China's missile swarms vs. America's lasers, drones and railguns: Who wins?
Date
5/23/2016 11:08:03 PM
(MENAFN- Asia Times) Artist’s conception of a PLA anti-ship ballistic missile attack on three US Navy carriers
Gunzinger and Clark's report does not describe anything new for U.S. military planners. Russia, China and Iran have are investing heavily in missiles with an eye toward targeting American bases. But it's China that is of particular concern, owing to the fact that Beijing is producing very large numbers of highly-accurate and long-range missiles.
Worse, the United States has fewer options to spread out its bases in the Western Pacificit is largely stuck to islandsthan it does in Europe or the Middle East, where dispersed 'clusters' of bases are more feasible.
Beijing already fields thousands of cruise missiles and hundreds of ballistic missiles which can hit U.S. bases in South Korea, Okinawa and Guam. The U.S. Air Force has deployed Patriot air-defense batteries to the Western Pacific, but the anticipated target for the Patriot is a lone North Korean ballistic missile.
The Patriot cannot stand a chance if China throws everything it has at America's installations.
There is a similar threat facing America's surface ships. The bulk of the United States' cruise-missile defenses are on warships, such as Arleigh Burke-class destroyers equipped with Aegisan advanced suite of radars, command and control computers and anti-air missiles such as the Sea Sparrow, SM-2, SM-3 and SM-6.
This is a formidable defensive weapon system when your enemy doesn't have a lot of missiles to throw at you. In fact, the Navy designed these systems for engaging a relatively small number of incoming missiles at long ranges. This makes the SM family large, heavy and expensive. Another problem is that the ships' launchersthe Mark 41 VLScannot be rearmed at sea.
A single Arleigh Burke destroyer has around 90+ air-defense missiles. But not every missile will hit its target. In their report, Gunzinger and Clark note that an attacker could expend 32 anti-ship missilesat a cost of less than $100 millionto deplete a destroyer's entire compliment of SM-6s (worth $300 million) given a 70 percent success rate on the part of the defending ship.
That doesn't include the cost of the destroyer, which is about $2 billion. And all it takes is a single missile to either sink the ship, cripple it, or render it out of action for weeks or months. Even if the destroyer survives, it must return to port and rearm. All told, this tactic means China could, in effect, bankrupt the U.S. Navy over time.
China's missiles are getting smarter. The YJ-18, in particular, is a very deadly anti-ship missile. Having only appeared in China's arsenal within the past few years, the YJ-18 can travel 290 nautical miles, most of the way at a speed of 0.8 Mach. But once the missile closes toward a targetand within range of a defending vessel's weaponsit dumps one of its 'stages' and accelerates to a speed of Mach 2.5.
Which makes it difficult for its intended victim to track and destroy it.
However, there is a way to stop China's missiles from delivering a knockout blow to the U.S. military in the Western Pacific, but it will take years and be expensive, too. The solution is also complicated.
The main takeaway from the reportthe United States can no longer take it for granted that long-range missile interceptors will do the trick. Instead, Gunzinger and Clark propose a mix of tactical tricks and new technologies, including electromagnetic railguns with guided high-velocity projectiles, air-defense lasers and guided artillery rounds like the kind DARPA is developing.
US Navy railgun experiment
To make it harder to target U.S. forces, the report suggests dispersing bases when possible and hardening existing ones to force China to expend heavier, more expensive and longer-range weapons of its own. To strike the missile launchers before they fire, the authors want droneslots of themand stealthy bombers (like the B-21) that can penetrate China's air defenses.