Chinese "Carrier killer"

[unixronin]

From USNI via military.com, discussion of a Chinese “carrier killer” anti-ship ballistic missile that can attack surface ships at 2000km range, with a time-to-target under 12 minutes.  As noted in the article, US Navy ships currently have no ballistic missile defenses.

“The Navy’s reaction is telling, because it essentially equals a radical change in direction based on information that has created a panic inside the bubble.  For a major military service to panic due to a new weapon system, clearly a mission kill weapon system, either suggests the threat is legitimate or the leadership of the Navy is legitimately unqualified.  There really aren’t many gray spaces in evaluating the reaction by the Navy…the data tends to support the legitimacy of the threat.”

(Hint: Read the dateline...)

Comments

[lebo-superman.livejournal.com]

I think that dateline says everything truly important.

[unixronin.livejournal.com]

My point exactly. :) Props to USNI...

[jhetley.livejournal.com]

Dateline aside, an old army joke defined an aircraft carrier as an expensive radioactive hole in the water . . . .

[mrmeval.livejournal.com]

Even if it's dated material the idea underlying it is sound. If you could make a missile similar to a tank buster but larger it would annoy them. They do have some anti missile defenses but really need better point defense lasers and/or missiles. Won't stop a nuke but not much will.

[unixronin.livejournal.com]

It's not so much that it's dated, as that it's dated April 1. ;)

[mrmeval.livejournal.com]

What you think I'm blind? It's a valid concern and we do need point defense.

[unixronin.livejournal.com]

Oh, sure. Of course, point defense against an intermediate-range ballistic missile is far from the easiest thing to do.

Still, battlefield lasers are getting closer to reality, and a nuclear supercarrier has plenty of power to run one — or several.

[ithildae.livejournal.com]

Dateline aside, it sounds like something you could add to a tomahawk missile with newer technology. Still, there were some staggering contradictions in the alleged weapon.

Question: Would our Aegis technology be able to protect against that kind of threat? (I think it is supposed to.)

[unixronin.livejournal.com]

Highly debatable. AEGIS is meant to operate against conventional weapons. It doesn't really have high enough radar coverage to paint incoming re-entry vehicles, nor anything capable of reliably engaging one. They're too small, too fast, and coming in too steeply.

On the other hand, as noted above, a nuclear supercarrier is the ideal platform upon which to mount an ABM laser — or several — and they're nearing operational readiness.

[7leaguebootdisk.livejournal.com]

It is all about budgets. Ar the Chinese going to sink a carrier? We will take it about as well as if they'd nuked a town. So they are not going to, on the other hand, we may well be more nervous about being within 2000 miles of a Chinese missile silo. It's not like they couldn't do a depressed trajectory shot with a ballistic missile already.

Navy wants more money, needs a threat. It's not like the carriers are not dead at the start of WWIII in any event.