"DF-21D missile could sink US aircraft carrier" Topic

"The People's Liberation Army Navy's DF-21D anti-ship missile has a range of 2,000 kilometers and has the capability to sink a US nuclear-powered aircraft carrier, according to the Hindu, an English-language Indian newspaper on Mar. 5, citing a recently published report.

The report released by the National Institute of Advanced Studies in Bangalore states that China's Beidou satellite navigation system will help increase the accuracy of the country's missiles greatly. The report, written by various experts in India, concluded that the existence of the DF-21D has shaken the traditional view of the US Navy's unassailable superiority in the Asia Pacific region. The anti-ship ballistic missile is likely to serve as a credible deterrent against American intervention in China's maritime disputes, of which it has several with its Asian neighbors, the report said.

The DF-21D is designed based on itercontinental ballistic missiles and carries manoeuvrable warheads with conventional munitions which can target aircraft carriers at a distance of about 2,000 kilometers, according to the report. The idea of hitting a moving aircraft carrier with a ballistic missile had been unheard of, said S Chandrashekar, one of the authors of the report, adding that the Chinese have come up with a very innovative system based on well-understood components…"

Full article here.
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Amicalement
Armand

Where can I buy one of these? My neighbors have really gotten to be irritating.

Sure it could, if it actually works.

OTOH, so could a torpedo, and those have been around for a while, now.

I'm pretty sure the PRC understands that if it starts launching salvoes of ballistic missiles towards US forces we might draw the wrong conclusions, leading to a very bad day for them.
-Kle.

yea I think we would lunch a sub load back. well on the bright side of that we would have to start making stuff in the US again and a lot of people would have a shot at better paying work. :)

And if my grandmother had wheels, she'd be a wagon.

There's some very clever thought going into the development and potential operation of these weapons. Yes, its fashionable to laugh off some of these new non-US systems as ineffective tat – and at the same time in some quarters an attempt to paint these as some new sort of "Vonder Veapon", with operators ten feet tall. In this case I would not be at all surprised to find serious analysts (i.e. not ones in armchairs) taking it rather seriously.

And if some parts of the technical press are to be believed its already claimed a victim – can't remember where it was posted but one of the fairly decent US online military tech journals cited the development of the DF-21D and similar systems as one of the major contributory factors in the demise of DDG-1000

CEPs are usually rather large for these, which usually requires a nuke tip to negate.

It is an interesting development, but I would not be surprised to find that the marketing people have over-hyped its capabilities, especially if they have conventional warheads.

I wonder how good these missiles will be against ships using rail guns as a point defence weapon?

Or lasers.

It doesn't matter if the thing can actually hit and sink an aircraft carrier. What matters if we believe that it can. And considering their most recent space achievements I think this has to be taken at least pretty seriously.

"CEPs are usually rather large for these, which usually requires a nuke tip to negate."

You do know its a terminally guided weapon, don't you?

Mind you, marketing hype is nothing new in defence procurement – when the histories of some major weapon programmes (East and West) from the Cold War are declassified I am sure it will be "interesting" to see the gap between the claimed effectiveness and what they were really capable of.

…"sink a US nuclear-powered aircraft carrier…"
Time to bring back the USS Kennedy and the USS Forrestal maybe?

The era we are currently living in is very much like the late 1800's. Where the technologies (Steam, Steel, Munitions and Gyros) were advancing so fast that ships were sometimes decommissioned upon launch, and the 2nd rate naval powers were looking for tech advantages of the 1st rate naval powers.

How is a ballistic reentry vehicle going to be guided in anything but the absolute last phase of flight? (Plasma sheath, anyone?) Agreed that it should be taken *very* seriously, but there are some design concerns here.

@Southern Phantom: As best I can figure out, it's actually controlled by a satellite behind it, which isn't blocked by the plasma sheath on the RBA's shockwave. Kinda like the first generation of anti-tank missiles, really.

Yes, assuming the terminal guidance equipment on a warhead passing quickly through the atmosphere survives re-entry.

Didn't say it won't work, but I am skeptical until they, or we can prove that it does.

Of course, if it really hits the fan, they'll probably be some of the first targets taken out by us as well, assuming they aren't mounted on mobile missile launchers. The latter would make that a bit more difficult.

Back in the day, ballistic missiles were all the rage, but even our stuff had about a 50% – 70% failure rate, for one reason, or another, e.g. fails to ignite on the launchpad, blows up on the launch pad, structural failure in flight, warhead fails to detonate, etc., etc.

Granted, I suspect the Chinese may have solved some of those issues more quickly than we have, since they can learn from our mistakes, and that of Russia, but still, ballistic missiles are a lot different that the latest PGMs of today.

Congratulations on purchasing your new carrier killer. We hope it you gives many hours of pleasure. Instructions: First find your carrier. Be really sure it is not a large cargo ship or a ghost created by smart IT guys. Launch. Btw, you are now at, or already at, war with a country with five times your nuclear arsenal. Have a nice day.

Using ballistic missiles for any purpose other than nuclear-delivery does set a very dangerous precedent. Do you wait for the first wave of ballistic missiles to land before firing your counter-strike?

What China has is very nice if it works like it is designed to do . Now how well it works is highly dependent on what the USN is planning to do to counter the threat. I am sure measures have been or are being developed to combat this new wunder weapon.