China’s ‘Carrier-Killer’ Was Born in the Balkans

The DF-21D is China’s answer to America’s carriers, with an unusual origin in the Kosovo War

In 1999, the U.S. was engaged in an air and missile war with Serbia. As NATO bombs exploded around Belgrade — part of a campaign to force an end to the ethnic cleansing of Kosovar Albanians by Serb forces — several U.S. missiles slammed into the Chinese embassy. It was the most controversial U.S. action of the war.

China’s leaders were outraged, but could do little in response. The result? The bombing became a pivotal moment in the decision to pursue a sophisticated weapons project: a ballistic missile that can sink American aircraft carriers from 1,900 miles away.

That’s the history according to a new book from Andrew Erickson, a specialist on the Chinese military at the U.S. Naval War College. The book has wonky title: Chinese Anti-Ship Ballistic Missile (ASBM) Development: Drivers, Trajectories and Strategic Implications. But it’s the most comprehensive overview of a weapon — the DF-21D anti-ship ballistic missile — that poses perhaps the greatest threat to American aircraft carriers that’s not a nuclear bomb.

“The bottom line is that the era of ‘ASBM denial’ is over,” Erickson writes. “China’s ASBM is not science fiction. It is not a ‘smoke and mirrors’ bluff. The DF-21D is not an aspirational capability that the United States can afford to ignore until some point in the future.”

Usually, carriers are incredibly tough to kill, sitting far off a coastline and outside the range of whatever most countries can throw at it. Escort ships are prowling for submarine threats, and air-defense missiles and carrier-borne fighter jets scan for enemy bombers that can launch sea-skimming cruise missiles. But a ballistic missile that can target ships can bypass all these defenses while being launched from land at the same time.

Thanks for the ping. I predicted several years ago that China would have anti-carrier missile capability.

From my home page...

Posted by Kevin OMalley to nickcarraway On News/Activism
01/12/2005 12:07:37 PM PST · 17 of 25

Here is my swag on what is going to happen in Taiwan, posted on an earlier thread,
“China Rapidly Modernizes for War With U.S.”.
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1285398/posts

1) The one-child policy has created a testosterone-rich generation the likes of which no one on earth has ever seen. China will have an entire army of what they call “little dictators” who have few prospects of finding women, and they will be very aggressively pushing their old-guard superiors for action on the Taiwan issue. The final straw will be that they’ll be promised wives when they invade Taiwan.

2) Their army is as much as 200 Million strong, which was the size predicted in Revelation in the Bible, called “The Kings of the East.” They can afford casualties in the range of 10 million, which is 5 times bigger than our army ever was. China has some unfinished business with Vietnam, having fought to a standoff in 1979. They might do a run through Vietnam first so that their troups are more battle-hardened and arrogant, knowing that the US didn’t exactly win there. The added bonus is they get one of the largest warm water ports in the world.

3) Taiwan has never declared independence. It’s not like the brave Estonians standing up to Russia when communism fell. They’re like an impudent child claiming to have sovereignty over China. Their fatal miscalculation is that they know they’ll need Americans to fight for them if they are in a war, but Americans will be reluctant to shed blood for an ally that didn’t have the courage to declare independence until they were invaded on an “internal dispute”. The chinese will hammer away at this in the press.

4) Chinese weapons policy has been to cycle through older generations of weaponry and stay about one generation behind the latest stuff. They sold their old silkworm missiles to the Iranians and used that money to upgrade their newer missiles, which are inferior to US missiles but they only need to be functional. The plan is to overwhelm defenses with superior numbers. No ship can stand up to 50 supersonic silkworm missiles aimed at it. They have similar tactics for other systems, such as anti aircraft missiles.

5) The chinese went up against Americans in Korea. They sent in 300 thousand infantry up against a much smaller American force. The key was that they only had rifles for about 1 in 5 personnel. So they would tell one to go as far as he could till he got shot, then the 2nd one would pick up the rifle & keep charging, and so on. Today, every one of those infantrymen has an automatic rifle. They are not as well equipped as their US counterparts but they can afford a lot of casualties. Vietnam, Iraq, Somalia and other engagements proved that you can’t replace feet on the ground with air superiority. No matter how advanced the air force is nor how many smart bombs get dropped, the US won’t be able to dislodge a standing army without sending in massive troup numbers and experiencing casualties. If our press made a big deal about losing 1000 US soldiers in Iraq, they’ll have a heydey with 500 thousand casualties. Seeing the press reaction emboldens the Chinese.

6) China is building a blue-water navy including submarines. They might be able to achieve a standoff in the surrounding ocean, limiting the ability to resupply american troups while the chinese troups will pillage Taiwan. Once America loses 2 nuclear powered aircraft carriers (with the resulting radioactive plumes), the calculation is that the U.S. will lose stomach for more fighting.

7) The trick to defeating these strategies with minimal casualties will be special forces operating in Taiwan. They will need to have the ability to direct standoff weapons fire onto individual tanks and squad units in order to be effective.

8) The most likely outcome will be that Taiwan will be a giant pile of rubble. Casualties could run as high as WWII. If China wins, it could be a Pyrrhic victory. If the US wins, it will take a whole generation to repair and rebuild. I think the Chinese view towards weakness or perceived weakness is a little bit like how Germany viewed the U.S. after we sent 10,000 men wandering in the hills to find Pancho Villa, to no avail. The Germans perceived it as weakness and went ahead with their war plans.

9 posted on Sunday, September 23, 2007 9:47:37 PM by Kevmo (We should withdraw from Iraq — via Tehran. And Duncan Hunter is just the man to get that job done.)

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