The PLA's military exercises in the South China Sea have unsurprisingly sparked heated discussions in the Western media. However, in some details of the exercise, the Western media have a difference in reporting. According to media reports such as the Financial Times, the PLA launched a DF-26 medium- and long-range ballistic missile and a DF-21D medium-range ballistic missile during the exercise. However, some media quoted unnamed US military officials as saying that the PLA actually launched 4 missiles.
Although these media reports have diverged. But in reality, the U.S. military has the right answer.
The United States has always been very jealous and attaches great importance to the development of missile technology by other countries. But for the two great powers, China and Russia, even if the U.S. military deploys long-range radars in the vicinity, it cannot fully monitor missile launches in its inland areas. Therefore, since the 1970s, the United States has begun to deploy infrared missile early warning satellites, called "Defense Support Program Satellites". Today, satellites in orbit are already a new generation of products called "space-based infrared systems". To date, the early warning system has launched 10 satellites.
Missile early warning satellites mainly detect targets by sensing the high temperature tail flames spewed out by ballistic missiles when they take off, issue alarms to their own side, and then continue to track and calculate the flight direction of the missiles, predict the landing point, and provide their own commanders to launch interception operations, or command nuclear counterattacks and organize military and civilian evacuations.
【Space-based infrared satellites before launch, pay attention to the pattern on the left fairing】
Considering that human beings are still in the technical stage of relying on jet propulsion to achieve flight, and the most advanced missiles, in their take-off and ascent stages, the engines must jet a large number of high-temperature flames, which is an obvious infrared signal, so the combat effectiveness of the US missile early warning satellite is beyond doubt.
As early as the Gulf War, the "Defense Support Program Satellite" accurately detected all the launches of Iraq's "Scud" missiles, and the US military tried mankind's first anti-missile combat on this basis. The performance of the "Space-based Infrared System" as an alternative model is further improved. It is said that it can not only distinguish between strategic missiles and tactical missile launches, but also detect and distinguish the actions of jet aircraft.
The United States can use a large number of satellites to monitor Chinese mainland missile launches, including three large elliptical orbiting satellites, designated USA-184, usa-200, usa-259, and three low-orbit satellites, designated USA-205, usa-208, usa-209. The location of satellites in geostationary orbit is confidential, and generally one is deployed in the Atlantic and Indian Oceans, one in the Pacific Ocean and one in the other. The task of monitoring Chinese mainland is the usa-230 satellite deployed over the western Indian Ocean, which is mainly used to monitor nuclear submarines that may enter the Pacific to launch missiles. Therefore, the US military is probably very clear in its heart about how many missiles the PLA has launched and what the direction of flight is, but it will not tell the media.
As mentioned above, after the early warning satellite finds that the missile takes off, the attacked party can intercept, counterattack and evacuate according to the feedback information. The premise of these three actions is to determine the landing point of the missile, if it is not to attack itself, it does not need to react randomly, and the final interception and evacuation requires a more accurate prejudgment of the landing point. Wouldn't it be a joke if the alarm sounded in New York and the warhead fell on Chicago?
【Space-based infrared satellite under test】
However, for missile models with terminal maneuverability such as the DF-26 and DF-21D, prejudging the landing point is almost an "impossible task."
Conventional ballistic missiles lose the ability to maneuver and adjust their trajectory after the engine is turned off and they enter the mid-flight segment. Split-pilot multi-warheads may undergo subtle changes in trajectory during flight, but maneuver again after re-entry into the atmosphere. Therefore, it is only necessary to judge the direction of the missile's flight in the ascending stage, and it is possible to predict its trajectory and landing point at the end of the stage, which is nothing more than a matter of accuracy.
However, if the warhead can still maneuver after entering the atmosphere, it will make the other side completely blind. You know, "ballistic missiles hit the aircraft carrier" is only a technical goal. As long as they have this ability, commanders can flexibly choose the target of attack in actual combat. Especially in the face of a large number of high-value targets, which to fight which one is not which one, which to fight first and which to fight later, can be decided according to the actual tactical needs. Battleships and nuclear submarines in the harbor, airfields and strategic bombers on the shore, oil depots and radars... Before being hit, no one knows what target the attacker's missiles are aiming at. From the current point of view, the terminal mobile missile can not be intercepted, which exceeds the combat capability of the existing anti-missile systems of the United States.
In this way, it seems that after the US military received satellite early warning information, there was only one option left to evacuate. Fixed facilities cannot be evacuated, and strategic bombers are difficult to take off and evacuate in a short period of time, so can large warships in maritime voyages quickly run for their lives? In fact, this is also impossible, the speed of the aircraft carrier battle group is no faster, it is only more than 30 knots, and the flight time of the ballistic missile will not exceed half an hour, we assume that the aircraft carrier has the help of God during this time, can maneuver laterally for 30 kilometers, and the maneuverability of the anti-ship ballistic missile is also insignificant, and the difference between it and the fixed target is not much.
【U.S. Military Guam Base】
The last option seems to be a reciprocal counterattack, but this is one of the biggest aspects of the US military's opinion on China's conventional ballistic missiles. The US military has a perfect strategic nuclear counterattack process, and the premise of initiating a nuclear counterattack is that the other side is a nuclear missile. If the other side launches conventional missiles and the US military counterattacks with nuclear bombs, it will inevitably be counterattacked by the other side's nuclear weapons, and human history may end here. However, with missile early warning satellites alone, it is impossible to know the nature of the warhead mounted on the opposing missile. The U.S. military can only decide what to do if it watches the warhead hit.
Judging from the statement issued by the US Department of Defense on August 28, the US military not only knew that the PLA had fired several missiles, but also basically judged how accurate the missile hit was. Because if the missiles were deflected, with the cultural habits of the US military, I am afraid that they would have already made a mockery.
The U.S. military accuses the PLA of destabilizing the South China Sea, but in fact, the biggest destabilizing factor is the United States itself. Only when the United States completely abandons its interference in the South China Sea will the place truly stabilize. As Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Zhao Lijian said on August 27, the United States is a saboteur and troublemaker of peace and stability in the South China Sea, and the international community has seen this for all to see. The US side should stop stirring up trouble and stirring up dissension in the South China Sea and play a constructive role in maintaining regional peace and stability.
(Author: Kong Xin Copyrighted works Reprinted without permission)