Maneuvering missile takes evasive actions
Bill Gertz - August 21, 2015
China this week carried out another test of a new high-tech hypersonic glide vehicle, an ultra high-speed missile designed to deliver nuclear weapons and avoid defenses.
The latest test of what the Pentagon calls the Wu-14 hypersonic glide vehicle was carried out from the Wuzhai missile test range in central China. The test was judged successful, according to defense officials familiar with details of the event.
Additionally, officials said the glide vehicle, which travels along the edge of the earth’s atmosphere, demonstrated a new capability: evasive actions.
U.S. intelligence agencies have been tracking the Wu-14 since for over a year and have gained valuable insights into the weapon, the officials said.
No additional details were provided on the maneuvering activities of the Wu-14. However, the evasive actions bolstered suspicions that China is building the missile with capabilities designed to defeat U.S. defenses.
Current U.S. defenses are designed to track missiles that travel in predictable flight paths and are unable to counter maneuvering warheads and glide vehicles.
The latest Wu-14 test took place Wednesday.
It was the fifth test of the glide vehicle and the second since June.
The weapon is launched as the last stage of a missile that reaches speeds of around Mach 10, or 10 times the speed of sound—around 7,680 miles per hour.
Military analysts said the Chinese test schedule indicates that China may be close to deploying the high priority weapon.
Earlier flight tests took place this year on June 7 and last year on Jan. 9, Aug. 7 and Dec. 2.
The weapon system and tests were first reported by the Free Beacon.
Asked about the test, Pentagon spokesman Cmdr. Bill Urban said: “We do not comment on PRC weapons tests but we do monitor Chinese military modernization carefully.”
A defense official, however, said the Wu-14 is viewed as a serious emerging strategic threat that could complicate U.S. nuclear deterrent efforts.
“At a minimum this latest test indicates China is likely succeeding in achieving a key design objective: building a warhead capable of withstanding the very high stress of hypersonic maneuvering,” said Rick Fisher, a China military expert. “It is likely that the test vehicle will form the basis for a missile launched weapon.”
“The advent of a Chinese hypersonic weapon may pose the greatest early threat to large U.S. Navy ships,” said Fisher, a senior fellow with the International Assessment and Strategy Center. “The best prospect for a defensive response would be to greatly accelerate railgun development.”
Lora Saalman, an expert on hypersonic technology and former research associate at Carnegie-Tsinghua in Beijing, said the two most recent Wu-14 flights coming within two months are “unprecedented in terms of pace and frequency,” and suggest “a form of qualitative arms racing vis-a-vis the United States.”
“If the intent is for the Wu-14 to be a longer-range system for delivering conventional payloads, then it is likely an effort to extend the range and flexibility of China’s [anti-access, area denial] capabilities beyond that of the DF-21D missile,” she said.
“If this conventional system is mounted to reach an intercontinental range, then it could represent an effort to catch up with or even beat the United States to the punch on its own Conventional Prompt Global Strike aspirations,” Saalman added.
A nuclear-armed Wu-14 is likely intended to defeat U.S. missile defenses, Saalman said. “The difficulty is that each of these eventualities and aims are not necessarily mutually independent, nor are they distinguishable without more technical details on the most recent test,” she said.
Adm. Cecil Haney, commander of the U.S. Strategic Command, warned in a speech last month that hypersonic glide vehicles are new technology weapons that pose an emerging threat. The command is in charge of nuclear forces and missile defenses.
Asked to elaborate on the hypersonic threat, Haney said: “As I look at that threat, clearly the mobility, the flight profile, those kinds of things are things we have to keep in mind and be able to address across that full kill chain,” Haney said. The kill chain is the military term for the process used in targeting and attacking enemy missiles.
Outgoing Strategic Command Deputy Commander Air Force Lt. Gen. James Kowalski, said hypersonic weapon technology “certainly offers a number of advantages to a state,”
“It offers a number of different ways to overcome defenses, whether those are conventional, or if someone would decide to use a nuclear warhead, I think gives it an even more complicated dimension,” Kowalski said during the same conference in Omaha.
Kowalski said so far no hypersonic weapons have been fielded by the Chinese or Russians but “it remains something that concerns us and may be an area of discussion in the future.”
A congressional Chinese commission stated in its annual report last year that China’s hypersonic missile “could render existing U.S. missile defense systems less effective and potentially obsolete.”
China, Russia, and the United States appear engaged in a quiet hypersonic arms race.
Russia tested a hypersonic missile in February.
The Pentagon also is conducting research and development on hypersonic arms, including an Army missile and a glide vehicle and a scramjet-powered hypersonic weapon.
The current version of the House defense authorization bill contains funding and language aimed at pressing the Pentagon to counter hypersonic threats.
One provision calls for adding $291 million for development of a long-range variant of the Army Terminal High Altitude Area Defense, or THAAD.
Bryan Clark and Mark Gunzinger of the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments estimate that the United States and Russia are “very close” to having hypersonic arms. China’s glide vehicle appears to be part of anti-access, area denial strategies.
“While ‘boost-glide’ weapons will have long ranges and be highly survivable, but they will also be very expensive,” they told the National Interest. “China could use them as a ‘silver bullet’ weapon to hit high-value targets, or do so in conjunction with less-expensive weapons that reduce the defender’s capacity first.”
Clark and Gunzinger also say that China could use air-launched hypersonic weapons to attack U.S. and allied bases protected by missile defenses.
“U.S. forces will have to think about how they will use point defenses to protect high-value targets,” they stated.
“It is very difficult to defend against hypersonic weapons using our traditional ‘layered’ approach,” said Clark and Gunzinger.
“Since they are going very fast, it will be hard for area air-defense interceptors such as the Navy SM-6 or Army PAC-2 / PAC-3 to catch them unless they are launched from the target’s location.”
“The best defenses against them will likely be high-capacity point defenses such as Rolling Airframe Missile, CIWS and possibly rail guns that are co-located with a target.”
China Tests New Missile Capable of Hitting Entire United States
Beijing’s ICBM arsenal appears to be rapidly expanding.
Beijing’s ICBM arsenal appears to be rapidly expanding.
http://chinhdangvu.blogspot.com/2015/08/china-tests-new-missile-capable-of.html
By Franz-Stefan Gady
By Franz-Stefan Gady
The DF-41 Inter-Continental Ballistic Missile is
believed to be carrying up to ten independently
targetable reentry vehicles
The August 6 flight test was the fourth time a DF-41 (CSS-X-20) long-range missile has been tested in the last three years and allegedly confirmed that the ICBM is capable of carrying multiple warheads.
China’s first test of the DF-41’s multiple warhead (aka multiple, independently-targetable reentry vehicles, or MIRVs) capability allegedly took place in December 2014, according to The Washington Free Beacon.
Previous tests occurred in July 2012 and December 2013 at the Wuzhai Missile and Space Testing facility located some 250 miles southwest of Beijing.
The location of the August 2015 test site, however, remains unknown.
“China’s MIRV technology is based on illegally exported U.S. satellite technology transferred during the administration of President Bill Clinton. Lockheed Martin was fined $13 million in 2000 as part of the illicit exports that China diverted to its MIRV warhead program,” the Free Beacon reported back in December 2014.
Development of the missile started in 1986 but was abandoned in the early 2000s.
According to unconfirmed media reports, the program (Project 41H) was only relaunchedin 2009. Nevertheless, most details about the DF-41 program and the missile’s true capabilities remain cloaked in mystery.
“Few details on deployment plans technical characteristics are currently available. Once fully operational, the DF-41 is expected to be the PLA’s most sophisticated ICBM to date,”Mark Stokes, a former Pentagon analyst, told the Free Beacon.
U.S. intelligence agencies estimate that the DF-41 can carry up to ten 150-300 kiloton yield thermonuclear warheads per missile and that it is capable of targeting the entire continental United States.
It is solid fueled, road mobile and has an estimated range of between 12,000 and 15,000 km (6,835 miles and 7,456 miles).
The most recent U.S.-China Economic and Security Review Commission report notes that the missile could be already deployed this year, however, a 2018-2020 time frame appears much more likely, according to independent experts.
Rick Fisher, an analyst at the International Assessment and Strategy Center, concurs with the above report stating that the DF-41 is “nearing operational status.”
“The mobile and solid-fueled DF-41 will be the second MIRV-equipped ICBM to enter PLA Second Artillery Corps service after the currently deployed, liquid-fueled and silo-launched DF-5B.
The bottom line is that China potentially is beginning a new phase in which its nuclear warhead numbers will be increasing rapidly,” Fisher said in an interview with the Free Beacon.
According to the Missile Threat website, the DF-41 “represents the peak of PRC technology” and “will likely become the core of the PRC’s nuclear strike force.”
In addition the website notes that the “DF-41 appears similar to the Russian R-12 (SS-27) and it is possible R-12 technology was purchased or stolen.”
As I reported in June (See: “Will This Chinese Weapon Be Able to Sink an Aircraft Carrier?”), a Popular Science article discusses the possibility of WU-14 hypersonic glider vehicles (HGVs) being installed on the DF-41.
This, the authors note, would provide Beijing for the first time with a precision strike capability to hit any target in the world within an hour.
On August 6, China has tested its newest intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) with two guided simulated nuclear warheads, according to information obtained by The Washington Free Beacon.
The August 6 flight test was the fourth time a DF-41 (CSS-X-20) long-range missile has been tested in the last three years and allegedly confirmed that the ICBM is capable of carrying multiple warheads.
China’s first test of the DF-41’s multiple warhead (aka multiple, independently-targetable reentry vehicles, or MIRVs) capability allegedly took place in December 2014, according to The Washington Free Beacon.
Previous tests occurred in July 2012 and December 2013 at the Wuzhai Missile and Space Testing facility located some 250 miles southwest of Beijing.
The location of the August 2015 test site, however, remains unknown.
“China’s MIRV technology is based on illegally exported U.S. satellite technology transferred during the administration of President Bill Clinton. Lockheed Martin was fined $13 million in 2000 as part of the illicit exports that China diverted to its MIRV warhead program,” the Free Beacon reported back in December 2014.
Development of the missile started in 1986 but was abandoned in the early 2000s.
According to unconfirmed media reports, the program (Project 41H) was only relaunchedin 2009. Nevertheless, most details about the DF-41 program and the missile’s true capabilities remain cloaked in mystery.
“Few details on deployment plans technical characteristics are currently available. Once fully operational, the DF-41 is expected to be the PLA’s most sophisticated ICBM to date,”Mark Stokes, a former Pentagon analyst, told the Free Beacon.
U.S. intelligence agencies estimate that the DF-41 can carry up to ten 150-300 kiloton yield thermonuclear warheads per missile and that it is capable of targeting the entire continental United States.
It is solid fueled, road mobile and has an estimated range of between 12,000 and 15,000 km (6,835 miles and 7,456 miles).
The most recent U.S.-China Economic and Security Review Commission report notes that the missile could be already deployed this year, however, a 2018-2020 time frame appears much more likely, according to independent experts.
Rick Fisher, an analyst at the International Assessment and Strategy Center, concurs with the above report stating that the DF-41 is “nearing operational status.”
“The mobile and solid-fueled DF-41 will be the second MIRV-equipped ICBM to enter PLA Second Artillery Corps service after the currently deployed, liquid-fueled and silo-launched DF-5B.
The bottom line is that China potentially is beginning a new phase in which its nuclear warhead numbers will be increasing rapidly,” Fisher said in an interview with the Free Beacon.
According to the Missile Threat website, the DF-41 “represents the peak of PRC technology” and “will likely become the core of the PRC’s nuclear strike force.”
In addition the website notes that the “DF-41 appears similar to the Russian R-12 (SS-27) and it is possible R-12 technology was purchased or stolen.”
As I reported in June (See: “Will This Chinese Weapon Be Able to Sink an Aircraft Carrier?”), a Popular Science article discusses the possibility of WU-14 hypersonic glider vehicles (HGVs) being installed on the DF-41.
This, the authors note, would provide Beijing for the first time with a precision strike capability to hit any target in the world within an hour.
No comments:
Post a Comment