At a time when the situation in China's neighborhood is already unstable, the United States, which has been fanning the flames in China's neighborhood for a long time, has made a new round of moves. The U.S. Army has just deployed the Strategic Intermediate-Range Firepower (SMRF) system to the Philippine island of North Luzon. This is the first time that the United States has deployed intermediate-range missiles to the Asia-Pacific region since the signing of the US-Soviet "INF Treaty."
The U.S. military's Strategic Intermediate-Range Firepower (SMRF) system arrives in the Philippines
There is no doubt that the target of this deployment of the US military is precisely China. According to the US media reports, the "strategic medium-range firepower" system deployed by the US military this time can cover China's coastal areas and can hit high-value targets such as shipyards, naval bases, naval ships, and coastal radars. However, the actual situation is more serious than what the US media reported.
From the point of view of weapon design, the "strategic medium-range firepower" system is essentially a general-purpose truck chassis of the US Army, with a container containing a missile vertical launch system, and the form of "4 launch vehicles + 1 command vehicle" is used to form a complete company-level combat establishment.
4 launch vehicles + 1 command vehicle
Its weapon module part is essentially a land-transplanted version of the U.S. Navy's shipborne MK-41 vertical launch system, which uses the standard "1 pit 4 shells" configuration and is compatible with launching multiple types of missiles. It is capable of launching both Tomahawk cruise missiles and Standard-6 long-range anti-aircraft missiles, and the maximum single-round firepower projection with a full ammunition is 16 missiles.
Among them, the "Standard-6" long-range anti-aircraft missile, although called "anti-aircraft missile", is essentially a multi-purpose missile. In addition to its own air defense use, it is also compatible with ground and anti-ship strike capabilities. According to the official introduction of its R&D and manufacturing company, the American company Raytheon, the "Standard-6" has an anti-air range of more than 400 kilometers, and its range of ground and anti-ship strikes is more than 1,000 kilometers.
Anti-aircraft missile of the "Standard-6" type
The "Tomahawk" cruise missile, on the other hand, is one of the main precision-guided strike munitions currently in service with the US military. The effective range of the "Tomahawk" Block IV ranges from 1,600 kilometers to 2,700 kilometers of the "nuclear Tomahawk," and the range can reach Wuhan and Xi'an.
The Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the mainland also made a strong and forceful public response to the United States' deployment of medium-range missiles to China's doorstep. With regard to the Philippines, which has invited US missile units to be stationed, they have used clear expressions that go straight to the core of the problem, such as "soberly understand the serious consequences," "do not take the fire at the expense of its own security," and "do not go further and further down the wrong road."
Tomahawk cruise missile
Of course, for China's current power, the response to threats that harm China's bottom line and interests has long been no longer limited to diplomatic expressions, but also a series of subsequent practical actions. A Filipino reporter photographed a Chinese Wuzhan-7 reconnaissance plane flying over the South China Sea at a distance of 55 kilometers from Subic City, Zambales Province, Philippines.
As a representative work of the mainland's new generation of large-scale high-altitude and long-endurance reconnaissance UAVs, the emergence of the Wuzhen-7 can be said to have greatly strengthened the PLA's situational awareness of the sea and air areas around the mainland. To a large extent, it makes up for the shortcomings of our military's reconnaissance and situational awareness capabilities due to the revisit of high-resolution optical satellites and limited by weather restrictions, while ordinary unmanned aerial vehicles and manned reconnaissance aircraft are limited by the time and range of the air.
Philippine reporters photographed the PLA Wuzhen-7 drone
The direct result of this kind of reconnaissance and situational awareness capability is the direct strengthening of the PLA's "area denial\anti-access" combat system, especially the considerable increase in the precision strike guidance capability of our army's rocket forces.
The distance between the Philippines and the mainland in a straight line is only 1,000 kilometers, but the range of the Wuzhen-7 is 7,000 kilometers.
Six or seven hours of continuous air time, coupled with the "photoelectric reconnaissance," "synthetic aperture radar reconnaissance," "passive electromagnetic reconnaissance," and other reconnaissance means of the Wuzhen-7, it can be said that no military target within the reconnaissance range of the Wuzhen-7 can escape, and of course the "strategic medium-range firepower" system that the US military has just deployed in the Philippines.
The result locked in by the Wuzhen-7 reconnaissance is very obvious in wartime, and what awaits high-value military targets such as the US military's "strategic medium-range firepower" system will be the precision strikes of ballistic missiles that will follow the PLA rocket forces. Because it is equipped with the "Standard-6" air defense missile, the US military's "strategic medium-range firepower" system can certainly intercept it, but this involves the question of "who has more bombs."
In the face of home operations, the PLA rocket force has an absolute advantage in ammunition and has a hypersonic missile like the DF-17 with extremely strong penetration capability and can hardly be intercepted by the US military's air defense and anti-missile system at this stage. In terms of the number of bombs in reserve and interception capability, the US military stationed in the Philippines, which is at a double disadvantage, can be said to have very little chance of winning.
To sum up, the significance of the PLA's non-detective-7 UAV, which arrived in the coastal waters of the Philippines for reconnaissance, is far from being as simple as "the drone comes and flies around to show its existence".
What is actually behind it is that the PLA has a credible and reliable military strike capability of "rapid detection, continuous locking, and guaranteed destruction" against any high-value target throughout the Philippines.
Even if the Filipinos who have outdated weapons and equipment and the military theory system cannot keep up with the times, the US military stationed in the Philippines can understand it themselves.
Against Americans who believe in "the strong are respected, the law of the jungle", mere protests and verbal shouts will not work. Only by truly demonstrating effective means to counter the Americans' military adventures and threats of force can the Americans think twice before making them think twice and make the Americans weigh and think clearly before taking radical risks.