Sino Secret Ballistic Missile May Be ‘Kill Weapon’ Targeting American Aircraft Carriers
Obama Meets With Hu, Seeks Friendly Relations
While a few observers still wonder why China is arming itself with a vast panoply of cutting-edge machines of war, the picture clarified with news that Beijing is arming itself with a ballistic missile designed to demolish giant $7 billion U.S. aircraft carriers.
This modified Dong Feng 21 missile shows why the Navy needs missile defense systems.
The development, reported by the U.S. Naval Institute, came as President Obama met with Chinese President Hu Jintao in London to ask for better relations with China.
According to the Naval Institute report, the existence of the kill weapon missile was revealed on a Chinese blog.
The missile can strike U.S. aircraft carriers traveling far from Chinese shores, with a range of 1,243 miles (2,000 kilometers).
This anti-ship weapon would further discourage U.S. carrier groups from attempting to thwart a Chinese invasion of Taiwan, something Beijing has been threatening to do for years. It already was known that China has some 1,500 radar-guided missiles aimed at the Taiwan Strait, pointing toward the endangered island nation.
With a sizeable payload, the Dong Feng 21 warhead could inflict substantial damage on a U.S. carrier and destroy it in one strike, despite its 100,000 tons weight and 1,092- foot length.
Each U.S. carrier is accompanied by other ships that carry advanced air defense systems, but the Dong Feng would challenge even a superior missile defense system, since the Chinese weapon carries a complex guidance system, high maneuverability, a low radar signature, a Mach 10 (7,000 miles an hour) speed, assistance from a satellite network, radar, and advance-scout unmanned aerial vehicles that can locate American ships and guide the Chinese missile to them. It is thought the missile is operational.
According to the Naval Institute, the missile would be designed to cause devastating damage to a U.S. carrier so as to halt all naval aviation sorties from the vessel, though not causing such immense damage as to sink the carrier.
This is just the latest development in the Chinese military buildup that threatens the ability of the U.S. military to operate unthreatened in Asian waters.
A new report from the Pentagon details the Chinese armament program, finding that the bellicose buying spree raises disturbing questions about long-range Chinese military aims. (Please see Space & Missile Defense Report, Monday, March 30, 2009.)
China already is procuring and operating Jin Class boomer submarines with limitless range thanks to their nuclear propulsion plants, boats that pack nuclear-tipped missiles with a range of almost 5,000 miles. China also is fielding land-based intercontinental ballistic missiles with a range of about 7,000 miles, while planning to buy aircraft carriers for long-range power projection.
As well, China is procuring long-range bombers, and has shown it can support long-range naval operations far from home, taking on Somali pirates and patrolling sea lanes.
Other Chinese adventures have included using a ground-based missile to demolish one of its own aging weather satellites, which at a stroke proved China has anti-satellite capabilities while also creating thousands of pieces of lethal space debris endangering spacecraft in low Earth orbit. A ground-based laser was used to disable a U.S. military satellite, raising fears that in any invasion of Taiwan, China first will knock out Ameircan military satellites to blind U.S. forces.
Too, China commands brigades of cyber warriors, who are poised to hack into and take down U.S. military, commercial, financial and other computer networks in a catastrophic blow that would bring the U.S. economy to its knees, cutting off banking and financial transactions, credit card business, electrical generation and transmission facilities, and much more.