"A new type of ballistic missile in my country was successfully tested, with a range of more than 1,000 kilometers."
After the DF-17 completed its first experiment, the news was released, and the shock it brought was no less than a storm sweeping the world.
The first to respond was the USS Ronald Reagan aircraft carrier formation.
In the bridge command room, Thomas looked at the latest intelligence with concern and said to Gildy beside him:
"The previous news was indeed accurate. They are indeed developing a new type of weapon."
"Moreover, judging from the current public information, this weapon is aimed at us."
"It's terrible that they're developing it so much faster than we expected."
"If every weapon is like this and can be put into actual combat in less than three months, then what chance do we have against them?"
"The gap will soon be closed and our advantage will no longer exist."
Gildy across from him looked solemn, but compared to the pessimistic Thomas, he still held on to some illusions.
In his opinion, the opponent's speed was too fast, even ridiculously fast.
How is this possible?
Even if our own side wants to trial-produce a medium-range ballistic missile, it will take at least more than a year, and the actual verification process will be even longer.
Now, anything built within three months is either just a modification of the original equipment, or it is just false propaganda.
Thinking of this, he asked:
"Is it possible that it's fake? Maybe this is just a signal they sent out deliberately to deter us."
"Of course, I'm not saying that the equipment is fake, I'm just saying that maybe the performance parameters are not as exaggerated as they say?"
"Look at their reports. Is it possible to have a range of more than 1,000 kilometers and a penetration speed of Mach 5 or more? Is this data a result of intentional amplification?"
"What a joke!"
Thomas rolled his eyes and then replied:
"Gildy, you have to understand that with them, the data will only be smaller, not larger."
"The reported range is 1,000 kilometers and Mach 5. Maybe the actual performance is 2,000 kilometers and Mach 10."
"This is their usual style. They call it hiding their strength and biding their time, but it's actually just plain insidious."
At this point, Thomas sighed.
"Now, the odds are stacked against us."
"Jianlou does not want a real conflict to break out between the two of us. All we can rely on is actually the advantage of the aircraft carrier battle group in the open sea."
"But now, the situation has changed."
“If this weapon really exists, then they have simply expanded the ‘conflict scale potential’ at sea.”
"In the past, we threatened them with the possibility of small-scale war, but now, on this basis, they have come up with higher-level deterrence measures."
"Their attitude is very clear. As long as a conflict breaks out, they will definitely use the advantages of medium-range ballistic missiles to expand local conflicts to the global situation."
"So the choice is back in our hands."
"And in this kind of matter, whoever is forced to make a choice is the passive party."
Hearing his words, Gildy nodded silently.
"No matter what, we must find a breakthrough."
"Otherwise, if this operation ends hastily, neither the Corner Tower nor the Congress will let us go."
"I see."
Thomas pondered for a moment and continued:
"We should organize a drill."
"What drill?"
"Missile interception exercise! Let's use Pershing 2 as our imaginary enemy!"
Hearing this, Gildy's eyes lit up.
The Pershing 2 tactical missile has an effective range of 1,800 kilometers and a terminal penetration speed of Mach 12.
On this earth, it can be said that almost no defense system can effectively intercept it.
For a long time, it was the Sword of Damocles hanging over the USSR's head. It only took hundreds of missiles to instantly disarm all the USSR's weapons.
Using it as an imaginary enemy is indeed an extremely effective choice.
Because, if the Aegis system can show its strength in front of it, the sense of oppression caused by the so-called "new medium-range missile" will be instantly lifted!
Gilday perked up instantly.
"Where to launch it from? We have only deployed Pershing 2 in Europe now. From the range point of view, there is no effective test environment."
"No, we can have that."
A smile appeared on Thomas's lips.
"The missile wall plan has been around for a long time, but because of our misjudgment of China's strength, it was never really put on the agenda."
"Now, taking this opportunity, we can just do a preview."
"Even Congress will never refuse. After all, they should be more anxious than Guolou right now."
"Understood."
Gildi also smiled knowingly, and after a moment, he asked again:
"Which region to choose? Vietnam? They are not strong enough to carry out such cooperation, right?"
"Of course it can't be Vietnam. I think Thailand is a good choice."
"Of course, this is not a cooperation that can be achieved in the short term. Under the current circumstances, we can try it on our own territory now."
A few days later, Thomas and Gilday's proposal was approved at an alarming speed, and even the maneuvering of the aircraft carrier formation was unusually smooth.
In less than a week, the first batch of three Pershing 2 missiles have been deployed for testing.
Subsequently, under the command of the USS Nimitz aircraft carrier formation, the first missile defense exercise was quickly launched.
This exercise was made public as a joint military exercise, and the entire process was even broadcast live.
Everyone can see that this is a pure muscle show.
However, no one can ignore the significance of this operation.
Because it can be said to almost completely demonstrate the hegemonic strength of the US Aegis system.
Since the launch of Pershing 2, the anti-missile system has tracked it throughout the entire period and in all directions.
Starting with the AN/SPY-1A multifunctional phased array radar, the radar emits hundreds of narrow beams to continuously scan the hemispheric airspace.
Even after only one radar beam discovers a target, the radar immediately controls more beams to illuminate the target and automatically switches to tracking. At the same time, the target data is sent to the command and decision-making subsystem.
The command and decision-making subsystem performs friend-or-foe identification and threat assessment on the target, allocates interception weapons, and sends the resulting data to the weapons control subsystem.
The weapon control subsystem automatically compiles the interception program based on the data, and sends the program to the missile through the missile launch subsystem.
The entire process from discovery to identification did not take more than 20 seconds, and within this short period of 20 seconds, the Aegis system had already predicted the approximate impact range of the missile based on its speed, angle and other information.
Although the accuracy of this impact point range is very poor, under the surveillance of the integrated air and sea early warning system, the missile had just entered the atmosphere and was already locked by the anti-missile missile that took off in advance.
At this time, the Pershing 2 missile had just entered a level flight attitude.
Since the air resistance is greater than gravity, its speed continues to decrease during the descent. Under the control of the inertial guidance system, the flight direction sometimes jumps up and sometimes pulls down. On the premise of reducing the re-entry speed, it can avoid the anti-missile system to the maximum extent. Interception.
But such maneuvers are meaningless to the Aegis system. It sensitively tracks all movements of the missile, intercepts the missile as it takes off, and heads straight for the Pershing 2 missile under the guidance of the sea-to-air radar data link.
4,000 meters in the air, the interceptor missile hit the Pershing 2 missile, exploding into a brilliant fire.
The live broadcast was silent, no one cheered, and no one congratulated each other. It seemed that to the people involved in the experiment, this was just a simple and ordinary experiment.
However, outside the live broadcast, the discussion surrounding this anti-shooting exercise has already raged.
China's military forum has already exploded. Various comments have almost filled the screen, and the vast majority of them are lamenting this huge gap.
"Oh my god, it can actually be intercepted. The technology of the United States can really be said to be at the Zenith level."
"With a speed of Mach 10, doesn't it mean that all air defense systems currently in service cannot intercept it? How do they do it themselves?"
"Who knows? Anyway, their attitude is very obvious, they just want to show off their muscles. This time we are embarrassed. As soon as our new missiles came out, they immediately held an interception exercise. Isn't this a slap in our face? ?”
"I don't know if it's a slap in the face or not, but I want to say that Aegis is actually not that strong, right?"
"Not that strong? Can you try intercepting a Pershing 2?"
"This is purely an argument. I just want to say that when pursuing strike accuracy, the terminal penetration speed of the Pershing 2 missile must be reduced."
"If the strike accuracy is limited to 30 meters, the terminal penetration speed can only be below Mach 4."
"If the accuracy is 15 meters, the speed needs to drop to Mach 2."
"It is obvious from this experiment that the Pershing 2 is easy to let go. It pursues accuracy at the expense of speed. Otherwise, with a penetration speed of Mach 5 or above, even the gods cannot stop it."
As this comment was issued, the topic shifted to the issue of "whether hypersonic missiles can be intercepted." The argument became more and more intense, but in the end, the argument was ended with one sentence:
"Why do they need to intercept high-speed missiles above Mach 5?"
Everyone involved in the discussion suddenly woke up.
Yeah, why do they want to intercept hypersonic missiles?
Isn’t the goal of the new missile we developed this time to attack the aircraft carrier battle group?
Since the aircraft carrier is the target, it must be like the Pershing 2, giving up speed and pursuing accuracy.
In other words, if Pershing 2 can be intercepted, then our new missile can also be intercepted.
So what’s the point of discussing so-called “hypersonics”?
It’s useless, it’s just useless!
For a time, pessimism continued to spread, and everyone seemed to have reached a consensus:
Our missiles have just been born and are already lagging behind
Different from the pessimism shown by public opinion, the attitudes of Zhu Xuejun, who also watched the entire live broadcast of the exercise, and all the scientific researchers involved in the DF-17 project are completely different.
At this moment, they can almost be said to be full of confidence.
Because they know something:
DF-17 is completely different from traditional land-based medium-range ballistic missiles.
Because it uses a waverider structure, what it flies out is Qian Xuesen's trajectory that is almost impossible to predict!
In a launch base in the northwest, Zhu Xuejun looked at the second DF-17 that had just been assembled and asked:
"Are the launch preparations complete? This time we are going to test an unsupported launch. Don't make any mistakes!"
The engineer on the side nodded quickly and replied:
"No problem. The simulation is a vehicle-mounted mobile launch mode. All data parameters have been adjusted and the interception system is ready."
"However, we estimate that the red side will be blinded again this time."
"How can this thing be stopped? Its terminal penetration speed is Mach 10, and its accuracy can still be maintained at 50 meters."
"When we launched it for the first time, the missile hit the target less than 5 meters away from the target."
"The Yankees are really funny. We just sent a message and tricked them into using their ultimate trick."
Hearing this, Zhu Xuejun shook his head calmly and replied:
"Never underestimate your opponent."
"We are hiding something, maybe they are hiding something too."
"Okay, let's go down and get ready for launch."
"clear!"
A few minutes later, the launch order was given to the operator, and the DF-17, which had been ready for launch, took off.
It passed through the atmosphere at a speed similar to Pershing 2 and entered outer orbit.
However, during the reentry phase, the peculiarities of the waverider design begin to become apparent.
With the help of the thin atmosphere, the DF-17 with a high lift-to-drag ratio bounced and fell like water at the edge of the atmosphere. Its trajectory kept changing. All radar and satellite early warning systems failed, and the direction of movement became unpredictable.
After entering the atmosphere, the speed of the missile increased instead of decreasing. With the support of the new heat dissipation system, the missile's shell ignited with flames, but the internal structure maintained amazing stability and reliability.
In less than 30 seconds, the missile was already flying over the target.
Then, it drew an arc with an astonishing angle, twisting and rushing towards the predetermined target on an ever-changing path.
The interceptor missile that had been launched long ago did not even touch a corner of its clothes, and the maximum interception error even exceeded 10 kilometers.
10 seconds later, the DF-17 hit the target.
Its terminal hit speed reached an astounding Mach 7, and its impact point was far from the bullseye.
Only 40 meters.
The deck width of the USS Ronald Reagan is 78 meters.
Cheers resounded throughout the experimental base. Zhu Xuejun breathed a long sigh of relief and said calmly:
"Publish the report."
"It's not rude to come back without reciprocating. They are so generous, so we should be generous too."
"Shit!"
A few hours later, Thomas, who was far away in the ship port, smashed the cup at hand.
He never expected that things would develop like this.
At the poker table, what happened over the past few weeks would have seemed like a ridiculous game.
The opponent revealed the pair's trump card, and we quickly showed the straight in our hand, hoping to scare the opponent away and make them fold their cards voluntarily.
Unexpectedly, what the other party held in his hand was actually four!
Hypersonic missile designed with waverider
Is this really something that should appear in this era? !
Blood oozed from Thomas's palms, and he gritted his teeth as he looked at the two reports placed side by side in front of him.
One is a report on the successful interception of Pershing 2.
One is the "DF-17" penetration drill report that China has just released publicly.
He looked to his left now and then to his right.
At this moment, he was more frustrated than ever.
It's like he's just a clown for people's entertainment
