jward
passin' thru
PLA Rocket Force
In case, the US intervenes militarily, China’s response will be a devastating pre-emptive attack in the first few days. “Many Chinese observers suggest that missile strikes on [US] air bases would be part of the opening salvos of a war,” RAND said in 2019.
China will unleash a volley of missiles — the most varied stockpile of 2,000 land-based, cruise and anti-ship weapons in the world — on Guam and Diego Garcia.
After the conclusion of the CNAS war game, which simulated China attacking Guam and Japan in the first few days, Hinote said that Beijing would adopt a Pearl Harbour-like bombing strategy. “The attack is designed to give Chinese forces the time they need to invade and present the world with a fait accompli,” he told the Air Force Magazine.
China has the most massive and diverse arsenal of missiles that threatens American ships in the Western Pacific, former US Indo-Pacific Command chief Admiral (retired) Harry Harris said in March 2018. “We are at a disadvantage with regard to China today in the sense that China has ground-based ballistic missiles that threaten our basing in the Western Pacific and our ships,” he said in a testimony before the US Senate Armed Services Committee.
The CSIS estimates that the PLA had a minimum of 425 missile launchers capable of hitting the US bases. Not only Diego Garcia but the whole of the US is within the striking range of China’s longest-range intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) Dongfeng (DF)-41, which can hit targets as far as 15,000 km. The DF-41, which can carry 10 independently targeted nuclear warheads, could theoretically hit the US in 30 minutes, according to the CSIS.
If the US decides to reuse the Taiwanese Ching Chuan Kang Air Base — as it did during the Cold War — to neutralise a Chinese attack, it will be vulnerable to the DF-16 short-range ballistic missile. China can also easily target the US air bases in Japan with its DF-21 medium-range ballistic missile and land-based cruise missile CJ-10.
Guam killer missile
On 17 April 2020, the US ended its 2004 Continuous Bomber Presence (CBP) programme on Guam with the Strategic Command explaining that the B-52s, B1s and B2s could still be deployed in the Pacific when needed.
Before Beijing unveiled the DF-26 in 2015, Guam was considered a safe base from where the three bombers undertook the Bomber Assurance and Deterrence mission in six-month rotations to reassure American allies South Korea and Japan.
Not anymore. The real reason for ending the programme was the threat of the Chinese intermediate-range ballistic missile (IRBM) DF-26, dubbed the ‘Guam Killer’ by American analysts. The Andersen Air Force Base, the Apra Naval Base and the 6,000 US military personnel on Guam are within striking distance of DF-26 (5,400 km range) from mainland China.
According to Timothy Heath, a senior international defence researcher with RAND, the Chinese military could have “easily plotted ways of destroying the bombers due to their well-known presence”.
Similarly, the US-China Economic and Security Review Commission said in its November 2016 report: “Foremost among China’s military assets capable of reaching Guam, the DF-26 IRBM represents the culmination of decades of advancement to China’s conventional ballistic missile forces.”
In its report titled, ‘Military and Security Developments Involving the People’s Republic of China 2020’, the US department of defence said that the DF-26 is “capable of conducting precision strikes in the Western Pacific, the Indian Ocean, and the South China Sea from mainland China”.
Besides, the PLAAF’s H-6K bomber, which has a combat radius of 3,700 km, can target Guam with its Changjian-20 cruise missiles.
The distance factor will also favour China following the scrapping of the CBP programme. Hinote too pointed out the distance disadvantage after the CNAS war game. In a China-Taiwan war, the US will dispatch the bombers from their bases in North Dakota, South Dakota and Louisiana but they will take, at least, 14-15 hours to reach the conflict zone.
Carrier killer missile
The US has often used the superior firepower of its carriers against weak countries — for example, during operations Desert Storm and Iraqi Freedom and Enduring Freedom (Afghanistan). But China is not Iraq.
In August 2020, a day after an American U-2 spy plane allegedly entered a no-fly zone in SCS, Beijing fired the DF-21’s ‘carrier killer’ version DF-21D and the DF-26 as warnings to USS Nimitz and USS Ronald Reagan and Guam, respectively.
CSIS’s Missile Defence Project estimates DF-21D’s range at 1,450 km-1,550 km. China tested the missile against a ship target which was roughly the same size as a contemporary US aircraft carrier. The DF-26 too has a ‘carrier killer’ version called the DF-26B.
“We know that China has the most advanced ballistic missile force in the world,” James Fanell, a retired US Navy captain and former senior intelligence officer with the US Pacific Fleet, told Reuters in 2019. “They have the capacity to overwhelm the defensive systems we are pursuing.”
Warning the US about sending an aircraft carrier to Chinese waters, Phillips O’Brien, professor of strategic studies at the University of St. Andrews, Scotland, recently told CNN, “The US better be careful thinking about in any kind of war environment sending carrier battle groups close to China.” Besides, only around half of the US carriers are combat-ready at any one time.
Massive missile gap
The massive gap between the Chinese and the American missile arsenals, especially the range factor, was the reason then-US president Donald Trump pulled out from the Cold War-era Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty with Russia in 2019. The pact had banned nuclear and non-nuclear missiles with ranges of 500-5,500 km in 1987.
Former President Donald Trump speaks at the Road to Majority conference in Nashville, Tenn. AP
While the treaty bound the US, China accelerated the production of missiles with frightening ranges keeping in mind any future challenge posed by American aircraft carriers in the Indo-Pacific. In the last few decades, some Chinese anti-ship missiles outrange the jets on US carriers.
There is a considerable gap even between Chinese and US missiles that aren’t in the INF Treaty’s range restriction. Beijing has two supersonic anti-ship cruise missiles YJ-12 (400 km) and YJ-18 (540) km compared to the US Harpoon, which has a maximum range of only about 240 km.
“That is a very big gap. China’s anti-ship missile capability exceeds those of the United States in terms of range, speed and sensor performance,” Robert Haddick, visiting senior fellow at the Mitchell Institute for Aerospace Studies, Arlington, Virginia, and former US Marine Corps officer, told the Reuters in 2019.
Chinese aircraft carriers and attack submarines are strategically positioned to strike US bases in SCS. The Northern Theatre Command Navy has one aircraft carrier, four nuclear-powered attack submarines and 14 diesel-powered attack submarines. The Southern Theatre Command Navy has one aircraft carrier, four nuclear-powered ballistic missile submarines and 14 diesel-powered attack submarines.
ICBMs can fool US missile defence
US missile experts and defence officials say the rate of success in shooting down ICBMs is very low due to their higher altitudes and countermeasures. The current US missile defence system has been tested only 19 times since 1999 with only a 50 per cent success rate.
James D Wells, a professor at the University of Michigan, doesn’t see an effective defence against ICBMs in the next 15 years. “ICBMs are a qualitatively different threat travelling significantly higher and having potential penetration and countermeasures.”
After North Korea tested the Hwasong-17, its first ICBM since 2017, in March, Frederick L Lamb, a professor at the University of Illinois, told CNN: “If North Korea were to fire ICBMs at the USA, we cannot be assured that our missile defence system can prevent the deaths of millions of Americans.” Even the Hwasong-14 (10,000 km range if fired on a maximum trajectory) can reach New York and the Hwasong-15 (13,000 km range) anywhere in the US.
Asked why it is so hard to shoot down an ICBM, Lamb said, “The warhead will undoubtedly be accompanied by decoys aimed to fool a missile defence system.”
The first study of its kind in 10 years commissioned by the American Physical Society, a non-profit membership organisation of professionals in physics and related disciplines, revealed that despite more than six decades of missile defence efforts, “no missile defence system has been shown to be effective against realistic ICBM threats”.
“It has been described as shooting a bullet with a bullet trying to hit a warhead,” Laura Grego, a Stanton Nuclear Security Fellow at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, said.
In case, the US intervenes militarily, China’s response will be a devastating pre-emptive attack in the first few days. “Many Chinese observers suggest that missile strikes on [US] air bases would be part of the opening salvos of a war,” RAND said in 2019.
China will unleash a volley of missiles — the most varied stockpile of 2,000 land-based, cruise and anti-ship weapons in the world — on Guam and Diego Garcia.
After the conclusion of the CNAS war game, which simulated China attacking Guam and Japan in the first few days, Hinote said that Beijing would adopt a Pearl Harbour-like bombing strategy. “The attack is designed to give Chinese forces the time they need to invade and present the world with a fait accompli,” he told the Air Force Magazine.
China has the most massive and diverse arsenal of missiles that threatens American ships in the Western Pacific, former US Indo-Pacific Command chief Admiral (retired) Harry Harris said in March 2018. “We are at a disadvantage with regard to China today in the sense that China has ground-based ballistic missiles that threaten our basing in the Western Pacific and our ships,” he said in a testimony before the US Senate Armed Services Committee.
The CSIS estimates that the PLA had a minimum of 425 missile launchers capable of hitting the US bases. Not only Diego Garcia but the whole of the US is within the striking range of China’s longest-range intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) Dongfeng (DF)-41, which can hit targets as far as 15,000 km. The DF-41, which can carry 10 independently targeted nuclear warheads, could theoretically hit the US in 30 minutes, according to the CSIS.
If the US decides to reuse the Taiwanese Ching Chuan Kang Air Base — as it did during the Cold War — to neutralise a Chinese attack, it will be vulnerable to the DF-16 short-range ballistic missile. China can also easily target the US air bases in Japan with its DF-21 medium-range ballistic missile and land-based cruise missile CJ-10.
Guam killer missile
On 17 April 2020, the US ended its 2004 Continuous Bomber Presence (CBP) programme on Guam with the Strategic Command explaining that the B-52s, B1s and B2s could still be deployed in the Pacific when needed.
Before Beijing unveiled the DF-26 in 2015, Guam was considered a safe base from where the three bombers undertook the Bomber Assurance and Deterrence mission in six-month rotations to reassure American allies South Korea and Japan.
Not anymore. The real reason for ending the programme was the threat of the Chinese intermediate-range ballistic missile (IRBM) DF-26, dubbed the ‘Guam Killer’ by American analysts. The Andersen Air Force Base, the Apra Naval Base and the 6,000 US military personnel on Guam are within striking distance of DF-26 (5,400 km range) from mainland China.
According to Timothy Heath, a senior international defence researcher with RAND, the Chinese military could have “easily plotted ways of destroying the bombers due to their well-known presence”.
Similarly, the US-China Economic and Security Review Commission said in its November 2016 report: “Foremost among China’s military assets capable of reaching Guam, the DF-26 IRBM represents the culmination of decades of advancement to China’s conventional ballistic missile forces.”
In its report titled, ‘Military and Security Developments Involving the People’s Republic of China 2020’, the US department of defence said that the DF-26 is “capable of conducting precision strikes in the Western Pacific, the Indian Ocean, and the South China Sea from mainland China”.
Besides, the PLAAF’s H-6K bomber, which has a combat radius of 3,700 km, can target Guam with its Changjian-20 cruise missiles.
The distance factor will also favour China following the scrapping of the CBP programme. Hinote too pointed out the distance disadvantage after the CNAS war game. In a China-Taiwan war, the US will dispatch the bombers from their bases in North Dakota, South Dakota and Louisiana but they will take, at least, 14-15 hours to reach the conflict zone.
Carrier killer missile
The US has often used the superior firepower of its carriers against weak countries — for example, during operations Desert Storm and Iraqi Freedom and Enduring Freedom (Afghanistan). But China is not Iraq.
In August 2020, a day after an American U-2 spy plane allegedly entered a no-fly zone in SCS, Beijing fired the DF-21’s ‘carrier killer’ version DF-21D and the DF-26 as warnings to USS Nimitz and USS Ronald Reagan and Guam, respectively.
CSIS’s Missile Defence Project estimates DF-21D’s range at 1,450 km-1,550 km. China tested the missile against a ship target which was roughly the same size as a contemporary US aircraft carrier. The DF-26 too has a ‘carrier killer’ version called the DF-26B.
“We know that China has the most advanced ballistic missile force in the world,” James Fanell, a retired US Navy captain and former senior intelligence officer with the US Pacific Fleet, told Reuters in 2019. “They have the capacity to overwhelm the defensive systems we are pursuing.”
Warning the US about sending an aircraft carrier to Chinese waters, Phillips O’Brien, professor of strategic studies at the University of St. Andrews, Scotland, recently told CNN, “The US better be careful thinking about in any kind of war environment sending carrier battle groups close to China.” Besides, only around half of the US carriers are combat-ready at any one time.
Massive missile gap
The massive gap between the Chinese and the American missile arsenals, especially the range factor, was the reason then-US president Donald Trump pulled out from the Cold War-era Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty with Russia in 2019. The pact had banned nuclear and non-nuclear missiles with ranges of 500-5,500 km in 1987.
Former President Donald Trump speaks at the Road to Majority conference in Nashville, Tenn. AP
While the treaty bound the US, China accelerated the production of missiles with frightening ranges keeping in mind any future challenge posed by American aircraft carriers in the Indo-Pacific. In the last few decades, some Chinese anti-ship missiles outrange the jets on US carriers.
There is a considerable gap even between Chinese and US missiles that aren’t in the INF Treaty’s range restriction. Beijing has two supersonic anti-ship cruise missiles YJ-12 (400 km) and YJ-18 (540) km compared to the US Harpoon, which has a maximum range of only about 240 km.
“That is a very big gap. China’s anti-ship missile capability exceeds those of the United States in terms of range, speed and sensor performance,” Robert Haddick, visiting senior fellow at the Mitchell Institute for Aerospace Studies, Arlington, Virginia, and former US Marine Corps officer, told the Reuters in 2019.
Chinese aircraft carriers and attack submarines are strategically positioned to strike US bases in SCS. The Northern Theatre Command Navy has one aircraft carrier, four nuclear-powered attack submarines and 14 diesel-powered attack submarines. The Southern Theatre Command Navy has one aircraft carrier, four nuclear-powered ballistic missile submarines and 14 diesel-powered attack submarines.
ICBMs can fool US missile defence
US missile experts and defence officials say the rate of success in shooting down ICBMs is very low due to their higher altitudes and countermeasures. The current US missile defence system has been tested only 19 times since 1999 with only a 50 per cent success rate.
James D Wells, a professor at the University of Michigan, doesn’t see an effective defence against ICBMs in the next 15 years. “ICBMs are a qualitatively different threat travelling significantly higher and having potential penetration and countermeasures.”
After North Korea tested the Hwasong-17, its first ICBM since 2017, in March, Frederick L Lamb, a professor at the University of Illinois, told CNN: “If North Korea were to fire ICBMs at the USA, we cannot be assured that our missile defence system can prevent the deaths of millions of Americans.” Even the Hwasong-14 (10,000 km range if fired on a maximum trajectory) can reach New York and the Hwasong-15 (13,000 km range) anywhere in the US.
Asked why it is so hard to shoot down an ICBM, Lamb said, “The warhead will undoubtedly be accompanied by decoys aimed to fool a missile defence system.”
The first study of its kind in 10 years commissioned by the American Physical Society, a non-profit membership organisation of professionals in physics and related disciplines, revealed that despite more than six decades of missile defence efforts, “no missile defence system has been shown to be effective against realistic ICBM threats”.
“It has been described as shooting a bullet with a bullet trying to hit a warhead,” Laura Grego, a Stanton Nuclear Security Fellow at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, said.
China to strike US bases in Indo-Pacific, aircraft carriers in war over Taiwan
Every Pentagon war game has shown the PLA beating America with its biggest arsenal of longest-range missiles
www.firstpost.com