#头条首发大赛#
In the past few decades, it has been the United States that has led the development of military technology in the world, and the vast majority of today's high-precision weapons are the first to be developed and equipped by the United States, and other countries, including China, are catching up. For example, the world's first nuclear submarine "Nautilus", the world's first fifth-generation fighter is the American F-22, the world's first shipboard automated command and decision-making and weapon system control system: the "Aegis" air defense system, and the world's first nuclear-powered aircraft carrier.
In the past, when China developed new types of weapons, it was based on approaching or surpassing the existing weapons of the United States. However, in recent years, with the continuous improvement of China's comprehensive national strength, its military scientific research capabilities have been greatly strengthened, and it has gradually shown its leading edge in some fields, such as hypersonic missiles and electromagnetic catapults. Slowly, many countries began to deliberately compare with Chinese weapons when developing weapons, for example, not long after the test flight of South Korea's KF-21, they made an air combat video with the J-20 as an imaginary enemy, and demonstrated the advanced nature of the KF-21 by demonstrating the shooting down of the J-20.
Recently, even the United States has begun to "overtake in corners" against China. The United States fought many wars after World War II, although the results were victorious and defeated, but the US military will always be the side that holds the air supremacy on the battlefield, even compared with the Soviet Air Force of the same period, the United States has a very obvious superiority in the air, and even from the late 70s of the last century, the Soviet Union has gradually formed a generational advantage. When the U.S. military began to equip F-14 and F-15 fighters, the Soviet Union had just completed the improvement of the MiG-23 fighter. The Soviet Union really had to wait until 1985 to have a fighter capable of rivaling the F-15, and there were only a few years left before the collapse of the Soviet Union.
Although the US military's air-to-air missiles were once "unsuitable" on the battlefield in Vietnam, the United States still relied on its strong scientific research strength to complete the improvement of its air-to-air missiles, and in the later stages of the Vietnam War, the US military's air-to-air missiles had become reliable weapons. In the later Gulf War, air-to-air missiles completely replaced machine guns and became the absolute trump card in the struggle for air supremacy. During the Kosovo War, the United States' advanced AIM-120 active radar-guided air-to-air missiles began to emerge, further widening the gap with other countries.
However, when the time came to 2011, the situation suddenly changed, China's fifth-generation aircraft was born, and successfully completed the test flight, and within a few years it was installed in the army. Along with the J-20 in service, there is also a new generation of China's air-to-air missile combination: Thunderbolt-10 infrared-guided air-to-air missile + Thunderbolt-15 long-range radar-guided air-to-air missile. In the eyes of the United States, the Thunderbolt-10 is only indistinguishable from the latest AIM-9X in the United States, after all, everyone uses two-way data link, infrared gaze imaging seeker, and vector thrust technology. However, in the face of the Thunderbolt-15, the United States will not be able to come up with a target weapon, and the export version of the Thunderbolt-15E has a maximum range of 145 kilometers, while the AIM-120 used by the US military has a maximum range of only 120 kilometers.
In addition, the Thunderbolt-15 missile also adopts dual-pulse technology, which makes up for the problem of "lack of stamina" at the end of the range of air-to-air missiles, and has a higher hit rate. On the US side, the dual-pulse air-to-air missile is still in the conceptual stage, and it was originally a technology used to "draw a big pie" in front of the whole world, but I did not expect China to really realize it. There is no way, the United States can only hurry up the research and development of AIM-260 air-to-air missiles, but far water can not quench the thirst of the near thirst, and China recently released a photo of the J-16 carrying the Thunderbolt-17 ultra-long-range air-to-air missile, which is completely thrown off by the US military.
Although in modern air warfare, the range of missiles does not completely determine the outcome of the war, it will not be able to run away if its own side is to be beaten passively first, and the US Air Force, which is accustomed to fighting a rich war, will certainly not be able to accept it. However, US arms dealers could not immediately conjure up a reliable long-range air-to-air missile, and in this case, the US military began to play a "corner overtaking" and transplanted ship-to-air missiles to fighter planes since the range of air-to-air missiles was insufficient.
Recently, an American aerial photographer photographed a strange F/A-18E "Super Hornet" fighter near the Naval Weapons Station at China Lake in California, which carried a peculiar missile on its wings, and after comparison, it was found to be a standard-6 ship-to-air missile with the booster removed.
The Standard-6 is currently the world's most advanced shipborne multi-functional anti-aircraft missile, developed by the American company Raytheon, and has both air defense and anti-missile combat missions. The Standard-6 adopts the design of the Standard-2 Block 4 projectile, improves the propulsion system and warhead, adopts the active radar seeker of the AIM-120 air-to-air missile, and adds the advanced signal processing technology and navigation control technology of the air-to-air missile.
The Standard-6 is arguably the most comprehensive anti-aircraft missile in the world, capable of intercepting cruise missiles at low altitudes and speeds, as well as jet fighters flying at high altitudes and speeds, while also possessing limited terminal ballistic missile defense capabilities.
In addition, the Standard-6 can also be used for anti-ship warfare, and in a 2022 exercise, the U.S. Navy used a Standard-6 missile to sink a target ship played by a retired frigate. Now that the Standard-6 is being used as an air-to-air missile, it can be said that the Standard-6 already has the rudiments of a "general-purpose missile", and it cannot be ruled out that it will be able to attack ground targets in the future. Of course, striking surface targets and ground targets is only a side business of the Standard-6, because the warhead charge is insufficient, and the armor-piercing and armor-piercing warheads cannot be used, so they can only be used to kill and injure lightly armored targets, and it is a bit whimsical to want to use it to hit aircraft carriers and tanks.
However, the U.S. military's use of the Standard-6 on fighter jets is a good emergency option. As mentioned earlier, the Standard-6 itself has the combat mode of an air-to-air missile, and although it is necessary to remove the booster when hanging on a fighter, the aircraft itself gives the missile enough acceleration and therefore does not reduce the effective range of the Standard-6. According to data released by Raytheon, a standard-6 missile with a booster removed, with a diameter of 0.3 meters, a length of about 5 meters, and a weight of 1 ton, both in size and weight, far exceeds the AIM-54 "Immortal Bird" air-to-air missile used by the US Navy in the past. If it is carried by a Super Hornet carrier-based aircraft, I am afraid that it can only carry a maximum of 4 pieces, and it will seriously affect the speed and maneuverability of the aircraft.
Of course, it is worth paying such a big price, the range of the Standard-6 missile is about 370 kilometers, while the export version of the Thunderbolt-15E has a range of only 145 kilometers, even if the range of the self-used Thunderbolt-15 is increased to 180 kilometers, the range of the air-launched Standard-6 is still twice that of the Thunderbolt-15.
And when the Super Hornet carrier-based aircraft carries the Standard-6, it can not only fight in the air, but also use the Standard-6 to launch attacks on sea surface targets, although the damage capability of the missile is insufficient, but it can also cause serious damage to the radar on the warship, and if there are enough of them, it is still possible to make a destroyer lose its combat capability.
And the huge range of 370 kilometers can allow the Super Hornet to calmly launch missiles from a safe distance, and the air-to-air missiles of enemy aircraft cannot threaten the Super Hornet at all. If the AIM-120 missile is compared to a sniper rifle, then the Thunderbolt-15 missile is a large-caliber anti-materiel sniper rifle, and the US military found that its "sniper rifle" was inferior to the PLA's "anti-materiel sniper rifle" in terms of range and destruction ability, so it took out the "sniper gun": the standard-6 missile. Although it is bulky, the range and lethality are more than enough to crush the anti-materiel sniper rifle. Although the Standard-6 still has many shortcomings as an air-to-air missile, it is obvious that the United States is really in a hurry now, and can only let the Standard-6 make a temporary cameo appearance as an air-to-air missile to make up for the lack of strike capability of American fighters before the AIM-260 missile is put into service, so that it will not have the ability to counterattack in the face of the Thunderbolt-15.
It's just that the size of the Standard-6 missile is too large, completely exceeding the size of the built-in magazine of the US military's fifth-generation aircraft, so it can only be carried by fighters such as F/A-18 and F-15. The U.S. military's F-22 and F-35 fighters can still only use AIM-120 missiles.
The Standard-6 seems to have helped the U.S. military solve the disadvantage of the range of air-to-air missiles, but the performance of the missile cannot only be judged by the range. Although the range of the Thunderbolt-15 is not as good as that of the standard -6, it can fit into the magazine of the J-20. When the US fighter carries the Standard-6, it is simply not capable of detecting the J-20 at a long distance, which means that the range advantage of the Standard-6 missile cannot be brought into play. On the other hand, the J-20 can easily find the US fighters carrying the Standard-6 missiles, and then launch an attack from 150 kilometers away, the US fighters equipped with the Standard-6 missiles will be extremely bulky, and in the face of the Thunderbolt-15 launched from a long distance, the US fighters will either hang the Standard-6 and wait for death, or abandon the Standard-6 to improve their survival rate.
Of course, the PLA's J-10 and J-16, which are non-stealth fighters, will be in a relatively dangerous situation when facing US fighters carrying Standard-6 missiles. Fortunately, the Thunderbolt-17 missile has now begun to appear, and the defect that it cannot fit into the J-20 magazine and designed such a long body proves that the range of the Thunderbolt-17 is significantly improved compared with the Thunderbolt-15, and it is estimated that it will not be lower than the standard-6 missile.
At present, the US military's air-to-air missile combination is: AIM-9X plus AIM-120 plus Standard-6, while the PLA is Thunderbolt-10 plus Thunderbolt-12 plus Thunderbolt-15 plus Thunderbolt-17, the PLA's missile combination perfectly covers the near, medium, long, and ultra-long 4 distances, while the US military is short, medium, and ultra-long 3 range segments, and the over-the-horizon range on the basis of ensuring stealth capabilities, China is more than 150 kilometers, And the US military is only 120 kilometers at most.
Moreover, the US military is in such a hurry to move the Standard-6 to the plane, which shows that the progress of the research and development of a new generation of air-to-air missiles in the United States in the future may be stuck. As early as May 2023, US Air Force Secretary Frank Kendall revealed that AIM-260 is expected to be put into production by the end of the year. However, 1 year has passed, and the AIM-260 that Shenlong has not seen has yet appeared, but the Standard-6 has gone to make a cameo appearance as an air-to-air missile, or is the so-called AIM-260 air-to-air missile actually an air-launched version of the Standard-6?
Whatever the reason, in terms of air-to-air missile research and development, the United States has been thrown off a position by China, China's Thunderbolt-15 maintains the lead, the Thunderbolt-17 has also appeared, and the legendary Thunderbolt-21 may also be in the process of development, while the United States can only make do with ship-to-air missiles. Of course, in terms of air-to-air missiles, the United States also has some technological advantages, such as the miniaturization technology of rocket engines, so that the United States missiles have obvious weight and size advantages over Chinese missiles in the case of similar range.
U.S. planes can fly with Standard-6 missiles, while Chinese fighters can't fly with Hongqi-9 missiles, which can control the size within the range of large air-to-air missiles, while Hongqi-9 is equivalent to the size of a cruise missile. China's next plan may be to develop an air-to-air missile for the J-20 with a range of at least not less than the Thunderbolt-15 and significantly smaller than the Thunderbolt-15.