China’s People’s Liberation
Army Air Force (PLAAF) has taken the first concrete step towards the
establishment of a national ballistic missile defence (BMD) system with the
construction of an initial two long-range C-band active phased-array radar
systems (LPAR). The first such LPAR is already operational north of Huian in
Fujian Province, facing Taiwan, while the second LPAR is now being built in
Sichuan province, meaning it will be India-specific.
The LPAR north of Huian is
made up of a single octagonal antenna-array of a CEIEC-developed C-band active
phased-array radar that is located at Dongjing Shan, which is close to the PLAAF’s
Huian-based electronic warfare (EW) facility in Fujian Province. This EW
facility has been optimised to cause electronic degradation of Taiwan’s UHF-band
Raytheon-supplied FPS-115 LPAR system at Leshan Mountain in Hsinchu County.
Construction of the PLAAF’s
first new-generation LPAR commenced in 2008, and its hilltop-mounted octagonal fixed-array is boresighted
along an azimuth of approximately 144 degrees. With an assumed coverage of
+/-60 degrees in azimuth, this LPAR is theoretically capable of monitoring the
entire Taiwan Strait region, as well as the southern approaches to the South
China Sea. This LPAR can thus be used for providing long-range coverage extending
north to Japan and to The Philippines.
So far, China has not yet
revealed the design of the LR-SAM that will be used for BMD, but it is
estimated that the final end-product, still undergoing development, will bear a
close resemblance to Russia’s 9M82 and 9M83 family of hyper-velocity LR-SAMs.
Taiwan’s FPS-115 LPAR has been
fully operational since February 2013. Its procurements origins date back to
2000 when its sale was approved by the Clinton Administration under the
Surveillance Radar Programme (SRP). Competing against Lockheed martin, Raytheon
won the $800 million contract in 2004 and began sub-systems deliveries in 2009.
Construction delays due to landslides and technical issues forced Taiwan to
agree to pay an additional $397 million in charges to finish the SRP, which has
been described as being one of the most unique long-range airspace surveillance
systems ever built. Japan is now attempting to catch up with the fielding of
Raytheon-built AN/TPY-2 long-range, X-Band air-defence radars, which were
originally designed as ground-based mobile target acquisition-cum-engagement radars
for the Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) system.
This LPAR is reported to have
a range of 5,000km (3,100nm), and it is able to track a golf ball-sized target
out to 3,000km. Taiwan can see almost all of China’s significant combat
aircraft sorties and exercises from this radar. The requirement for such a
powerful surveillance platform came about at China’s instigation. During the
1995-1996 Taiwan Strait missile crisis, China had launched ten DF-15 short-range
ballistic missiles (SRBM) into the waters north and south of Taiwan. The intent
was to discourage Taiwan from conducting its first democratic elections, but it
failed. The US had then responded by sending two aircraft carrier battle groups
to the area as a show of support. At that time, the PLA’s 2nd Artillery
Corps had approximately 350 DF-11/DF-15 SRBMs, but today that number is about
1,100. Taiwan responded to the threat by procuring three Batteries of Raytheon
MIM-104 Patriot Advanced Capability-2 (PAC-2) LR-SAMs for $1.3 billion. These
were stationed around the capital city of Taipei, leaving much of the central
and southern part of the island unprotected, except for a US-supplied air-defence missile system (supplied by GTE-Sylvania) in the late 1980s and using Taiwan-developed LR-SAMs, with the entire system being known as the Tien Kung 2 (Sky Bow-2).
Though Taiwan’s
military and the US Pentagon pushed Taiwan to proceed with the procurement of
the MIM-104 Patriot PAC-3 systems, domestic politics in Taiwan slowed progress
on the deal until 2007, when the US released a ‘Patriot Configuration 2 Ground
Systems Upgrade’ for the older PAC-2s for $939 million. In 2008, the US
released 330 PAC-3 missiles, and in 2010, the US released an additional 114
PAC-3 missiles.
The US Air Force’s Defense
Security Program (DSP) reportedly has real-time access to the data collected by
Taiwan’s FPS-115 LPAR. The DSP monitors ballistic missile launches and nuclear
detonations worldwide. The US in turn has reportedly given Taiwan free real-time
access to early warning alerts generated by the DSP’s SBIRS satellite
constellation since the last 10 years as quid pro quo.
Genesis of China’s R & D on BMD
Genesis of China’s R & D on BMD
It was on December 15, 1963
that Chairman Mao Zedong said that China’s military strategy was defensive in
nature, and therefore China should develop defensive (strategic) weapons as
well as offensive weapons such as nuclear weapons and their delivery platforms.
On February 6, 1964, during his meeting with Dr Qian Xuesen (the Father of
Chinese Rocketry), Mao again expressed his views on the importance of ballistic
missile defence (BMD) capabilities. This conversation, later known as ‘640
Directive’, cascaded to China’s military-industrial and R & D infrastructure
as Mao’s order to develop a BMD system. On March 23, 1964, more than 30 top
scientists of China attended a meeting organised by the Commission of Science,
Technology & Industry for National Defence (COSTIND) in Beijing to discuss
the feasibility of a BMD system. On May 10, 1965, the Central Special Committee
issued a notice to the 4th, 5th, 6th and 7th Ministry of Machinery Industry,
China Academy of Science, PLA’s 2nd Artillery Corps, and Base 20, asking them
to list BMD in their annual and long-term plans. A plan BMD development
submitted by COSTIND was approved by the Central Special Committee in August
1965. On February 23, 1966, COSTIND organised another conference to outline
detailed R & D plans for the proposed BMD system, which was given a
codename ‘Project 640’.The plan called for the total R & D endeavour to be divided
into five key sub-areas. Key elements of the project included the ‘FanJi’
(Counterattack) family of interceptor missiles, the Xian Feng (Pioneer)
anti-missile super gun, and a land-based ballistic missile early warning
network. The meeting also decided to speed up the building of a dedicated BMD
test-range and the development of the nuclear warhead for the ‘Fanji’ missile.
Full-scale development work commenced in the early 1970s. Under the instruction
of the then Chinese Premier Zhou Enlai, the 2nd Academy of the 7th Ministry of
Machinery Industry (later the Ministry of Aerospace Industry) was officially
renamed as the Academy of Anti-Ballistic Missile & Anti-Satellite in 1969,
and became the nodal institution for developing a functional BMD system. Its
subordinated 210 Institute was charged with developing of the anti-missile
super gun. Shanghai Institute of Optics & Fine Mechanics was responsible
for the development of a high-power anti-missile laser. The 2nd Academy also began
to develop the anti-satellite (ASAT) weapon technology in the early 1970s.
Project 640, however, faced enormous technical and financial difficulties from
the very beginning. China, troubled by its financial hardships and internal
political turmoil due to the ‘Cultural Revolution’, was simply unable to
support an expensive R & D endeavour like this. Additionally, the 1972
Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty between the US and the USSR and later the scrapping
of the US Safeguard ABM system made a Chinese BMD network seemingly
unnecessary. After Mao’s death in 1976, all related R & D work began to
slow down. In March 1980, China’s paramount leader Deng Xiaoping decided to
terminate the entire project.
The FanJi-1 was a two-stage,
semi-active radar-homing, hypersonic interceptor missile designed to intercept
ballistic missile warheads at low- to medium-altitudes. The first-stage of
the missile used liquid propellant and the second-stage used solid propellant.
The missile was 14 metres in length. Flight tests of two dummy missiles were
carried out successfully in August and September 1979. Between October 1971 and
April 1972, the 2nd Academy conducted six flight-tests of a 1:5 scale-model of
the FanJi-2 low-altitude interceptor missile, with five of them being
successful. R & D work on this missile was terminated in 1973. The FanJi-3
high-altitude interceptor missile was proposed by the 2nd Academy in 1974, but all
R & D activity ceased in 1977.
The ‘XianFeng’ super gun developed
by the 210 Institute was given the codename ‘Project 640-2’. Initial research
was carried out on a 140mm smoothbore cannon, which fired a 18kg projectiles to
a maximum distance of 74km. First proposed in January 1967, the ‘Xianfeng’ was
26 metres in length and weighed 155 tonnes. Mounted on a fixed gun-rack, the
420mm-calibre super gun was designed to fire 160kg unguided rocket-propelled
projectiles to intercept incoming nuclear warheads. Various test-firings were
carried out in the early 1970s, but the design proved to be impractical. All R
& D work was put on hold in 1977, and was followed by project termination
in March 1980.
R & D work on a ground-based
ballistic missile early warning radar network was much more productive. Phase-1
of this project included six early warning stations located in Khashi, Nanning,
Kunming, Hainan, Jiaodong, and Xiangxi; and a command-and-control centre in
Weinan (No.28 Station). Later, the network also included a data-processing station
codenamed ‘Qin Ling’, a tracking station codenamed ‘Chang Jiang’, a land-mobile
tracking station codenamed ‘Qian Shao’, a second land-mobile tracking station
codenamed ‘Huang He’, and an additional early warning station codenamed ‘Chang
Cheng’, located in Changchun. Key elements of the early warning network
included a Type 7010 passive phased-array early radar and a Type 110 monopulse
missile tracking radar. The Type 7010 radar was developed by the Nanjing-based 14th
Electronic Institute between 1970 and 1976,. The 40-metre by 20-metre radar
antenna was built on the Huangyang Mountain slope 1,600 metres above sea level
in Xuanhua, Hebei Province, about 140km northwest of Beijing. A second site was
built in Henan Province. These radar sites were abandoned in the early 1990s.
The Type 110 radar was developed jointly by 14th Electronic Institute and the
Electronic Institute of the China Academy of Science in the 1970s. The radar
antenna was 25 metres in diameter, weighed 400 tonnes, and was housed in a
large radome measuring 36.5 metres in height and 44 metres in diameter. The
radar became fully operational in 1977, with only one station built at the
Zhanyi Space/Missile Tracking Station in southern Yunnan Province. Following
the cancellation of Project 640, this radar became part of China’s space
tracking, telemetry and command (TT & C) network in the 1980s.
New
Delivery Systems On The Anvil
The
older conventionally-armed DF-21 and nuclear-armed DF-21A MRBMs are now being replaced
by newer conventionally-armed DF-21Cs and nuclear-armed DF-21Ds. The PLA’s
2nd Artillery Corps is presently estimated to possess some 78 TELs
of DF-21As, 39 TELs of DF-21Cs, and 16 TELs of 16 DF-21Ds, with two reload
missiles for each TEL.
The DF-21Cs are now
deployed 230km west of Delingha in Qinghai Province.
The DF-21Ds are deployed in Yunnan Province.
Now entering series-production is the
1,000km-range road-mobile DF-16 nuclear-armed tactical ballistic missile (TBM), which will eventually
replace the solid-fuelled single-stage 600km-range road-mobile DF-15 and solid-fuelled
single-stage 280km-range DF-11 TBMs.
In addition,
a new-generation road-mobile 4,000km-range MRBM is now under development and
its maiden test-flight is due for later this year.
Lastly, an extended-range (1,800km-range) version of the CJ-10 GLCM is now being flight-tested. Mounted on a 12 x 12 TEL
that also has a built-in SATCOM system, this new cruise missile (two missiles per TEL) will
supercede the existing 1,000km-range CJ-10 GLCMs that are fired from 8 x 8 TELs each of which
carry three cannister-encased CJ-10s.
All the above-mentioned
strategic weapons have been/are being developed by a consortium of R & D
institutions led by the China Aerospace Science & Technology Corp’s (CASC)
3rd Aerospace Academy (also known as China Haiying Electro-Mechanical
Technology Academy or CHETA, or the 066 Base in Hubei), and including the 8359
Research Institute, the Beijing University for Aeronautics & Astronautics,
Shanghai Jiaotong University, China State Electronics Systems Engineering Corp,
Sichuan Aerospace Industry Corp, Tianjin Institute for Power Sources, 624
Engine Design Institute (or the China Gas Turbine Establishment, GTE), and the Sanjiang
Aerospace Group in Yuanan, 210km west of Beijing in Hubei province.
