM) onto the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter. HALO is also known as the Offensive Anti-Surface Warfare (OASuW) Increment 2. LRASM, which is a Lockheed Martin product and is in service now, is the weapon the Navy chose for the larger OASuW program's Increment 1.

The Navy awarded contracts to Raytheon and Lockheed Martin in March 2023 to develop competing missiles for HALO. Details about the designs are scant, but they are widely believed to be powered by advanced ramjet or scramjet engines .

"The acquisition strategy for Increment 2 HALO system is currently structured as a Middle Tier Acquisition rapid prototyping program with a flight demonstration planned in FY27," according to a justification and approval document related to the LRASM integration contract. "The Increment 2 HALO MTA is planned as a competition for multiple launch platform capabilities (air, surface, and subsurface)."

U.S. government agencies have to formally justify their reasons for awarding contracts without a typical competitive bidding process and submit them for approval. The document in question is dated 2022 and The War Zone has reached out to the Navy for more information about the current state of its HALO plans.

"OASuW Inc 2/HALO will be a carrier-suitable, higher-speed, longer-range, air-launched weapon system providing superior Anti Surface Warfare capabilities," is how the Navy describes the program in its 2025 Fiscal Year budget request, which was released in March. "OASuW Inc 2/HALO will address advanced threats from engagement distances that allow the Navy to operate in, and control, contested battle space in littoral waters and Anti-Access/Area Denial (A2/AD) environments."

Giving Navy ships and submarines, as well as aircraft, this kind of anti-ship capability would make good sense.

As it stands now, the Navy's surface fleets continue to rely heavily on Harpoon anti-ship missiles , the newest versions of which have maximum ranges of around 75 miles, for engaging enemy vessels. Much longer-range Tomahawk cruise missiles, able to reach targets out to around 1,000 miles, have a demonstrated anti-ship capability and the service is acquiring Maritime Strike Tomahawk (MST) variants optimized for this role. The Navy has also been working to add stealthy Naval Strike Missiles (NSM), which can strike targets around 100 miles away, to the arsenals of its two subclasses Littoral Combat Ships (LCS). NSM is also set to be part of the armament package on the service's future Constellation class frigates . All of these missiles are subsonic.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TOfNNyvplWk\u0026t=4s https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GSdPBxILCTc

There is the multi-purpose SM-6, which can also be used in a quasi-ballistic mode against ships and targets ashore, as well. The missile, which has an estimated maximum range of some 230 miles, can also be used to engage various tiers of aerial threats, including ballistic and hypersonic missiles in the terminal stages of their flights.

Harpoon is the primary anti-ship missile option available to the Navy's submarine community . At least some Navy submarine classes are expected to be able to employ MST versions of the Tomahawk in the future, as well.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w9Af67QU4OA

The Navy does have plans to arm its Zumwalt class stealth destroyers and future Block V Virginia class submarines with the Intermediate Range Conventional Prompt Strike (IRCPS) hypersonic missile. This weapon is different from HALO in that it is designed around an unpowered boost-glide vehicle, a category of hypersonic weapon you can read more about here . IRCPS is also expected to be a low-density weapon reserved primarily for striking very high-value and well-protected strategic-level targets like major air defense and other command and control nodes.

HALO would therefore give Navy ships and submarines a new way to strike at an opponent's ships rapidly, even at extended ranges. The weapon's hypersonic speed would also present complications for shipboard defenses and just generally reduce the time enemy forces have to react.

Using a common core air-breathing hypersonic anti-ship cruise missile design for air, surface, and subsurface launch applications presents benefits when it comes to acquisition and sustainment, as well. Economies of scale could help reduce the unit costs of the missiles and common supply chains could help keep support costs low.

A ship-launched version of HALO could potentially translate to a ground-launched configuration that might be of interest elsewhere in the U.S. military. The U.S. Marine Corps is already fielding ground-based launchers for NSM and Tomahawk , while the Army and Navy have their own land-based launch systems capable of firing SM-6s and Tomahawks.

In the air-launched realm, the Air Force is also pursuing an air-breathing hypersonic cruise missile under its Hypersonic Attack Cruise Missile (HACM) program . HACM is primarily intended to "hold fixed, high value, time-sensitive targets at risk," according to Air Force budget documents .

Leveraging the winning HALO design for use beyond the air-launched mode would also help explain the curious absence of any other known Navy plans to field a hypersonic anti-ship cruise missile on its ships and submarines. Other countries, including America's chief competitors China and Russia , are developing and fielding their own hypersonic cruise missiles, including for maritime strike applications .

The Navy has explored multiple faster-flying anti-ship cruise missile concepts, including as part of a parallel effort to the original LRASM program, in the past. Between the 2000s and early 2010s, the service had also been working on a very long-range cruise missile with high-supersonic speed called Revolutionary Approach To Time-critical Long Range Strike (RATTLRS) before it disappeared from the public eye with little explanation. Lockheed Martin's Skunk Works was the lead contractor RATTLRS. None of these past projects are known to have evolved into operational weapons.

The Navy has also previously tested a surface-launched version of the subsonic (and stealthy) LRASM, but has not adopted it. An extended-range version of the air-launched LRASM, which features a number of other upgrades over earlier versions, is now in development, as you can read more about here .

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jG5Za-BVqFE\u0026t=2s

Whether or not the Navy ultimately fields surface or subsurface-launched versions of HALO, and when, does remain to be seen.

The service's goal currently is to begin fielding at least air-launched HALO missiles no later than Fiscal Year 2029.

Contact the author: [email protected]

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China’s navy is now growing at terrifying speed

Like a chess game where one player keeps getting more and more pieces

Four days ago, Exercise Joint Sword finished, an annual exercise by the Chinese armed forces that sees increasing numbers of Chinese ships and aircraft encircle Taiwan. This year China described it as “strong punishment” in response to the inauguration of Taiwan’s newly elected President Lai – the candidate Beijing did not want to win. Forty-six People’s Liberation Army Navy (PLAN) ships encircled the island and 82 of the 111 aircraft detected violated the Taiwanese Air Defence Identification Zone (ADIZ), the highest count on record. 

Meanwhile the PLAN has just produced the first of a new class of corvette, taking less than a year to build it.

Whether improved global influence, economic growth, countering US hegemony or increasing national security and sovereignty is President Xi Jinping’s priority, the protection and expansion of trade is a golden thread that runs through all these themes. Recent events, in different ways, all support this objective.

Putin’s war in Ukraine, although existential to Ukrainians, will be seen through Xi’s lens as a useful drain on Western resources. The encircling of Taiwan shows ever-improving military cohesion which in turn increases the demand signal to the US and others to consider ‘what if?’

On the back of this, China’s military build-up continues at a remarkable pace. China is currently building the equivalent of the entire Royal Navy every two years. It was recently reported in these pages that they have built the first of a new class of stealth corvette in under a year. The US Navy’s equivalent, the Littoral Combat Ship, took four years (and is so useless that some are being paid off after only five years at sea). America’s new frigate, although bigger and more complex (assumption), will take seven years from laying down to sea trials. The Royal Navy’s equivalent, the Type 26 Frigate, about five (that is from keel being laid to trials. The timeline from ‘concept’ to ‘operational’ is much longer). Our industrial capacity to build ships is being outstripped by a factor of five.

Corvettes are interesting in their own right. They generally sit somewhere between offshore patrol vessels (OPVs) and frigates in terms of size and armament (although the Thaon di Revel class Italian ‘OPV’, which is as big as a British frigate and more heavily armed, proves that there is no universal convention when it comes to classifying warships). Normal, small corvettes are not limited by their ability to carry weapons, it’s more that they can’t fight as well in bad weather (though they can usually cross oceans), they don’t have the crew numbers to be able to multi-task and they lack the power generation, connectivity and bandwidth to contribute to the wider picture in the way destroyers and above can. Because they are small, they are also less flexible and adaptable over their lifespan.

Start putting expensive weapons and sensors in corvettes and you quickly have a ship inherently limited by these factors but that costs nearly as much as a frigate or destroyer. This is why the Royal Navy has never considered them. In fact, for the duration of my service, the word was forbidden for fear that it could be seized upon by the Treasury as a cheap alternative to ‘proper’ warfighting ships. The French have come to the same conclusion.

But the Chinese got into the corvette game in 2012, building 79 of their Type 056 of which 50 went to the PLAN, 22 to their coastguard and seven were exported. Then in 2021 they stopped. Maybe they thought that these ships were too small to project power globally but not survivable in a conflict closer to home – the classic ‘corvette trap’. 

That they have started building ships in this space again suggests they’ve realised two things. First, there is a huge swathe of global maritime activity between coastal peacetime operations and high-intensity warfighting in which a corvette has utility. This is the zone in which 99 per cent of naval operations take place. Posturing around Taiwan, operations in the South China Sea and further afield off, say, Africa are all viable in a smaller hull leaving your larger ships to prepare for the 1 per cent. You wouldn’t want corvettes near the Taiwan Strait if the missiles are flying but then when that happens, you wouldn’t want any kind of surface ship there either.

Second, China is building corvettes because it can. If you want your fleet to have balance and mass, as any ambitious navy does, eventually you are going to cross a threshold where quantity starts to deliver a quality all of its own. You can add these hulls to the coastguard fleet and China’s thousands of non-fishing fishing vessels around the world and you have a considerable global maritime network to help assure your global trade network – some of which now has teeth.

It will be interesting to see how the new corvettes are armed. One thing is certain: being in the ship-borne missile game is eye-wateringly expensive. Tyler Rogoway of the War Zone did some analysis on this recently showing that even a smaller missile in the US inventory, the RIM-116 Rolling Airframe Missile, costs $950,000 a round. Tomahawk land attack missiles are $1,890,000 per shot whilst the highest end SM-3 Block IIA used to engage ballistic missile warheads in space is $28,700,000 each. It costs no less than $420m to fully load up an Arleigh Burke class destroyer’s vertical launch cells with a sensible mix of the above and others I haven’t listed. That’s more than it cost to build a British Type 23 Frigate.

It’s clear why so much money is being diverted into developing cheaper methods of knocking out multiple drones and slower missiles but these cheaper methods will forever remain close-in systems. If you want range, missiles (and a large ammo bill) are still the answer. 

My bet is that this emerging class of Chinese warship will be fast, have a mix of highly capable missiles, guns and emerging technology. The corvettes will be perfect for trialling new equipment and as an added bonus will provide operational experience to the big ship commanding officers of the future, something that current Chinese destroyer and frigate captains reportedly lack. 

Back to the top. Chinese engagements of the last few days are a continuum of the norm: meetings with Putin to see how their invasion of Ukraine can be sustained; Exercise Joint Sword to impose themselves locally and regionally; a tri-lateral diplomacy meeting with Japan and South Korea to discuss trade options. Whether it’s draining western resources, bullying at sea and maritime trade assurance (or denial), then corvettes can contribute very handily – and long before the shooting starts.

If I was head of the PLAN I’d be lobbying hard for 50 of the new stealth corvettes. I’d be delighted that I could get them five times faster than anyone in Nato, and I wouldn’t be worrying too much about the bill either. 

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• June 4, 2024 U.S. Navy F/A-18 Super Hornet Spotted With SM-6 Missile Under Its Right Wing Military Aviation

U.S. Navy F/A-18 Super Hornet Spotted With SM-6 Missile Under Its Right Wing

Originally developed as a surface-to-air missile, the Standard Missile 6 has been now installed, once again, on a Super Hornet. The reasons remain unknown so far.

A US Navy F/A-18 Super Hornet was spotted with a rather uncommon payload under its wings, an inert Standard Missile 6 (SM-6) surface-to-air missile. The weapon, also known as the RIM-174 Standard Extended Range Active Missile (ERAM), has been designed to be used on Navy ships in conjunction with the Aegis Combat System.

The photos which you can see in this article were shared with us by photographer @StinkJet, who spotted the aircraft about 60 miles north of Naval Air Weapons Station China Lake on Apr. 17, 2024. Based on the radio communications which he heard shortly before sighting the aircraft overheard, StinkJet says the Super Hornet might belong to Air Test and Evaluation Squadron (VX) 9.

Vampire Rhino with what looks like an AGM-84H/K SLAM-ER painted in the orange test paint. Maybe someone else can give a better ID of what it is? pic.twitter.com/kIMiWFXcBo — StinkJet (@StinkJet) June 3, 2024

“I was shooting other aircraft in the R-2508 and heard some activity from VX-9 on the radio,” @StinkJet told us. “10 or 15 minutes later we heard the jet overhead and I took a couple shots because we don’t usually see aircraft with orange test armament. I also thought the missile looked much larger than standard stuff we are used to seeing so I kept the shots”.

Although the photos don’t allow to visually identify the aircraft insignias, StinkJet says he’s fairly confident that the F/A-18 is assigned to VX-9 because of the earlier radio communications. He also added that the jet did three orbits while overhead before leaving the area.

That’s an SM-6; normally featuring a booster for launch from a Naval Mk.41 vertical launch system. Would potentially allow hugely longer range engagements than possible with AMRAAM, possibly targeted by either F/A-18E/F, or E-2D or Aegis ships via NIFC-CA… serious capability https://t.co/HMLVjK5SC0 pic.twitter .com/wuwx7vjoWu — Justin Bronk (@Justin_Br0nk) June 3, 2024

This is actually not the first time an SM-6 missile is spotted installed on a Super Hornet .

In 2021, an F/A-18F assigned to VX-31 was photographed with the same missile under its wings. Similarly to this April’s sighting, the missile had its first stage booster removed.

As soon as the photos circulated online , discussion started about a possible integration of the weapon as a long-range air-to-air or anti-surface missile on the Super Hornet. The US Navy, however, has never acknowledged similar plans, so that possibility was to be considered as pure speculation.

The Standard Missile 6

The RIM-174 Standard Extended Range Active Missile (ERAM), or Standard Missile 6 (SM-6), is one of the weapons employed for the air defense of the US Navy ships. Integrated in the Aegis Combat System, the weapon was designed for extended-range anti-air warfare, but it can also be employed for terminal phase ballistic missile defense and as anti-ship missile .

The missile uses the airframe of the SM-2ER Block IV (RIM-156A) missile, with the addition of an active radar homing seeker derived from the one of the AIM-120 AMRAAM air-to-air missile . The Mach 3.5 weapon has a published range of 130 nautical miles.

The SM-6, also designated Standard Extended Range Active Missile, greatly expands the AEGIS Weapon System battlespace . SM-6 provides not only an extended range anti-air warfare capability, but also an anti-surface warfare capability to be expressed against enemy ships.

The weapon has been officially employed in combat for the first time earlier this year, when the Department of Defense acknowledged that the USS Carney used the SM-6 to shoot down an anti-ship ballistic missile in the Gulf of Aden fired by Houthi rebels on Jan. 30.

Integrating a long-range anti-shipe missile

As said, among the various options, there is also the possibility that testing of a new air-to-surface missile for the Super Hornet is underway for quite some time.

While Super Hornets can employ the Harpoon missiles for such missions, the SM-6 offers a substantial improvement. With a range potentially exceeding three times that of the Harpoon, it presents a formidable challenge for adversaries to defend against. Combining SM-6s with anti-ship cruise missiles creates a layered defense that significantly complicates the protection of targeted vessels or fleets, thus increasing the likelihood of successfully neutralizing them. Moreover, the ability of aircraft to launch from less predictable angles compared to traditional warships further amplifies the difficulty of defending against such attacks.

Generally speaking, integrating a long-range anti-ship missile onto an aerial platform like the F/A-18E Super Hornet holds significant strategic importance for several reasons:

Enhanced Maritime Strike Capability : The F/A-18E Super Hornet is primarily a multirole fighter aircraft, capable of both air-to-air and air-to-ground missions. By integrating a long-range missile, it gains a potent anti-ship capability, significantly enhancing its maritime strike capabilities. This allows the aircraft to engage surface targets, including enemy ships, from standoff distances, reducing its vulnerability to enemy air defenses and increasing its lethality in naval warfare scenarios.

Extended reach : The SM-6 missile is designed with a long-range capability, allowing it to engage targets at extended distances, typically beyond the reach of traditional anti-ship missiles. By integrating such a weapon onto the F/A-18E Super Hornet, it extends the aircraft’s operational reach, enabling it to strike targets further out at sea, thereby expanding the area of influence and enhancing its effectiveness in controlling maritime spaces.

Flexibility and Versatility : The integration of the SM-6 missile onto the Super Hornet provides greater flexibility and versatility in mission planning and execution. The aircraft could switch seamlessly between various mission profiles, including air superiority, close air support, and maritime strike, based on evolving tactical situations and strategic objectives. This versatility enhances the overall effectiveness and adaptability of the platform in dynamic operational environments.

Force Multiplier : The combination of a capable aerial platform like the F/A-18E Super Hornet with a long-range anti-ship missile could serve as a force multiplier for naval forces. It would enhance the effectiveness of carrier strike groups and expeditionary forces by providing them with an additional layer of offensive capability against surface threats, thereby increasing their survivability and combat effectiveness in contested maritime environments. It would also have a deterrence value as it would send a clear message to potential adversaries about the ability and willingness of naval forces to project power and protect maritime interests.

As said, the current anti-ship missile carried by the Super Hornet is the Harpoon.

The A/U/RGM-84 Harpoon is a versatile and reliable anti-ship missile system, designed to be launched from various platforms including ships, submarines, shore batteries, and aircraft. Originally introduced in 1977, it has undergone significant upgrades, including the development of the Harpoon Block II variant in 1998.

This version integrates GPS-assisted inertial navigation, expanding its capabilities to include both anti-ship and land attack missions. While the Block II variant was not adopted by the US Navy, it has found use among foreign military partners, particularly on F-16 and F-15 aircraft.

The latest iteration, the Harpoon Block II+, represents a rapid capability improvement for the Navy, featuring improvements in GPS guidance, reliability, survivability, data link interface, target selectivity, abort options, and resistance to electronic countermeasures. This updated version ensures that the Harpoon missile system remains a potent and adaptable weapon in modern naval warfare scenarios.

Long range air-to-air missile

As explained, someone believes the SM-6 seen in the recent photo might be a long-range AAM (Air-to-Air Missile).

The AIM-54 Phoenix, which was a long-range air-to-air missile used primarily by the U.S. Navy’s F-14 Tomcat fighter aircraft, was retired from service in 2004 with the retirement of the F-14 itself. The AIM-54 was a large missile with an impressive range and multiple-target engagement capability.

There isn’t a direct replacement for the AIM-54 Phoenix in terms and the F/A-18E/F Super Hornet and the F-35C Lightning II, use different air-to-air missiles.

However, the U.S. military has been working on developing advanced air-to-air missiles to enhance the capabilities of its fighter aircraft. The AIM-260 Joint Advanced Tactical Missile (JATM) is one such development intended to replace the AIM-120 AMRAAM (which is a medium range AAM). While not directly replacing the AIM-54 Phoenix, the AIM-260 aims to provide improved range and performance compared to the AIM-120, which could partially fill the capability gap left by the retirement of the AIM-54.

Thanks again to @StinkJet for allowing us to use the photos and make sure to follow him on Instagram or X for more!

• F/A-18E/F Super Hornet

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