Since the mid 1990s reports have indicated Chinese interest in modifying DF-15 tactical (600 kilometer) and DF-21 (2,500 kilometer) intermediate-range ballistic missiles as antiship weapons, using radar or infra-red (IR) guidance. Efforts in this direction were featured in a 2004 Office of Naval Intelligence report that became public early this year. This program, if indeed it exists, may be connected to an ongoing Chinese satellite surveillance program, which reportedly will consist of four radar and tour electro-optical satellites. They are being co-produced with the Russian firm Mashinostroyeniye. which has been promoting radar satellites in connection with its Yakhont antiship missile.
Ballistic antiship missiles would certainly complicate fleet air defense. Their maneuvering re-entry vehicles would not be too much taster (if at all) than sea-skimming supersonic missiles such as the Russian Moskit or Yakhont, but they would approach from above, in a cone that current naval radars do not cover effectively. The missiles could certainly be detected as they rose above the atmosphere, hut radars are designed with limited instrumented ranges, and the launchers would probably he more distant. Modern software-controlled radars such as SPYI can certainly be set to detect rising ballistic missiles (as when Aegis is used for ballistic-missile defense), but that makes them ineffective at handling cruise-missile threats. A U.S. formation under ballistic missile threat would probably use multiple Aegis ships, set for the different threats, linked by a CEC net. The main effect of a tactical ballistic-missile threat would be to make antiballistic weapons such as SM-3 much more important for Fleet air defense. Instead of buying a small number to face strategic threats, the Navy would probably want to put some SM-3s on all Aegis platforms. The balance between high-grade air defense ships such as Aegis cruisers and general-purpose destroyers (such as the projected DD[X]) might also change dramatically.
A successful Chinese antiship ballistic missile, moreover, would be much more than part of a possible future peer-competitor problem. In recent years, new Chinese missile developers have appeared. When the government has failed to buy their | wares, they have turned to export sales, particularly to Iran. Thus it appears that the short-range missile on board some Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps boats is the failed competitor to the C-701 that the Chinese Navy (PLAN) is buying. Like the Russian Shkval high-speed torpedo, an antiship ballistic missile would probably have considerable export appeal, whether or not it was really effective.
Because the missile is fired far beyond its horizon, much clearly depends on some external means of targeting. How good the targeting must be depends on how much course correction the missile can make on its way down in the very limited time it has. This is apart from considerable target identification problems. A passive radar satellite can, in theory, identity particular ships by radar fingerprinting, but to do that the operator has to maintain a considerable electronic intelligence effort. If he fails to do so, or if his satellites are not sophisticated enough (which is generally the ease), then he can fall victim to simple spoofs. For example, the U.S. Navy standardized its long-range air search sets (SPS-49s) during the Cold War partly to make it difficult for the Soviets to distinguish carriers from frigates.
An active satellite using a synthetic-aperture radar can, at least in theory, distinguish types of ships by imaging them. But imagery makes for a very narrow search path (or at the least for very intensive work to identify what is seen), and seems poorly adapted to ocean surveillance.
It is not, moreover, clear whether the Chinese satellite system is intended primarily for ocean surveillance. It seems more likely that the combination is intended for all-weather imaging, just as the United States combines electro-optical surveillance with, reportedly, synthetic aperture radar imaging by the Lacrosse system. Governments generally consider such all-purpose intelligence collection rather more important than speciali/ed naval functions. That is even true when navies are very important, as in the United States but probably not in China. For example, the U.S. Navy's Cold War attempts to develop an active radar ocean surveillance satellite. Clipper Bow, were rejected because a radar system-almost certainly Lacrosse-was already being funded. That Lacrosse had nothing to do with ocean surveillance was missed by those spending the money. U.S. experience showed that ocean surveillance required the sort of wide-area coverage associated with a passive radar system, which identifies ships using their own electronic emissions. Active radar might be used to identity what the passive system picked up. but it could not be the primary surveillance system, because far too many ships were at sea.
All of this having been said, there is now an important caveat. The naval targeting problem is difficult largely because warships are buried in a mass of civilian shipping. Until recently the merchant ships were all anonymous. Now, however, the International Maritime Organization requires that each merchant ship carry an AlS (Automatic Identification System) transponder. Currently AIS is a radio line-of-sight system, which means that it has little or no effect well offshore, and hence does not really affect the identification issue. However, there is considerable interest in moving it to a satellite system, in which case it really will affect ocean surveillance. In principle an ocean surveillance system using AIS will be able to concentrate on those ships that are not transmitting. The U.S. government will be in a particularly difficult position because it will probably depend heavily on AIS for maritime domain awareness well out into the Atlantic and the Pacific. If it uses AlS deceptively to protect warships, other countries will likely argue that they need not comply with AIS requirements.
For the present, Chinese interest in HF surface-wave radar is probably more worrying as a means of ocean surveillance, because it gives continuous coverage of a sea area (albeit without identifying what it sees). Typically such radars are credited with a range of ISO nautical miles, which equates to about 350 kilometers. The Chinese reportedly bought such radars from the Russians in 2004. and they may be connected with the reported DF-15 program.
The Chinese would not be the first to build guided ballistic missiles. During the 1960s the Soviets developed a version of their SS-N-6 (R-27) submarine-launched ballistic missile using passive radar guidance. When it was tested. NATO assigned it the designation SS-NX-13. The U.S. Navy deployed radar simulators on some cruisers which, it was claimed, could distract an SS-NX-13 fired at a carrier. When the missile did not appear in any numbers, it was assumed that the program had died. Only after the end of the Cold War did it become apparent that a Golf-class submarine had deployed three of the missiles as operational weapons. It is now supposed that no further deployments were made because the total number of submarine-launched ballistic missiles was limited under the SALT treaty signed in 1973.
The antiship version of R-27 was one of several Soviet weapons thought to have been abandoned, which it turned out after the end of the Cold War had been placed in service. Some analysts have remarked that countries such as North Korea (and possibly also China) seem willing to field weapons after cursory tests, so that we cannot rely on observation of extensive testing to know that some new weapon is operational. Examination of the Cold War record shows that, despite a formal process involving careful tests and a state trials commission. the Soviets often apparently fielded systems without the sort of testing we would imagine, or apparently accepted systems that had not passed their tests (in some cases because the system's designer used political connections).
We also know that the Soviets were very good at system engineering, and that very often what we did see was only part of a larger planned system, for example the weapon end of a system that included a long-range sensor. What was surprising was that the weapon end was often fielded even though the supporting elements, such as long-range sensors, could not be developed. Fielding only part of the system might be attributed to belief that the rest would ultimately appear, or to bureaucratic inertia in a badly coordinated procurement process. Remember that the Chinese military procurement system was initially modeled on that of the Soviet Union, and that probably it has changed a lot less than the rest of Chinese society. To what extent would the Chinese field an antiship ballistic missile even though the associated targeting system(s) were either not ready or would never enter service?
It probably is not significant in this connection that in recent months the North Koreans have been credited by some with a surface-launched ballistic missile derived from R-27. However, the reports also claim that the Makeev design bureau, which developed the original missile, was involved in the North Korean program. That may mean that the bureau was in a position to offer information on the guided version of the missile. It is less than comforting that late last year the German intelligence service apparently reported that Iran had bought the North Korean missiles, which have the important virtue of using storable liquid propellants. and are thus much more mobile than the Scud derivatives the North Koreans have been marketing. Some have speculated that the North Koreans also obtained the submarine-launch equipment for R-27 from Russian submarines they scrapped.
Note that terminal guidance has also been applied to some other ballistic missiles. During the Cold War, the United States fielded Pershing II, with a guided terminal stage using radar correlation to attain high accuracy. That accuracy in turn put Soviet command posts at risk, and this risk was sometimes credited with helping to end the Cold War in Europe. The Russians themselves have fielded and advertised terminally guided versions of their tactical ballistic missiles, the lineal descendants of the old Scud. Neither Pershing nor the Russian weapons were intended to hit moving targets such as those the new Chinese systems are intended to strike.