Posted on 07/21/2010 10:19:16 PM PDT by TigerLikesRooster
Japan 'Building Missiles to Counter China's Naval Power'
Japan has begun developing a high-speed anti-ship missile in response to China's growing naval power, according to a media report Wednesday. The missile, called XASM-3, is slated for production starting in 2016, the daily Tokyo Shimbun said.
The supersonic missile is "almost impossible to shoot down" and "appears to be aimed at thwarting China's rising naval might," the daily said.
The XASM-3, which is 6 m long and weighs 900 kg, is small enough to be mounted on fighter jets rather tan bombers. Japan is prohibited from having long-range bombers due to limitations on its arsenal of offensive weapons by its post-war Constitution. The Japanese government has earmarked 32.5 billion yen to develop the missile. The country's present arsenal of air-to-ship missiles is subsonic and can be shot down.
(Excerpt) Read more at english.chosun.com ...
P!
Why should we shoulder the load by ourselves?
All we got to worry about is the accelerator pedal getting stuck (just kidding).
Really, Japanese technology kicks rear eight ways from Sunday. China will deeply regret bringing Japan out of its neutral posture. And Israel will get another handy vendor.
(1) The only thing that could shoot that missile down is a laser cannon.
(2) The only nation with a laser cannon equipped ship is the US.
(3) Anyone who thinks that the missile or the laser cannon won’t be deployed for several years doesn’t understand how military R&D, black projects, and deployment work. See the F117 stealth fighter for a primer.
It will be like the moon shot and the digital computer. What was at first considered immensely impractical will become commonplace, one more genie out of the bottle.
I've observed the Japanese tech types in action.
They overplan twelve ways from Sunday, and take a long time.
But by gum their stuff works.
I predict that within six years, Japan will have a fleet of supersonic stealth missiles able to mask their own shock waves and IR signatures from their rocket engines, which can deploy in-atmosphere MIRVs that can be targeted by a quantum entaglement link from remote control sites on the launching jet, a naval vessel, or land-based controller; and which will have a "smart bezerker" mode where the missiles dynamically re-assign themselves to new targets as each existing target is eliminated.
(Only half-kidding!)
Also -- if China plays rough, Japan secretly goes nuclear. They'd do it within a couple of months from a standing stop.
Cheers!
Oh man, Japan would have the best nukes in the world. They would show up US models as plutonium wasting energy hogs.
That makes sense, and you might be correct. However, who else has been to the moon? And the Russian “stealth” tech is a joke compared to the decades old F117.
So sometimes “shocking becomes commonplace” is the case, and sometimes it isn’t. The technical issues with making a functional laser cannon are immense. On the flip side, numerous nations credibly claim to have supersonic antiship missiles.
JMHO, of course.
Maybe even weeks. As they say, Japan is only a screwdriver turn away from the Bomb.
They have a robust nuclear energy program which gives them plentiful access to the requisite raw materials, and if anyone could turn out 10K centrifuges in a weekend, its Japan.
>>Japan is prohibited from having long-range bombers due to limitations on its arsenal of offensive weapons by its post-war Constitution.
*****
What is it with this post-war Constitution when you are shackled to even defend yourself?
“Also — if China plays rough, Japan secretly goes nuclear. They’d do it within a couple of months from a standing stop.”
I think that they can do this in a few hours with a screwdriver.
“What is it with this post-war Constitution when you are shackled to even defend yourself?”
That was the whole idea...Sixty years ago.
It was set up by General MacArthur after the Japanese surrender to the Allies in WWII, superseding the old Japanese constitution.
Yes, it specifies a means by which Japan can amend provisions out and there’s been talk in the last decade or so about doing that so that Japan can be part of the MAD equation. But I don’t know if this restriction even applies to defensive naval munitions.
Even a laser cannon is probably too slow to react to a supersonic missile. It would have to instantaneously blast a beam in every possible anticipated direction to get a shot at it. How many and how fast can it repeat fire?
That’s unusually stupid, even for you.
Yes, please explain the technicalities of tracking a ground-skimming supersonic cruise missile, for the laser system to be provided the guidance to power the actuators to target it. Or did you swallow Star Wars pew-pew wholesale?
Hulloa?
I am convinced they have fabricated and stockpiled the components already.
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