Well, the IISS 2018 (!) overview says this... and no one would be happier than me if the OpFor is falling behind):
PUBLICATION
The Military Balance 2018
February 2018
Pages: 7-9
Volume: 2018
Publisher: IISS
"The extent of Chinese progress in the air-to-air guided-weapons arena was apparent with the introduction of the PL-10 AAM. This weapon provided a marked improvement in performance over the previous generation of short-range missiles operated by the People’s Liberation Army Air Force (PLAAF), and its development has placed China among the handful of nations with a defence-industrial base capable of producing such a weapon. The PL-10 uses aerodynamic and thrust-vector control, but the PLAAF will require an advanced helmet-mounted cueing system in order to exploit the manoeuvrability the weapon offers. During 2018, a missile designated PL-15 may also begin to enter front-line service. the PL-10 and the PL-15 are not the only systems with which the US and its allies are having to come to terms. China is also developing a very-long-range AAM intended to be used to attack high-value targets such as tanker, airborne early-warning, and intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance (ISR) aircraft. Furthermore, Beijing appears to be pursuing two or more configurations of rocket-ramjet AAMs.
By the early to mid-2020s, China will clearly have a broader – and far more capable – range of air-to-air weapons to complement the combat aircraft that are now in development. These will likely force the US and its regional allies to re-examine not only their tactics, techniques and procedures, but also the direction of their own combat-aerospace development programmes."
FAST FORWARD to
- which annoyingly, on the website, is not dated. But can anyone say they are making all of this up?
https://www.globalsecurity.org/jhtml/jf ... pg|||PL-21
- they easily could be doing that. See formulations like "our country" and how verb tenses are mixed all along the way
- will leave it to others to say if they have caught up... or are only intending to do so
" The Pili-21 missile adopts the normal aerodynamic layout, that is, the wings are in the front and the rudder surface is behind. The advantage of this layout is that the rudder surface is farther from the center of gravity of the missile, so a smaller area of ??the rudder surface can be larger. Torque, thereby reducing the volume and weight of the missile. At the same time, because the wings are fixed, the washing effect on the rear rudder surface is small, and the aerodynamic performance is better. The disadvantage is that the missile’s engine is generally located in the middle and rear part, so The installation of the steering gear and the control system is limited. In addition, the lift generated by the wings is sometimes opposite to the lift generated by the rudder surface. The responsivness of the missile is poor, especially when the weight and volume of the missile itself are relatively large, so the Thunderbolt-21 A set of fixed winglets are added to the warhead, whose role is to improve the stability and maneuverability of the missile's full ballistic flight. The advanced engine and reliable aerodynamic layout only solve the problem of the missile's flight distance. In order to effectively attack the target, A sophisticated guidance system is also needed. Our country has mastered the technology of the composite guidance system for medium-range active radar-guided air-to-air missiles. Therefore, the guidance system of the Jili-21 air-to-air missile will definitely develop from this system. Subsonic speed is used to ensure the stability of the fuel. During this process, the temperature in the fuel chamber rises sharply due to aerodynamic work. Therefore, the speed of the ramjet generally does not exceed Mach 4, so the missile needs to fly for nearly 2 minutes to enter the terminal guidance. Stealth aircraft is quite unfavorable, so I think it is necessary to transplant the composite terminal guidance system technology developed for the Pili-21 for the Pili-12B air-to-air missile, which is to add a passive guidance system. The passive guidance system uses the opponent’s radar signal to guide. The signal is only reduced in one way and the radar power of the early warning aircraft is larger, so the detection range of the terminal guidance system can be expanded, thereby reducing the dependence on fighter guidance. The development of ramjet engines in China started early. Since the 1960s, it has started to develop the supersonic anti-ship missile Haiying-3 with ramjet engines . Since the 1990s, it has broken through the integrated ramjet technology and successfully developed integrated liquids. Ramjet and integral solid rocket ramjet, then which one is used by Pili-21? From the characteristics of the two engines, I think it is more likely to be an integral solid rocket motor. I said that solid rocket ramjet is The high temperature and rich combustion gas produced by the combustion of the oxygen-lean propellant in the gas generator is used as a powerful fire source for the ram afterburner, so the engine can work under a wide air-fuel ratio. When the external atmospheric conditions and flight attitude change, it will not cause flameout, so that the missile can work at a larger angle of attack, which increases the mobility of the missile. This is very valuable for air-to-air missiles that often need to change their flight trajectory. For the shortcomings of insufficient energy of solid rocket ramjets, the emergence of fuel-efficient high-metal content propellants makes up for this shortcoming, which is why solid rocket ramming is used The main reason why the engine's meteor missile can win the competition is that the air intake of the Pili-21 missile is located under the side of the projectile on both sides, and the air intake is swept back to increase the area of ??the air intake. The purpose is to improve the ability of the missile to pre-compress the airflow with the missile body under the condition of a large angle of attack, thereby reducing the airflow turbulence in the intake duct, improving the intake efficiency, and avoiding the change of the ramjet working state and flameout caused by the maneuvering of the missile. The successful development of the Pili-21 long-range air-to-air missile has greatly improved China’s air defense capabilities. In particular, the Chinese Air Force has the ability to attack key system nodes such as the other’s early warning aircraft , which can fundamentally weaken the opponent’s air combat system and even the entire combat system. Ability. According to relevant data, the foreign early warning aircraft with the strongest detection capability is the E-3A early warning aircraft after the improvement of the radar upgrade (RSIP) plan . It claims to provide a detection capability of 550 kilometers for targets with RCS=0.5. If the RCS=0.05 of the overseas data J-20 is calculated, then the E-3ARSIP early warning aircraft has a detection capability of about 200 kilometers, so that the J-20 can already intercept it with the Thunderbolt-21, although there is news that E-3A’s improvements also include the addition of electronic support, missile approach warning, jammer launching and other systems. However, in the face of rapidly approaching air-to-air missiles, it may still be necessary to adopt a combination of route maneuvering and interference release. At the same time, it may also take radar Measures such as cutting off the high voltage, reducing electromagnetic signals or even shutting down will inevitably lose the ability to master the air situation in the theater, and lose the command, guidance and support of external air situation information, even stealth fighters like the F-22 cannot be displayed. With all its combat capabilities, if it cooperates with ballistic missiles and cruise missiles to attack its AWACS base, it will put the other AWACS in an embarrassing situation of "cannot fly and fall." The early warning and the joint combat system formed with the F-22 is the most powerful air combat system. It can be said that the maintenance of US theater air combat is the basis of joint combat capabilities. If it can threaten early warning aircraft, it can be fundamentally weakened from this. The air combat capability of the opposing theater. The Pili-21 can also effectively intercept cruise missiles . The main reason why the United States developed AIM-54 was to intercept the former Soviet Union’s anti-ship missiles. Against the background of flat seas, ballistic anti-ship missiles have become excellent targets for AIM-54. For our country, if the other party launches cruise missiles from the first island chain, the cruise missiles need to be on the sea. Flying for nearly an hour, then at this time, using the high-precision airborne AESA fire control radar, cruise missiles can be intercepted at a relatively long distance, and the depth of defense can be extended from the outside, thereby extending time and space for the inner defense. Another point is to take advantage of the stealth advantage of the J-20 and the long-range interception capability of the Pili-21. It can penetrate around the first island chain to intercept bombers carrying cruise missiles, because one bomber can carry more than 10 In this way, shooting down a bomber is equivalent to intercepting more cruise missiles. At the same time, it can also force the other party to launch cruise missiles at a greater distance. This increases the exposure probability of cruise missiles, thereby increasing our interception time and effectiveness. If the J-20 provides the material basis for the Chinese Air Force to fight out, then the Pili-21 converts this ability into combat effectiveness, especially with the ability to strike key information nodes such as early warning aircraft. The ability to fundamentally weaken the opponent’s combat capability is critical in modern air combat and even modern high-tech local wars [2] . "