Once you break out of the atmosphere, going further out become progressively easier. If you have the sensors to accuratetly hit something in LEO, you have the sensors to accurately target something in GEO, the only question would be if you had a rocket big enough to reach GEO, which the Chinese do.

Compared to the level of advancement needed to make the direct assent ASAT hit in the first place, stepping from LEO to GEO is childsplay.

I’m not sure that any experienced rocket or missile engineer would agree with you.

As with everything relating to the PLA, there is a great deal of secrecy so numbers and deployment are never anything you are likely to get.

I used to have to keep track of some Chinese developments, and don’t recall that numbers and limited deployment details were that hard to find.

Its a weapon, ideally it will scare the USN into not getting involved, but at the end of the day, its primary purpose is to put a hundred meter crater in a carrier and send it to be the bottom of the ocean. That is its primary purpose. If it achieves that, it hardly matters if the carrier was sunk a hundred or a thousand miles from the Chinese coast.

It is a bit difficult to put a 100 m crater in a ship only 70-80 m in beam. And what sort of warhead would you use? You only have a maximum of about 500 kg of throw weight to exploit, and some of that has got to be allocated to a seeker and steering system The goal of the Chinese ASBM is more likely to go for a mission kill using bomblets, flechettes or even an EMP payload.

In return, you have the USN diverting billions into research on anti-BM defense, and very likely that in the near future, all USN carrier escorts will be required to give up a sizeable number of their valuable VLS cells for ABM optimised missiles that will be all but useless against conventional AShMs and aircraft.

The existing Standard 2s should be able to down any maritime-patrol aircraft or long-endurance UAVs trying to locate the carriers. That should help to ‘put out the eyes’ of any ASBM force.

China’s Haiyang series satellites and some of the Yaogan series have an ocean-surveillance role, but I don’t think these are in the performance class of the Soviet-era RORSATs. Since their orbits are known, during a limited conflict it should be possible to jam them if they were thought to be a threat.

what makes you think they need to actually put birds in the air to practice with?

UAV pilots are desk jockies to start with, to them, it doesn’t make the slightest bit of difference if the images on their computer screens are fed to them via datalink or 100% computer generated. They get the same experience and training provided the simulations are accurate, which I think it will be safe to assume that they will be.

As I have already pointed out, they can do exercises perfectly well without having to send any UAVs up at all.

Once the hardware has been tested and certified as operational, its only about pilot training, which is done at a terminal. There is no need for actual physical assets to fly in order to train as with manned aircraft.

It’s only by building up flying hours that you ‘debug’ the platform and find out how it copes over a long period with different tactical and environmental conditions. And taking repeated part in large-scale exercises teaches the user what can or cannot be done in practice, especially if the ‘friendly enemy’ does not play according to your rules. Then there is the problem of ensuring that ground crew have the skills needed to handle, maintain and repair the UAV.

If your concept that simulation is sufficient for the training of ground-based operators is correct, why do armed forces spend money putting SAM crews through live-fire practice sessions?

How many times now have the PLA shown something at parades or other such events something new that they have fielded in large numbers that no-one on the outside had the slightest clue about?

A few examples would strengthen your argument. And does your ‘no-one’ include the intelligence community?