All the Chinese Air to Ground Missiles!
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LearningTranscript
00:00Otis, did you confirm that detail on the KD-10 Seeker?
00:05Unfortunately, no information is available on open source intelligence, sir.
00:10OK, I suppose we will present that as just an hypothesis.
00:14If you were not so adamantly against me penetrating the Great Chinese Firewall,
00:19we could have a much more extensive set of information available, sir.
00:23Otis, I told you a million times, it is illegal, it is dangerous, so no, no way, and this is final. OK?
00:34The second option in my list, sir, is buying a KD-10 for personal use, sir.
00:43Do they sell it on Aliexpress?
00:45I can check, sir.
00:54There's quite a lot of information on YouTube about Chinese air-to-air weapons or even surface-to-air weapons,
01:03but there's not much about air-to-ground weapons.
01:09Well, probably it's just not as glamorous as air-to-air.
01:13However, we do stuff that is not easy to find anywhere else on YouTube,
01:17so in this video we will dive deep into this magmatic sector of the Chinese aerospace
01:25and we will focus on air-to-surface missiles built in China.
01:30Not imported, built in China.
01:32But before starting, there is something I would like you to pay attention to.
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02:47Now, back to the video.
02:49The PLAAF has always been historically an air force oriented toward the air-to-ground mission,
02:56so it is no surprise that there are several different types of weapons in use.
03:01Their history is quite complicated and their development is rooted in technologies that have been acquired from abroad,
03:08but to be honest the Chinese actually started developing their own solutions quite early.
03:14Today the Chinese weapons tend to have a sort of a Russian flavor,
03:18but now they are mostly indigenous creations.
03:22The KD-20 is a paradigm of the Chinese approach to military technology.
03:32The weapon is designed and built with indigenous technologies in China,
03:38but those technologies are based on technology transfers from Russia
03:43and the analysis of several wreckages of American Tomahawks recovered around the world.
03:50So the final outcome definitely benefits from the technology and the know-how acquired,
03:55but is definitely Chinese.
03:57So the KD-20 is a land-attack cruise missile with a range of about 2,000 km.
04:02It is launched by the H-6K bomber that can carry up to 6 weapons.
04:09The warhead is conventional and the weapon is aimed at attacking high-value fixed targets.
04:16It is a slightly bulky unit if compared with Western weapons,
04:23but its configuration is pretty much the same as the cruise missiles in service today everywhere else in the world.
04:32It is powered by a turbofan, it has small retractable wings,
04:37and the guidance is based on a mix of contour matching, inertial navigation, and ISMAC for the terminal guide.
04:45But since the weapon was designed in the late 90s, early 2000s,
04:50we may also expect that it is actually using the Chinese Beidou satellite positioning system.
04:56There is something to say about the guidance.
04:58In fact, inertial guidance is a sort of a self-contained guidance system
05:03that can take the weapon to specified coordinates,
05:07but with a precision that normally is not sufficient for conventional weapons.
05:12Contour matching is based on the terrain altimetry that is used as a guide for the missile path.
05:19ISMAC uses images of the target taken, let's say, before the attack
05:24to be matched with the images stored inside the missiles,
05:29and it turned out to be very very precise.
05:33However, both contour matching and ISMAC requires to acquire a large quantity of data
05:41before launching the weapon.
05:44In fact, it is necessary to map the terrain and taking the pictures of the target.
05:49We don't have information about how the Chinese collect, store, and manage this information,
05:55but that would be very very interesting because this is an essential part of the kill chain of the KD-20.
06:03However, it seems that there is a version in development that is going to replace ISMAC with a mapping radar.
06:09This will give the weapon better all-weather performances
06:13and probably a radar image to be used is easier than a photographic image.
06:26The KD-63 is another cruise missile, but this time is derived by an anti-ship missile.
06:33Obviously, the KD-63 is a very different weapon, much more modern.
06:37In fact, it is a large weapon with a 500 kg warhead,
06:42designed to attack important and large ground fixed targets from a standoff distance.
06:50The weapon is subsonic and the range is estimated to be 180 km.
06:56The guidance is inertial and probably Beidou based with a mid-course update.
07:03For terminal guidance, the weapon features an infrared imaging sensor that, by a data link,
07:10relays the image back to the launching aircraft.
07:14On the launching aircraft, the operator will lock the weapon on the target
07:18and from that point onward the missile will dive automatically on it.
07:24The H-6H and H-6K bombers need to carry a small communication pod behind the bomb bays
07:33to communicate with the weapon if there.
07:35The version we have described is the KD-63B.
07:39The previous version apparently is still in service
07:42and it is characterized by the fact that rather than having an infrared sensor,
07:47it has basically a TV sensor, a camera that relays a TV image back to the aircraft.
07:54And this is not very modern to be honest.
07:57The KD-63 is a powerful weapon and it can be very precise but it has a fundamental weakness.
08:04It requires the aircraft to stay in the vicinity for the terminal guidance.
08:10This is an intrinsic weakness of the concept itself.
08:14And the Chinese are well aware because some sources actually say
08:17that the weapon has some fire and forget capabilities but to what extent we don't know.
08:29The missiles that we have seen so far are large missiles launched by the H-6 bombers
08:35but the Chinese also have weapons that can be used by tactical aircraft.
08:40The staple of this segment is the KD-88.
08:43It is generally considered the equivalent of the American SLAM
08:46but actually the KD-88, in pure Russian style,
08:51is a family of weapons with various guidances and various purposes.
08:58The missile uses a small turbofan and it has a range of about 230 km.
09:04The total weight is 670 kg and the warhead is a semi-armored piercing warhead
09:12weighing 285 kg, which is definitely respectable.
09:18There are two versions with different guidance systems for the terminal guidance.
09:24There is a TV version and an infrared version.
09:29The missile has inertial guidance but also a data link for mid-course correction
09:34and obviously it transmits back the image taken by the sensor.
09:39The terminal guidance is a task that can be executed on the launching aircraft
09:44by an operator or by the pilot or a computer can be pre-programmed
09:50to execute the task automatically and in this way the weapon becomes fire and forget.
09:56In this case too, the aircraft needs to carry a small external pod to communicate with the weapon.
10:02KD-88 have been seen on the JH-7A with 4 units but also on the J-10 with 2 units
10:11and on the J-16 with 2 or 4 units.
10:17Beside the TV and the infrared guidance versions, there are two versions currently in development.
10:23There is a radar homing version and an anti-radiation version.
10:32One of the missing elements in the Chinese arsenal is a weapon in the same class as the Maverick or the Brimstone.
10:40The KD-88 is a bit too large for this task.
10:44However, this doesn't mean that they have nothing.
10:47The KD-9 and the KD-10 are long range anti-tank missiles
10:52but they are used only by the Z-10 and Z-19 helicopters
10:58and they are laser guided, which means that they are not fire and forget.
11:05However, like everything in China this time, also this family of weapons is evolving
11:11and there are pictures of a KD-10 with what is believed to be a millimeter wave sensor.
11:18A seeker like that could render the weapon fire and forget and could potentially close the gap.
11:25However, we have no news about the integration of these weapons with fixed-wing platforms
11:31so, well, let's just wait and see.
11:39The YJ-91 is another typical Chinese story.
11:43At first sight it may seem a simple copy of a Russian weapon, the Kh-31, but it is definitely not.
11:51It is based on the Kh-31 which is also produced on license in China
11:58but it features substantial modifications.
12:01So, the YJ-91 is an anti-radiation missile with a range of about 100 km and a speed of Mach 3.
12:10It weighs about 600 kg with a warhead of 87 kg.
12:15The general configuration of the weapon is definitely Russian
12:19and it is one of those Russian weapons that use ramjets to achieve these very high supersonic speeds.
12:25But everything else is different.
12:27In particular, the warhead and the guidance are definitely Chinese.
12:31The seeker has been updated and it is considered to be much more effective than the original Russian one.
12:39It is a modern multiband seeker designed to address a wide range of potential threats.
12:46Unlike the Kh-31 that needs to be locked on a specific source of emissions before launch
12:54the YJ-91 is basically independent from the electronic surveillance systems on the aircraft.
13:03Also, the Chinese have autonomously developed an anti-ship version.
13:08The guidance is always the same, anti-radiation and it is supposed to lock onto the radar systems of the target.
13:16This version of the weapon is capable of terminal maneuvering
13:20and a Mach 3 missile that is capable of terminal maneuvering is definitely a bad customer.
13:27However, you may expect that the speed at sea level is not Mach 3
13:30and also the range of the missile since it needs to preserve some energy for maneuvering
13:36is not the same as the other version, probably shorter, but still it is an interesting opponent.
13:44Obviously, the anti-ship version is in use with the naval aviation
13:47and can be operated either from ground or from the carriers.
13:56Obviously, the inventory doesn't stop here because there are Russian weapons in service
14:00and there are older versions of Chinese weapons still in service.
14:05There is also a pretty rich landscape of guided bombs, but this will be the subject of another video.
14:11But if you are interested, we have quite a few videos about the Chinese Air Force that are going to appear beside me.
14:17Thank you to World of Warships for sponsoring this video
14:21and thank you to you for watching it till the end.
14:25See you there!
14:30World of Warships