Originally Posted by Vnomad
Assuming a burn time of 30 secs and average speed of Mach 5 (both generous assumptions) we’re looking at a powered flight range of 0.34 x 5 x 30 ~ 50 km.
The Exocet had a long burn rocket motor but it was designed to fly at subsonic speeds.

The cruise speed would be lower, it’s only the terminal top-attack speed which approaches mach 5.

A JF-17 carrying two CM-400AKGs isn’t necessarily anymore formidable than one equipped with two C-802s. The ‘carrier-killer’ thing is pretty much a myth, else it’d be the weapon of choice for the J-10 & J-11 as well.

The CM-400AKG like I said in my previous post – is a boost-glide weapon that follows a predicable ballistic trajectory that makes it susceptible to interception by medium/long range SAMs, as compared to conventional i.e. air-breathing missiles.

While it may be able to fly a boosted, ballistic trajectory with a terminal glide stage, there’s no reason to assume this is the only way it will be employed. Given it’s stated range, it’s most likely to still be powered in the terminal stage allowing it to perform evasive manoeuvres, which is one of it’s key capabilities, along with around Mach 5 terminal speed. The glided ballistic trajectory would only be used to extend its range beyond that of its rocket powered stage.

In any case, although it may not be used by the PLAF, they do seem to be using traditional ballistic missiles as part of their “carrier killer” capability, with bona fide ballistic flight paths and gliding terminal warheads, but which they claim are capable of performing evasive manoeuvres, so there is some validity to this approach.

Furthermore, how many ship based anti-air systems have actually been demonstrated to be effective against a ballistic threat, aside from say the US SM series?

Any details of the helmet worn by the J-20 pilots? Does it have cueing and targeting capabilities?

Why does this need a thread of its own when it could have been posted in the PLAF thread?

If the moderators deleted the TFX thread for the same reasoning, it should be applied consistently.

I am not going to list suggestins for this one.

What color is this H6 bomber. (beautiful piece of Soviet engineering)

Light grey.

Aren’t they already testing a CATOBAR version of the J-15 with modified undercarriage? Perhaps a future version with AESA is likely too, similar to the modifications we’ve seen for J-16D.