【Article/Observer Network Columnist Shi Yang】
This week, a number of military and civilian space launches have entered the media's field of vision, and the most closely related to the contemporary military field is the quiet hypersonic arms race between the two major powers of China and the United States. On the one hand, the Financial Times published an exclusive report on October 16, speculating that China has conducted the so-called "global hypersonic weapon" test; on the other hand, the United States has intensively conducted two hypersonic weapons tests this week, and the results are meaningful success and failure; at the same time, the huge "combined fleet" of the Chinese and Russian navies has made a "circumnavigation of Japan" through the Tsugaru Strait, which undoubtedly reflects some new changes in the development of sea power in East Asia.
The United States is highly anxious about "betting on the whole picture"
This week, the United States conducted two consecutive tests of hypersonic weapons, one on October 20, when the U.S. Navy and Army conducted a successful test of hypersonic weapons at the Valops Flight Research Institute in Virginia, which is affiliated with NASA.
The U.S. Navy said in a statement that it was a "critical step" in the development of a universal hypersonic missile designed by the U.S. Navy, demonstrating the reliability of advanced hypersonic technology and how the prototype system would behave in a real-world operating environment. According to the relevant statement, the test is for the U.S. Navy's "Conventional Instant Strike" system (CPS) and the U.S. Army's "Long Range Hypersonic Weapon" (LRHW) system to provide hypersonic strike capability products, it is not difficult to speculate that the main product of this test is the hypersonic warhead common to the two weapons mentioned above.
The Army and Navy use the same warhead, but different boosters according to the vehicle Source: Social Media
Another test was conducted on October 21 at the Kodiak Cosmodrome in Alaska, but failed. According to the U.S. side, the booster rocket that launched the hypersonic weapon failed after starting and leaving the launcher, resulting in the failure of the test. Although the US side said that the booster that caused the accident was only used for testing purposes and was not part of the hypersonic system, it is obviously difficult to avoid the delay in the development of the corresponding hypersonic system in the United States due to this impact.
Interestingly, the United States did not announce which project the failed test belonged to, and the outside world can only speculate from the launch site and the existing hypersonic weapons development plan of the United States, and the failure is the "Operational Fires" hypersonic weapon system led by the Advanced Research Projects Bureau of the Ministry of Defense, which is a land-based medium-range strike weapon with an expected range of more than 1,000 kilometers, which is expected to be put into use and deployed by 2030.
Between this success and failure, the development of hypersonic weapons in the United States seems to be progressing ok, after all, the failure of the test is also a normal part of scientific and technological research. Hypersonic weapons are technically difficult, the test risk is large, and the failure of the test is more reasonable, but the recent failures of the United States in the field of hypersonic weapons testing have always given people a kind of pain like eating flies.
The Air Force's two previous tests of the AGM-183A air-launched hypersonic weapon have been unsuccessful, and the problems are in parts that have nothing to do with the hypersonic speed of the core of the system: in the April 2021 test, the missile failed to be launched from the B-52 bomber that undertook the test because it failed to separate from the pylon; the July test, although successfully separated, failed to ignite the booster, and the missile hit the ground like a scale.
The test itself does not show that the technology of the United States is not good, but the purpose of the test has not been achieved, not only the development of new equipment cannot be promoted, but even the failure of the test itself will be taken by the media to see jokes.
Play the good style of people and so on and so on and so on Image source: social media
In the field of hypersonic weapons, although the United States has carried out research in related fields very early, after the early experimental projects have not come to an end, they have gradually fallen behind due to the continuous research of China and Russia in this field and the indifference of their own subsequent research and development. After a series of Hypersonic weapons between China and Russia were put into practical use, the US military was shocked to find itself once again caught up in the "satellite moment" and rose to catch up. It is precisely because the US military has too many gaps to fill in this field that the hypersonic weapons project launched by the United States will be "dazzling" at present.
According to the report submitted to Congress by the US Department of Defense, there are currently 7 ongoing hypersonic weapons projects in the United States, covering not only the Army, Navy and Air Force and the Advanced Research Projects Bureau of the Department of Defense, but also several different technical routes with different technical difficulties of contemporary hypersonic weapons, both hypersonic cruise missiles driven by highly difficult aspirated super-combustion ramjet engines, glider hypersonic weapons synchronized with the new equipment in active service in China and Russia, as well as relatively conservative. But it is better than the traditional double-cone hypersonic weapons with lower technical difficulty. Although the outside world from time to time has doubts and criticisms about the dispersion of the US hypersonic weapons development forces and the competition for military resources by various services of hypersonic weapons, it is the least risky approach to the current situation in which the United States is eager to reverse its technological disadvantages.
Air-launched gliders and land-launched double cones are all on the horse at the same time Source: Social media
It has to be said that this kind of thinking and practice is very "American", and it is indeed a strategy that the United States, as a resource-rich superpower, has repeatedly tried and failed in the process of catching up against the trend many times in history. At the beginning of World War II, the United States lagged behind Germany in tanks and other technical equipment, and when the United States was suppressed by the Soviet Union in the field of aerospace science and technology in the early days of the Cold War, the United States finally reversed the situation in this way of large investment, poor choice, free development, and selection of the best.
From the current state, the U.S. military in the field of hypersonic weapons research and development has also made great achievements under this strategy: the U.S. Navy's "Conventional Instant Strike" system (CPS) and the U.S. Army's "long-range hypersonic weapons" (LRHW) system used in several tests of hypersonic vehicles have been relatively smooth, although its technical principle is a relatively low-level dual-cone warhead design, and there is still a generation gap in the level of glider design products such as the DF-17 that have been in service with China, but the difference is better than nothing. At least in the face of questioning from the U.S. Congress, the Department of Defense has some weapons in its hands to deal with it.
Although the U.S. Air Force's AGM-183A hypersonic weapons and the failed "land-based combat firepower" system have not been officially tested so far, they both use glider designs in technology, and as long as any of the two projects have made critical progress, the U.S. hypersonic weapons can officially be "on par with China and Russia" on the surface.
And, of course, there's the "side door left" of the inspiratory super-combustion stamping image source: social media
However, in contemporary times, whether this technological development strategy can still work as well as in the past is a big question mark. After all, such a strategy relies on large-scale sustained resource investment supported by superpowers on the one hand, and on the other hand, relevant scientific research institutions have normal research capabilities and convert the invested resources into research results in a relatively stable proportion.
But in the Current United States, although the former is still "large-scale" in absolute terms, the possible increment is becoming more and more limited, especially in the case of the United States in 2020 and 2021 consecutive high fiscal deficits rare in history, the possibility of continuing to invest large sums of money in the field of defense science and technology is doubtful, and the long-term deindustrialization of the United States has now affected the efficiency of American scientific research institutions in further technological progress.
If America's opponents can be more active in this competition, then the United States' "must win" is likely to be less useful. And the opponents that the United States is now encountering are exactly the kind that are not easy to deal with.
Among the public hypersonic weapons, Russia's "zircon" as a hypersonic anti-ship / ground attack weapon using an aspirated scramjet engine has been tested many times; China has large-scale investment in the field of hypersonic systems on the one hand, as in the field of hypersonic systems as the United States, and has many projects in hypersonic systems of various technical routes, focusing on building a new generation of hypersonic campaign tactical strike systems and strategic nuclear deterrence systems; on the other hand, in the efficiency of input and output, China's military industry is also far superior to its American counterparts.
When Chinese already have the ability to fly hypersonically on a global scale, Americans are still worried about the undeserved problem of boosters for several glider-high-quality weapons, so when they are worried about all this, perhaps a new generation of Chinese superb weapons will make this history repeat itself.
When the "Black Ship" and the "Great White Fleet" form comrades
Last week, the Chinese and Russian navies held a joint military exercise of "Maritime Joint-2021" in the waters near Peter the Great Bay in Russia, and after the exercise, the joint naval fleets of the two countries, with some participating ships of the Chinese and Russian navies as the main body, crossed the Tsugaru Strait, an important waterway between the Sea of Japan and the North Pacific, on the 18th, and then detoured along the east side of the Japanese archipelago, during which a series of joint exercises including carrier-based helicopter take-off and landing activities were also carried out.
Invincible Source: Unified Staff Supervision Department
In this series of activities, what left the deepest impression on Japanese public opinion was the scene of the Chinese and Russian fleets crossing the Tsugaru Strait on the 18th. Thanks to Japan's open and transparent military intelligence release system and well-developed social networks, both the official reports of the Maritime Self-Defense Forces on the Sino-Russian naval operations and the photos of The Chinese and Russian naval formations taken off the coast of Japan have spread rapidly on the Internet.
According to the Japanese briefing, the Chinese and Russian naval formations consist of 10 ships, 5 each in China and Russia, of which the Chinese navy ships are the Type 055 "Nanchang" guided missile destroyer, the Type 052D "Kunming" guided missile destroyer, the Type 054A "Binzhou", the "Liuzhou" guided missile frigate, and the "Dongpinghu" comprehensive supply ship. The Russian ships were the Type 1155 large anti-submarine ships Admiral Pandeleev, Admiral Tributs, The 1914.1 electronic reconnaissance ship Marshal Krylov, the Type 20380 corvette "Loud" and the Russian Federation Hero Ardar Zidenzapov.
Embarrassingly, the Japanese Maritime Self-Defense Force, which was monitoring this fleet near the Tsugaru Strait that day, was very weak, and in addition to the P-3C anti-submarine patrol aircraft of the 2nd Air Group, only the 45th Sweeping Squadron's "Dejima" and "Aoshima" minesweepers with a displacement of less than 600 tons played with the Chinese and Russian fleets in the strait, and the photos left at the scene became a strong contrast between the lonely and weak minesweepers facing the huge fleet. Even better, the minesweeper P was aboard the famous Z flag of the old Imperial Japanese Navy, ridiculing the embarrassing situation of the Maritime Self-Defense Forces in this matter.
Although in the follow-up activities of tracking the Chinese and Russian fleets, the Japanese Maritime Self-Defense Force did its best to dispatch the "Yamagami" training ship (the former "Asagyu" class "Yamagami" guided missile destroyer) and the "Gaobo" destroyer to track the Chinese and Russian formations. But for the media and the public, the "bravery" of the minesweepers in the Tsugaru Strait has become a deep memory of the incident. It is no wonder that the Attention of the Japanese Media to the Sino-Russian Formation quickly cooled down, and it was a posture of trying not to get up.
For the Japan Maritime Self-Defense Force, this situation is really a bit humiliating. The Japan Maritime Self-Defense Force, as a maritime force with 36 new and old destroyers of various types, is at the forefront of the world's navies; although the Tsugaru Strait was limited by Japan to only 3 nautical miles of territorial water because of the need to pass through the United States nuclear-powered ships and left an international waterway belonging to the high seas, as a key passage between the Japanese islands of Honshu and Hokkaido, the Maritime Self-Defense Forces should have sufficient patrols in this area to deal with various emergencies.
What's more, the Sino-Russian naval joint exercise is an important military development in the surrounding areas that Japan needs to pay attention to, and the Maritime Self-Defense Force originally had sufficient surveillance of its operations, and as a result, there was not enough response force at the first time when the Chinese and Russian naval formations came to visit, which was really a bit unreasonable.
That's it?
From the perspective of combat effectiveness, the Chinese naval vessels in the Sino-Russian formation are relatively new, technologically advanced, and the combination between the various types of ships is reasonable, the 055, 052D and 054A ships constitute a three-tier configuration of regional air defense, formation air defense and air defense at various ship points in air defense operations, helicopters, anti-submarine missiles and anti-submarine torpedoes are three-layer anti-submarine means, anti-ship operations are a combination of long-range, fast and slow speed, ultra-low altitude and zenith strikes, coupled with the high level of informatization of each ship and advanced various electronic equipment. Its combat effectiveness is superior among the destroyer formations of the world, and some of its combat capabilities are even ahead of the most advanced surface ships of the Maritime Self-Defense Force;
The Russian naval formation is a bit ok, although the surface ships are also the size of the match, but because of the age difference between the ships at least two generations, the positioning and collocation between the ships is quite embarrassing, the 1155 type large anti-submarine ship is a large ship, air defense is only a close point air defense capability, the formation of air defense girder is a small tonnage of 20380 type frigate responsibility, coupled with the difference in the level of information technology of the russian old ships, in the entire Chinese and Russian naval formation, Russian ships are to drag a trail.
Rao's joint tour of the Chinese and Russian navies still reflects some important trends in the seas of East Asia. On the one hand, after more than a decade of large-scale rearmament, the Chinese Navy has begun to explore the "high-level content" of the complex formation subject exercises in the open seas and oceans after forming combat effectiveness; on the other hand, although the Russian Navy has not gone well, in recent years, after the initial results of the rearmament of small and medium-sized ships in connection with the actual situation of the major fleets, the attendance rate of the Russian Navy ships has also improved to a certain extent.
For example, the Nanchang, a Type 055 large guided-missile destroyer in the Chinese ship formation, has already conducted two training missions around Japan into the western Pacific Ocean this year, and several Type 20380 guided missile frigates of the Russian Navy have also carried out high-sea training missions in the waters near Hawaii this year. Although the sea naval activities of the United States and Japan have also been active throughout the western Pacific waters this year due to the arrival of the British aircraft carrier "Queen Elizabeth" formation, the joint operation of the Chinese and Russian navies is obviously a reminder to Japan: there are not only allies in the western Pacific.
In the seas of the western Pacific, of course, there is a huge Chinese navy Source: National Defense Military
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