Since the end of the world pattern of hegemony between the United States and the Soviet Union, the emergence of aircraft carriers has become a symbol to measure the strength of a country's comprehensive strength.
In the past few decades, with the continuous and in-depth development of various military changes, the contest between maritime armies has gradually become the main war platform at present, and various countries in the world are vigorously researching and developing aircraft carrier technology, among which the United States is also the country with the largest and largest aircraft carriers.
At the same time, with the development of missile technology, an anti-ship ballistic missile developed by China, known as the "aircraft carrier killer", has also entered people's field of vision, and the combat effect has shocked the United States.
Deterrence of American aircraft carriers
As one of the hottest topics in the military field in recent years, China's research on missiles has truly achieved the situation of overtaking on curves.
As far as the current situation of the anti-ship ballistic missile studied by China is concerned, this type of missile, compared with ballistic missiles and anti-ship missiles, the former has achieved a qualitative breakthrough in flight speed and range, so anti-ship ballistic missiles are also regarded by all countries in the world as the most effective "weapon" to attack aircraft carriers.
As the first country in the world to develop a medium- and long-range anti-ship ballistic missile, the US government has always paid close attention to the winds and movements of the Chinese military.
In China's live-fire aircraft carrier tests and exercises, the United States has been exploring whether China's missiles really have the ability to strike aircraft carriers, and the various technologies displayed by Chinese missiles have really shocked the US government.
In the early years, the Chinese government conducted an anti-aircraft carrier experiment, launching a DF-26 missile from the Qinghai missile base and a DF-21D missile with a range of 1,500 kilometers from the experimental base in Zhejiang.
At that time, the target of the two missiles was an aircraft carrier deployed in advance in the South China Sea, and surprisingly, both missiles hit the fast-moving target on the sea at the same time, and the result was really unexpected.
The success of this test also means that the Chinese military has fully mastered the advanced technology of striking aircraft carriers.
After the news of China's successful live-fire aircraft carrier test was announced, it quickly aroused strong repercussions in the international community, and the US government therefore had a more concentrated focus on China and paid more attention to it.
Many fans of aircraft carriers infinitely exaggerate the role and strategic use of aircraft carriers, and many people only see the role of aircraft carriers in terms of tactics.
As we all know, aircraft carriers are the ultimate embodiment of the ideology of US hegemony and sea power, and the strategic value of their existence is more valuable than their actual tactical value.
On the battlefield, aircraft carriers are far less likely to be physically present than combat weapons such as submarine-launched cruise missiles, strategic bombers or land-based fighters, and even military tanks are quite easy to complete a certain degree of occupation.
However, from a defensive point of view, especially when fighting at sea, a large formation of warships consisting of a certain number of aircraft carriers makes the aircraft carrier form a defensive target of sufficient scale.
In this way, the operational advantages and tactical disadvantages of aircraft carriers are clearly manifested.
Aircraft carriers can form a variety of combat modes against air, land and ship, and then it is precisely because of this multi-faceted nature that aircraft carriers have caused some corresponding limitations.
When the US president clashes with other countries, he often mentions "our aircraft carrier battle group" intentionally or unintentionally, which is enough to show the dependence and deterrence of the US government on aircraft carriers in various international strategies.
The existence of U.S. aircraft carrier battle groups has the greatest effect on other countries as strategic deterrence, as can be seen from the U.S. military exercises in the waters around various countries over the years.
Whenever the United States has a disagreement or dispute with a certain country, it will find various excuses and then send its aircraft carrier battle group to brush its "presence" in front of it.
A Chinese defense expert once said, "The most powerful weapon of the United States, in addition to the US dollar, is the aircraft carrier, but the actual role of the US dollar is greater, and the aircraft carrier is just a decoration." ”
In the eighties of the last century, Weinberg, the former Secretary of Defense of the US government, commented that the aircraft carrier is a "living coffin" floating on the sea.
Today, the role of the DF-21D anti-ship ballistic missile is particularly important for the strategic deterrence of US aircraft carriers to China's military.
The main role of anti-ship ballistic missiles is to attack sea targets, and its maximum movement speed can reach Mach 10, and as far as the current situation is concerned, effective means of defense against such missiles have not yet been developed.
It has to be admitted that the US aircraft carrier is indeed a powerful strategic weapon.
To achieve a precise strike on an aircraft carrier is originally a fantasy.
The aircraft carrier on the sea surface has always been in a moving state, and the ballistic missile can only aim the firing point at a certain point in the carrier's range of activity in the case of shooting and aiming, until the aircraft carrier reaches the position where the target area is located, and then the terminal guidance system that comes with the missile will find and determine the existence of the target.
From a theoretical point of view, the existence of the aircraft carrier is first detected by the early warning function or satellite, and then the latitude and longitude of the specific location of the aircraft carrier is transmitted to the anti-ship missiles at the base.
In the event of an emergency, the anti-ship missile records the coordinate position of the aircraft carrier, and then launches the missile to take off at this predetermined position.
Speaking of which, as soon as the reconnaissance system finds the target of the aircraft carrier and immediately launches the missile, then the missile may hit the aircraft carrier.
However, in fact, the period when anti-ship missiles are received and launched is the golden time for aircraft carrier escape.
In addition, China's previous research has always used ballistic missiles to hit aircraft carriers, and after entering the atmosphere, the speed of this missile is only a dozen Mach, which is bound to produce black barriers.
Any radio cannot communicate under such circumstances, so the United States has always determined that China's anti-ship missiles cannot search for the exact location of the American aircraft carrier under the condition that it cannot restrain the end of the black barrier.
This is equivalent to China's missiles, although they have eyes, but these eyes have never been opened.
That is to say, by the time the anti-ship missile really reaches the previous budget position, the US aircraft carrier has long been running away with full power, so the United States has been relying on the existence of the aircraft carrier to be arrogant, and many countries are helpless.
What the United States never expected now was that China's missiles would really solve this problem.
Not to mention the United States, even the whole world cannot figure out how China did it.
Chinese anti-ship ballistic missiles
Regarding the research and manufacture of anti-ship ballistic missiles, the key difficulties are the terminal guidance system of the missile.
Relevant experimental data show that anti-ship ballistic missiles require a terminal guidance system that is much higher than that of supersonic anti-ship missiles.
When the missile enters the atmosphere, due to air resistance, the speed of the missile warhead will continue to decrease, which will cause the problem of large overload and gravitational acceleration.
The missile's terminal guidance system is a sensor with a fairly precise height and cannot withstand excessive overloads, which means that making the guidance system of anti-ship ballistic missiles work in such a huge gravitational acceleration environment is not only a difficult task, but may even be an impossible task.
As far as the reality is concerned, the reconnaissance system takes a certain amount of time from the detection of the existence of the aircraft carrier to the launch of the missile, and at the same time, within the effective terminal guidance range from the aircraft carrier, the missile must also have a certain ballistic correction ability, and can adjust the trajectory in time according to the actual situation of the aircraft carrier, so that the warhead of the missile is eventually closer to the target.
The Chinese-developed DF-21D missile perfectly solves these world-class problems.
An American magazine once published an article detailing the threat posed by China's DF-21D anti-ship ballistic missile to U.S. aircraft carriers, and called this missile a "weapon that can deter U.S. maritime power."
The DF-21D missile is considered to have a high degree of strike and deterrence capability.
This missile uses semi-active radar guidance and inertial navigation technology, which can continuously and timely update the relevant information of the target's location during the flight, and also has certain maneuverability, so the DF-21D missile is also regarded as an important system that threatens large surface weapons such as aircraft carriers.
The U.S. government has questioned the accuracy of the missile.
There are relevant reports that the US aircraft carrier has a complex defense system, but also has high-speed maneuvering capabilities, and the DF-21D missile cannot effectively hit the target.
In addition, the US aircraft carrier has made great technological progress in radar systems, electronic jamming equipment and anti-missile weapons, and these defense means have also increased the difficulty of attacking aircraft carriers by the DF-21D missile.
Coupled with the excellent target tracking and intelligence reconnaissance capabilities of the US government, these advanced technical means are enough to effectively jam and predict missiles, which also greatly weakens the penetration capability of the DF-21D missile.
In response to these questions raised by the US government and the media, the DF-21D missile gave a perfect answer to the world with its actual capabilities.
Xinhua News Agency publicly reported in the early years that when the Shenzhou 15 spacecraft entered the atmosphere, its speed was as high as Mach 22, and when passing through the black barrier area, scientific and technological personnel also used optical and radar technologies to track the spacecraft stably.
In this way, in fact, as early as 2018, China already had the ability to conduct anti-ship experiments.
The DF-21D missile has a range of up to 1500 km.
At such ranges, the current aviation of the U.S. government is not yet capable of achieving accurate strikes.
This also means that within the range of the DF-21D missile, including the aircraft carrier, the military strength of the United States is in a more passive position.
At the same time, the long-range strike capability of the DF-21D missile can further expand China's strategic influence when performing missions in the sea.
Judging from the newly released photos of the improved DF-21D missile, the most obvious feature is the presence of a tapered atmospheric re-entry.
Experts pointed out that such a design is so that after the missile enters the atmosphere, it can reduce the possibility of being ablated during the friction between the rudder surface and the atmosphere, so that the missile has a certain ability to maneuver, in order to change the trajectory more accurately during the flight, adjust the flight trajectory in time, and then select and aim at the target position.
In addition, the DF-21D missile also has networked combat capabilities, which can form a consortium with other military systems to achieve the goal of joint operations through command and control and information sharing technology, thereby improving the overall combat performance.
The United States has the most powerful and advanced aircraft carriers in the world, and at the beginning of the design, the US government required these aircraft carriers to have strong defense capabilities.
Take "Nimitz", the equipment of this aircraft carrier even meets the requirements of military warships in World War II, and its armor, materials and weight and other indicators exceed the vast majority of aircraft carrier warships.
The U.S. government once conducted an experiment against an aircraft carrier, and it took more than two decades to sink a conventional type of aircraft carrier.
Because of this, the US government has always believed that it is a whimsical thing to want to sink "Nimitz", but the strength shown by the DF-21D missile has made the US government jump.
The Dongfeng 21D missile once blew up two super craters at an experimental base, and this experimental base at that time was completely built to imitate the realistic indicators of the aircraft carrier.
As far as the actual power of the DF-21D missile is concerned, there is no problem at all in penetrating concrete tens of meters thick.
In view of the combat capability of the DF-21D missile, U.S. military experts once pertinently evaluated the various advantages of this missile, and bluntly said, "At present, the US aircraft carrier formation has no effective interception means against the Dongfeng-21D missile, and the flight speed of this missile has reached hypersonic speed, and the carrier's warning time is very short."
From the perspective of the power of the DF-21D missile, this missile can cause a considerable degree of damage to giant warships. If it is hit by a missile, then the aircraft carrier basically loses its combat effectiveness. ”
Luo Yuan, a well-known Chinese defense expert, once said, "Some countries, on the surface, seem to have doubts about our missiles, or even disdainful attitudes, but in fact, they really attach great importance to our missiles." The most effective way to counter deterrence is counter-deterrence. ”
Resources:
[1] "CCTV Military": Test launch of a new anti-ship missile, the scene is exposed!
[2] "China Aerospace News": The US media exposed the five advantages of the Dongfeng 21D missile: it can destroy the US aircraft carrier in one time
[3] People's Network: Dongfeng 21D missile test launch map exposed won the special prize of the National Science and Technology Progress Award
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Author: Yeonjin
Editor: Murray