In the past month, some senior leaders in the military circle have felt a little depressed or a little "panicked.". The reason is that our little neighbor suddenly fired a missile on September 28, and declared that the missile's flight was stable, and the performance indicators met the expected design requirements.
This missile is the Hwasong-8 missile.
Let's look at the picture first:
If it is possible that this slightly silhouetted image may not be able to see the shock point, but in the subsequent photos of their 2021 new weapons report exhibition, will you find something familiar?
The missile launcher is our star missile "Dongfeng 17"! Can't sit still when you see this?
In fact, it is not necessary, let's discuss the problem of optimal solution.
Each country has its own imaginary enemies and real enemies, and the weapon systems used in the country's army are constantly optimized for their combat objectives. But unlike competition between countries, we are also faced with a relatively unified geophysical environment.
This has led to many weapon systems having similar solutions to solve the same problem.
For example, the effect of the airflow of the surface layer on the intake of jet engines.
For example, the intake tract of an F-4 fighter jet does not cling to the fuselage but leaves the fuselage a short distance after the separation of the baffles of the attachment layer, so that it can avoid the attachment layer and allow relatively stable airflow into the intake tract.
Even in fighter jets a few generations later, such as the F-22, we will find that the same solution is still used for the treatment of the surface layer. Except that the annoying attachment baffle was replaced by a more reasonable angle of the intake incision.
Another obvious example is the howitzer shells of various countries.
Whether it is China, the United States and Russia, Germany, Italy and Japan, or France and Sweden, which are known for their mavericks, the longitudinal cross-sectional shape of everyone's howitzers is the same - they are all ship-shaped.
There is no question of who copied whom, but after the shell is modified in this shape, the air resistance is the lowest when flying, and the propellant utilization efficiency of gunpowder gas is the highest when firing.
If the shells of each country have different small designs, it is only a small modification of their own equipment characteristics, but the overall path is still the same.
This is the design of the optimal solution. For similar shell velocities, and similar range requirements, there is often and only one optimal design scheme in the design of artillery shells of the same caliber. Any design that deviates from this optimal design scheme is inefficiently impaired.
This is also why W Jun has always said that our Z-20 and the American Black Hawk are not imitative relationships, but are close to the optimal solution of the medium-sized utility helicopter in terms of design.
Is there anything revolutionary to overthrow the present optimal solution? This has to rely on external forces. Take the fighter air intake we mentioned earlier as an example. The isolation of the surface layer can only be hard isolated in that year by letting the intake tract leave the fuselage for a distance. But after computer simulations and simulation techniques continue to evolve, we can perform finite element analysis of airflow.
Next, the dsi (diverterless supersonic inlet, supersonic inlet without a surface layer) inlet has entered the popularization phase. It's not that there haven't been attempts before. Back in the 1960s, the United States experimented with DSI technology on F4 fighter jets.
However, at that time, there was no computational simulation function, and the wind tunnel model could only be blown again and again, so the intake tract that relied heavily on calculation could not be implemented manually.
Now computer processing is no longer a problem, and in the future, all the new fighters that you see, you will almost find that the DSI intake has become a universal equipment feature.
This is also an upgrade process of the optimal solution, of course, the intake design of the jet fighter has actually gone through five generations. You'll also find similar design paradigms for each generation.
Let's go back to the missile, the DF-17 is a hypersonic missile we unveiled in 2019.
In order to use the unique aerodynamic characteristics of the missile's re-entry stage to glide at high speeds in the atmosphere, thereby increasing the range and maneuvering at high speeds in the atmosphere. In order to achieve this goal, the DF-17 has two important design characteristics: the first is the shape of the wave-riding body, and the bottom is flat, which allows the missile to obtain the lift moment when flying at high speed in the atmosphere. Allows the warhead to gain lift in a relatively dense atmosphere.
The second is the small rocket engine array behind the Dongfeng 17 multiplication body, and this figure cannot be announced to everyone for the time being. Through the alternating opening and turning of small rocket engine arrays, the different thrusts of high-speed wave-riding bodies in the heading - that is, high-speed maneuverability.
These two points are actually the essence of Dongfeng 17. But these two points are actually not difficult to imitate. In particular, after foreign research institutions see the shape of our Dongfeng 17, it is easy to use computer modeling and analysis. The design level of the optimal solution is also achieved.
In fact, after the exposure of our Dongfeng 17 in 2019, more than a dozen wave-riding body designs similar to Dongfeng 17 have been announced in the past two years, and the basic principles are the same.
So it is not surprising that even a country like our little neighbor came up with the design of the Mars 8 missile. After all, it is our Dongfeng 17 that has set up an optimal solution for the world - after all, it is through high-speed maneuvering in the earth's atmosphere to break through a country's anti-missile system.
But you still have to pour some cold water on your little neighbors, and from the material and coating, Mars 8 still has some shortcomings. There is no way to imitate this part from the appearance. For example, the white part of the warhead of the DF-17 is not painted white for the sake of good looks, this part needs to continuously evaporate and absorb heat when flying at high speed. We are also the world's leading country in this field. Although Mars 8 also adopted a white warhead design, in the view of W Jun, this part is still just a decoration, and the real reliability is probably 108,000 miles behind.
This part does not work, which directly leads to the flight speed of the wave-riding body cannot be increased to the level of Dongfeng 17, and the time to fly in the atmosphere will also be limited. Of course, the Mars 8 flight test announced this time met the design requirements, in fact, it is also due to the fact that the small neighbors know these restrictions and do not mention too high expected indicators.