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Many readers are familiar with anti-ship missiles, traditional anti-ship missiles are mostly flying in the atmosphere, in the process of attacking the target, mainly flying over the sea, the main hit part of the missile body hit the target is above and below the waterline of the hull, now, the characteristics of these traditional anti-ship missiles have become a thing of the past, at the 2018 Zhuhai Air Show, the audience saw a new domestic CM-401 foreign trade anti-ship missile, which has many new characteristics that are very different from the traditional anti-ship missile.
Domestic foreign trade type CM-401 anti-ship missile
Adoption of "Near-Space Ballistics"
According to the on-site display panel, the CM-401 anti-ship missile has a range of about 15 kilometers to 290 kilometers, a maximum flight speed of Mach 6, and the missile adopts a ballistic trajectory near space during the flight, and the whole process of hypersonic maneuvering flight, and the end of the dive zenith attack, with the characteristics of multi-ballistic coordination, multi-platform launch, great damage power, strong penetration ability, and system operation, which can realize rapid and precise strikes on large and medium-sized ships, formations and port targets. The first feature is the use of "near-space ballistics".
According to reports, the technology was used in the short-range M20 tactical ballistic missile of the foreign trade type, which was exhibited at the 2014 Zhuhai Air Show. The missile using this kind of trajectory adopts ballistic flight in the initial and middle stages, and the terminal warhead is a re-entry mobile body, and the missile attitude is controlled by the air rudder or gas rudder in the process of ballistic descent, and the lift and drag of the missile are adjusted by using the change of attack angle and side-slip angle to control the size and direction of the velocity vector, so as to adjust the flight direction of the warhead and increase the range of warhead maneuvering, so as to achieve precise guidance at the end.
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According to U.S. media reports, China has carried out a number of hypersonic vehicle flight demonstration tests, China's hypersonic vehicle is launched by the Long March 2C launch vehicle, due to the unique aerodynamic design of the aircraft, its speed will not be greatly attenuated, but maintain a speed of multiple times the speed of sound "gliding" flight. For such a missile with extremely variable trajectories, the enemy is almost impossible to intercept. The CM-401 missile is a new concept anti-ship missile weapon system based on ballistic missile and high-speed warhead fusion technology, which is in a leading position in the world.
Model of the CM-401 anti-ship missile inside the launch box
High strike accuracy
The CM-401 anti-ship missile weapon system uses a special near-space flight trajectory with an actual range of 290 kilometers, considering that the hit accuracy needs to reach at least meter-level guidance accuracy when striking targets such as mobile surface ships, it is speculated that the missile flight terminal guidance should be radar homing, and cooperate with high-speed (Mach 6) zenith attacks, when carrying out multi-missile joint attacks on sea targets such as enemy aircraft carriers, such penetration capabilities can make it difficult for opponents to parry.
However, considering that the CM-401 missile has a very fast flight speed, up to more than Mach 6, which is much faster than the traditional anti-ship missile, in this way, its warhead needs to use high-temperature wave-resistant wave-transmitting fairing material, which can not only ensure that the high-temperature aerodynamic heat at the high speed of the re-entry speed of more than Mach 6 will not destroy the projectile structure, but also ensure that the fairing still has good radar wave transmission performance after high temperature resistance. At the same time, because the aircraft carrier battle group is always in a state of navigation rather than a stationary state at sea, it is not enough to rely only on radar terminal guidance, and the missile also needs to have the ability to change the target parameters to hit the moving target during the re-entry segment of the flight, which requires it to use the missile data link, and other detection and guidance platforms continuously provide updated target parameters to the missile through the data link to ensure that it accurately hits the target.
Close-up of the tail nozzle and gas rudder of the CM-401 anti-ship missile
Strong penetration ability
Because the CM-401 needs to correct the ballistic strike in the re-entry stage of the moving carrier formation, and the carrier battle group is equipped with an ultra-long-range shipborne air defense missile system such as the Standard-3 that can carry out mid-course anti-missile operations, this requires the CM-401 to have better maneuverable orbit change and missile control capabilities than traditional anti-ship missiles. From the description published on the display board, it can be seen that the CM-401 missile is a new concept anti-ship missile weapon system based on ballistic missiles and high-speed warhead fusion technology, which can change the trajectory of the original ballistic missile as a regular parabola, so that the enemy's anti-missile detection system cannot predict and detect the trajectory of the missile, so as to achieve the purpose of evading interception and hitting the target. From a technical point of view, the CM-401 missile's full hypersonic maneuvering flight penetration can be achieved by the following technologies:
Gas nozzles and air rudders are used. Generally speaking, the highest point of the trajectory of a ballistic missile is located outside the atmosphere at an altitude of several hundred kilometers above the ground, and when maneuvering attitude adjustment is carried out outside the atmosphere, since there is no air here, the adjustment can be achieved by the small thrust vectoring engine jet installed on the missile, and when entering the atmosphere, it can be achieved by the pneumatic rudder surface. According to the information on the display panel, the CM-401 missile adopts a ballistic trajectory in near space, and the near space is between the inside and outside of the atmosphere, which is neither an absolute vacuum nor a dense air.
Screenshot of the propaganda video of the CM-401 anti-ship missile attacking the enemy's surface ships
Variable center maneuver technology is adopted. This technology changes the center of mass of the aircraft by moving the position of the mass inside the warhead, and uses the aerodynamic trim moment to change the flight attitude of the aircraft to achieve effective aircraft maneuvering. After the introduction of metamorphic center control of ballistic missiles, its flight trajectory can deviate from the predetermined trajectory, not only can it re-enter the atmosphere, and the warhead can be maneuvered in a spiral or snake shape, but also the metamorphic center control can also make the warhead achieve a small maneuver in the re-entry attack stage, which is very useful for dealing with slow-moving ground or sea targets, such as aircraft carriers, sea fleets and other slow-moving targets.
Multiple warheads and decoy technologies are employed. When attacking the aircraft carrier battle group, CM-401 can carry multiple warheads, using saturation attack methods, beyond the interception capability of the shipborne ultra-long-range air defense system, at the same time, CM-401 can also consider the option of installing part of the decoy on the warhead, and the deception decoy and the real warhead hit the target together, including replica decoys (a large number of decoys with similar target characteristics to the real warhead), differentiated decoys (a large number of decoys with real warheads and between each other have certain differences in target characteristics, As a result, the defense system cannot judge the real warhead by looking for differences in target characteristics), anti-simulation decoy (disguising the real warhead as a decoy), etc., and successfully deceive the shipborne air defense system to identify and thus hit the target. In addition, the CM-401 can also carry active/passive electronic jamming such as tungsten heavy chaff to interfere with the air defense and anti-missile detection system of the air defense and anti-missile detection system, so as to jam the air defense detection system of the enemy's aircraft carrier battle group, so as to cover the real warhead to successfully hit the target "across the sky and the sea".
The CM-401 anti-ship missile twin launch box is statically displayed outdoors at the 2018 Zhuhai Air Show
epilogue
The appearance of the CM-401 anti-ship ballistic missile has given China an additional anti-aircraft carrier "trump card" in its arsenal, which is of great significance and value for safeguarding the sovereignty and security of the mainland's territorial waters and the country's maritime rights and interests.