Picture: Phalanx block 1B
According to Taiwanese media reports, Taiwan signed a contract worth more than NT$9 billion with the United States in July this year to introduce 13 sets of MK-15 block 1B Base 2 Phalanx close-range anti-aircraft guns. , and upgrade and improve its eight Phalanx systems currently in service. The entire contract is expected to be completed by June 2024.
Picture: Mainland China’s upstream No. 2 old anti-ship missile , the earliest version of the Phalanx can only intercept such targets
The Phalanx artillery is a short-range air defense artillery developed by the United States in the late 1960s. It was mainly aimed at the then Early anti-ship missiles. Because the performance of the anti-ship missiles at that time was not very good - their aerodynamic and automatic control levels were poor, they could not carry out sea skimming flight and terminal maneuvering flight penetration, they flew high, were large, slow, and their flight trajectories were rigid and difficult to predict. , so the performance requirements for the artillery itself are not very high.
Picture: U.S. Navy ground support maintenance M61A1 cannon
Therefore, the United States directly took the M61 20mm six-barreled Gatling cannon originally loaded on the aircraft as the firepower assembly of the new anti-aircraft artillery; the benefits of this are besides In addition to reducing costs, the compact structure, light weight, and high rate of fire of the M61 as an airborne artillery gun also enable the entire Phalanx system to be made smaller and lighter, and can be easily installed on some ships of small tonnage and size. .
Picture: Phalanx block 1B does not have stealth and high-speed capabilities like the Eagle Strike 8 series. It mainly relies on sea skimming and terminal maneuvering penetration of anti-ship missiles , which has effective interception capabilities.
But in contrast, it has a 20 mm caliber and 6 tubes. The design also limited the performance potential of the Phalanx gun. The basic performance indicators of the Phalanx artillery system are not high, with a maximum rate of fire of 4,500 rounds per minute. In the batch improvements from Block 0 to Block 1B, the performance of the Phalanx system has gone through many rounds of upgrades and enhancements. The detection, discrimination, and tracking and locking capabilities of its fire control system have been greatly improved, and its combat range has also been continuously improved. It has been expanded to be able to shoot down subsonic anti-ship missiles that can penetrate sea-skimming maneuvers, and attack low-speed targets at sea and in the air (relative to missiles, such as speedboats and helicopters).
Picture: Phalanx block 1B cannot stop the YJ-12 at all. The caliber and rate of fire of the artillery are too different.
But in terms of the performance improvement of the artillery itself, although the new Block 1B Phalanx uses a longer and thicker The gun barrel, heavier and more powerful ammunition with enhanced lethality has improved the shooting accuracy and effective range to a certain extent, but it still cannot escape the basic performance range of the 6-tube 20mm cannon . Its rate of fire and mid- to long-range damage capabilities are far from enough to deal with heavy, high-speed missiles equipped with advanced flight control systems and capable of maneuvering through defenses.
Picture: 730 close-in defense artillery
Compared with Phalanx, mainland China’s modern close-in defense artillery system has chosen 7-barreled 30mm artillery from the beginning; a large part of the reason is that the design of the 730 is later, and the close-in defense artillery system The range and rate of fire must be made larger in order to obtain more interceptions and improve the overall interception success rate. As a price, the 730 is not only more expensive in terms of artillery and related mechanical parts, but the overall weight and volume are also much larger.
Picture: 1130 close-in defense gun
But even the 730 artillery is not powerful enough to intercept modern supersonic anti-ship missiles - not even the Xiongfeng 3 developed by Taiwan itself in the United States in the 1970s. A large number of relevant studies on the mainland, including theoretical calculations, simulations and some experiments, all believe that for supersonic anti-ship missiles such as Xiongfeng 3, in order for close-in defense artillery to achieve reliable interception performance, the shells must have sufficient kinetic energy and range, and the launch The speed must reach about 10,000 shots. This is why after the breakthrough of the 730 artillery, the mainland immediately developed the 1130 artillery.
Compared with Taiwan's Xiongfeng 3 missile, the mainland's YJ-12 missile is much superior in performance, especially the maneuverability of penetration due to the gap in flight control technology. Xiongfeng 3 cannot be compared with the YJ-12 at all.The Phalanx block 1B Base 2 is limited to the caliber and rate of fire of the artillery itself. It has no reliable interception capability even against Taiwan's own Xiongfeng 3, let alone the YJ-12.
Picture: The performance of traditional artillery has been developed to the limit. The American Searam system replaced the rapid-fire artillery with missiles
In fact, Phalanx block 1B Base 2 cannot save Taiwan warships from the disadvantage of having almost no survivability in the face of the mainland. Even if Neither does the Hiram system. If Taiwan really wants to regain some of its disadvantage in the military confrontation with the mainland, it should invest all its money and resources in building air power and anti-missile capabilities. Taiwan spent the NT$9 billion in military trade money with the same short-sightedness as always.
