Aeroweb,
I was aware of that system and the many years it took to get the targetting system on the warhead bus to try and accomplish the stated aims Makheev had. In fact in my initial post on this topic I believe my words were:
If you are conviced about anticarrier ballistic missiles then do what the soviets did….go nuclear!. A spread of fullbore nuke RV’s from a dozen launchers over a 20km square box that the CVBG is roughly centred on will remove one carrier group from the board!. No kidding
The R27K was not a conventional system that would ‘hit’ an aircraft carrier though….what it was was a method of reorienting a warhead bus stage, in the orbital phase, in order to release an ordinary nuclear MIRV (note not MARV) in the vague direction of a detected high RF target. So what you had with the system was the ability to place a strategic-yield nuke within effects radius of a target that may, or may not, turn out to be a carrier group.
I repeat my earlier words – ‘The problem is that its science-fiction now as, quite simply, no-one yet has managed to hit a moving target with a strategic size RV from a ballistic launcher’!.
Yes, the technologies involved are quite complicated, but never say it is science fiction, or you’d like slap the US made Pershing II a fabricated toy that cheated Russians decades ago.
DF21 AshBM is mostly in the same principles of Pershing II, DF21 AshBM likely adopted a different terminal seeker so as to enable it to ID and attack a moving target, especially a large one. It can be the monopulse active radar seeker or DP SAR seeker which can differentiate the A/C carrier from other small accompanying vessels by radar image and RCS. Pershing II’s terminal guidance last scan on target just a dozen kms above the target before ultrasonic diving to hit the target, so if the fixed target in the Pershing II scenario changed to be a slowing moving one, how would you expect that such a 300m long target is able to maneuver out of the AshBM’s final diving in a short distance of dozen kms? Or more realistically, the distance by maneuver can be ignored comparing to the vessel’s length? Don’t expect the 100000 tonnage target can move like a crab.
Plus again, as I said, no-one today has a surveillance system that can reliably and regularly search and track targets, in realtime, out in blue water. Therefore even if someone did have a terminaly guided RV, sharp enough in seeker resolution to be able to hit a moving target, no-one has a sighting system for it anyway!.
Yes, that’s why Jane’s reported such a system only will be ready by 2009 when more satellites are launched. In war time, do you really think China won’t launch more satellites to cover its interested area as US used to do? Still refer to the same Jane’s report, such a targeting system is never only made of space based observation asserts, but many more, the other asserts can be ground based OTH-B radars which may still in the set-up or final test. It can be various radio monitoring stations, it can be air borne ELINT/SIGINT asserts. It can be UAVs which can be released by submarines or “neutral vessels” in the interested vicinity. After acquiring the targeting data, those offshore platforms then can relay the information via international communication network/satellites which is almost seamlessly interlinked with Chinese national communication optical fiber network. All the different layers of platforms are synchronized by the international mean time services. Once the satellite detects the target, it can cue other sensors to the area of interesting via C4IR, or vise versa. The OTH radar can have a range easily over 1500kms, perfectly cover the area of PLA deeming to deter the CVGs, although OTH radars have a poor azimuth resolution, but it still can allocate the CVGs in an uncertainty of about 20kms, furthermore, OTH radars do have good resolution on targets’ velocity, so it easily can ID a big ship with faster moving aircrafts from commercial ships, let along all commercial ships have AIDS. CVGs rely on huge amount of electromagnetic sensors to keep their communication, situational awareness, air defense etc alive. That’s a terrible radiation emitting source. By knowing the roughly whereabouts of CVGs, PLA multiple airborne ELINT/SIGINT platforms cruising at a high altitude within the Chinese territory or , have a UHF radio horizon over 1000kms. By utilizing very long baseline interferometry or long baseline interferometry, and analysis the velocity difference to discriminate air borne and sea based targets such as telling apart an E-2 AEWS from its mothership. Such airborne platforms together with space based Sigint satellites or UAVs can geo-locate the target within a 2-3kms accuracy. If the command center combat systems integrate different steams of data from different platforms, OTH radar, Sigint/Elint, Satellites, UAVs, and confirms the A/C carrier whereabouts with a confidence of 5kms accuracy, it’s enough for the command center to launch AshBMs. Assuming the targeted vessels sailing at speed of 30 knots, the AshBM traveling time is around 10 mins, the target during which time only moves around 6 + 5kms, taking into account the BM’s own INS drift just before re-entering, say 1.2kms, the total CVG envelop is 6+5+1.2 < 15kms, the AshBM can finally be updated the A/C carrier’s location via Relay satellite or its own sensor, anyway, the Carrier is indeed a huge target with RCS over 100000 m2, then the AshBM enters Blackout till 40kms starts maneuver so as to activate radar, this processing can take reference of how Pershing II doing:
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