Special written by The Paper Lan Shunzheng
In recent days, because US House of Representatives Speaker Pelosi visited Taiwan, which triggered a series of Chinese military countermeasures. Among them, it is particularly noteworthy. On August 4, the People's Liberation Army Rocket Force launched several ballistic missiles , and some missiles crossed Taiwan.
Professor of National Defense University Meng Xiangqing introduced that the PLA achieved four firsts in this island-round exercise: ①The closest exercise to Taiwan for the first time; ②The first encirclement of Taiwan for the first time; ③The first practical shooting range was set up in the east of Taiwan for the first time; ④Fire test fire crossed Taiwan for the first time and passed through the airspace where Patriot missiles were intensively deployed. This shows that our army can see and fight accurately in the distant seas.
The news that the People's Liberation Army missiles crossed Taiwan has attracted the attention of the Taiwan military's air defense and anti-missile capabilities. So, what anti-missile system has the Taiwan military equipped? What is the combat power?
The "Sky Bow" 3 missile displayed by the Taiwan Army is said to be mainly used for anti-missile operations.
Taiwan Army has strategic early warning radar
For a long time, the Taiwan Army has been very afraid of the People's Liberation Army's missile combat power, so it has also invested a lot of energy on the anti-missile issue. In terms of missile early warning, the Taiwan military ballistic missile early warning system mainly includes the ground-based long-range and medium-range early warning radar systems on the island, among which the land-based radar is the main detection means of the Taiwan early warning system. According to data, at present, Taiwan military has established 16 fixed radar stations and 3 maneuverable radar stations on the island and the outer islands, and has deployed 50 air defense warning radars of different programs, with detection distances ranging from several thousand meters to thousands of kilometers, and has formed preliminary early warning and detection capabilities for ballistic missiles.
The Taiwan military's systems with strong early warning capabilities for ballistic missiles mainly include: "Path Claw" long-range early warning radar, "Patriot" system MPQ-53(65) radar and self-developed "Changbai" radar.
"Paving Claw" remote early warning radar was deployed at Leshan radar station in 2010. " Paving Claw " was originally a strategic early warning radar developed by the United States in the 1970s to deal with the threat of intercontinental missiles. Its main purpose is to undertake strategic defense tasks. The radar uses a double-sided array antenna with a working frequency of 420 to 450 megahertz and a detection distance of 4800 kilometers. The detection distance of the submarine-launched ballistic missile with a high ballistic and radar cross-section of 10 square meters can reach 5550 kilometers. However, the US castrated its performance when it was sold on Taiwan, and the detection distance has dropped a lot. The "Paving Claw" long-range early warning radar can provide 3 to 7 minutes of early warning time for ballistic missile targets. At the same time, the Taiwan "Missile Alert Center" equipped with "Paving Claw" long-range early warning radar has system commonality with the United States, which can enable the Taiwan military to obtain more information and war situations from the United States.
The "Paving Claw" early warning radar deployed in Leshan, Tai Island, is believed that the radar target is large and has a fixed position, and is the first wave of key strikes in the war.
"Patriot" system MPQ-53(65) radar is introduced with the "Patriot" series of air defense missiles, adopting the phased array system, and is responsible for long-range alert and guidance tasks. The AN/MPQ-53 radar team supports the Patriot 2 unit, with a detection range of 120° and a detection distance of 160 kilometers. It can grasp more than 100 batches of targets at the same time and guide 8 missiles to attack 3 to 5 targets. The AN/MPQ-65 radar group supports the Patriot 2 and Patriot 3 units, which adds a second traveling wave tube (TWT) compared to the AN/MPQ-53, enhancing the search, detection and tracking capabilities.
"Changbai" radar originated from General Motors' ADAR-HP high-power radar. It is an S-band single-sided passive phased array radar , and uses solid-state transceiver unit and electronic scanning technology. The entire antenna array consists of 6,000 phaser transceiver units, with 10 search and guide frequency bands, with a detection angle of 120° horizontally and 70° high and low, a maximum detection distance of 450 kilometers, an effective detection distance of 300 kilometers, and can monitor 100 aerial targets at the same time. Taiwan had to develop it on its own because the United States did not sell the alleged software to Taiwan for confidentiality reasons. In the early stage, the "Changbai" radar had too large a formation, which made the planned ground motor vehicle-mounted method unrealistic, and finally had to be changed to fixed deployment.Later, Taiwan developed the "Mobile Changbai" for the "Tiangong" 3 air defense system. The radar antenna is located on the trailer, usually placed flat, raised during use, and the detection range is about 90° to 120°. The antenna cannot rotate left and right during work, but there is a larger shaft in the carriage and the trailer room, and it is separated from other parts. If necessary, the shaft can be stopped to rotate to adjust the direction of the engagement.
In addition, in early 2005, the United States allowed the Taiwan military to share the warning information of the US "Defense Support Program" satellite and set up a "Joint Missile Warning Center". The center can share the US space-based infrared warning information in the Asia-Pacific region in real time during wartime to provide early warning for island defense. At the same time, in order to improve rapid response capabilities, the Taiwan Army has built a high-bandwidth communication network to timely transmit early warning information to air defense fire units. Judging from the current situation, after the missile is launched, the US space-based missile early warning satellite can be detected and can be transmitted to the Taiwan military command system through the ground station in a few minutes.
Early "Changbai" radars also adopted fixed deployments, and their survivability during wartime is very low.
has multiple anti-missile systems
Currently, the Taiwan military has the following weapons that intercept ballistic missiles:
"Patriot" 2 system: The "Patriot 2" missile system is an enhanced version of the "Patriot" system used in Gulf War . The entire process from discovering enemy missiles to guiding missiles toward targets is about 35 seconds. The missile has a maximum firing height of 81 kilometers, an effective range of 144 kilometers, and a maximum speed of Mach 6. It is said that it can intercept tactical ballistic missiles with a range of less than 600 kilometers. In 1993, Taiwan spent US$565 million to order three "Patriot" systems and 200 "Patriot" Type 2 missiles from the United States. The third set of "Patriot" missile system of the third day of the 1999th day was deployed in Taipei, mainly in 6 positions, namely the "Tian Diao" position in Taipei City, the "Golden Diao" position in Taipei County, the "Silver Diao" position in Wuzhishan, the "Flying Diao" position in Taipei Nangang District, the Xindian "Shen Diao" position and another position in Taipei County. In 2007, Taiwan upgraded the system with the help of the United States, mainly upgrading the AN/MPQ-53 radar to the AN/MPQ-65 model.
"Patriot" 3 anti-missile system is the latest model of the "Patriot" series. It uses AN/MPQ-65 radar. The system is equipped with 8 launchers, each equipped with 16 "Patriot" 3 missiles , which can track 125 batches of air targets at the same time and guide 18 missiles to intercept. The missile uses inertial guidance at medium-range flight to a predetermined interception position and can receive updated data from ground-based radar during flight. It uses Ka-band active radar terminal seeker guidance in the final stage of flight, and replaces the past "fragment kill" method with "collision kill" method, which has greater lethality. In January 2010, the United States announced the sale of six "Patriot" 3 anti-missile systems to Taiwan, including 253 missiles.
"Patriot"-3 anti-missile system.
"Tiangong" 3 system is improved based on the "Tiangong" 2 missile, using the solid rocket engine with greater thrust, and also adopts active radar and infrared dual-mode seeker to improve hit accuracy and anti-interference ability. The missile borrows the design of the "Patriot" missile. The tail of the missile uses X-shaped 4 trapezoidal fully-moving control wings, with a length of 5.5 meters, a weight of 870 kilograms, a maximum speed of more than Mach 4, an effective range of 80 kilometers, a shooting height of 25 kilometers, and can intercept ballistic missiles with a range of no more than 600 kilometers.
Taiwan media revealed that the warhead of the "Sky Bow" 3 missile is a 95 kilogram high-explosion warhead. Some analysts believe that the warhead of the "Sky Bow" 3 references the MK125 high-explosion disc warhead of the "Standard" 2 missile introduced by the Taiwan military from the United States, but has improved in directional blasting . This type of missile launch system is similar to the Patriot and the Sky Bow 1. It is installed on a launch trailer. The trailer mainly has a control cabinet and a launch rack. Each launch rack can carry and launch 4 "Sky Bow" 3 or "Sky Bow" 2 missiles. It adopts a vertical launch method and has omnidirectional combat capability.How will the actual performance of
be?
Taiwan military claims to have early warning and intercept capabilities for mainland ballistic missiles. Is that really true?
The author believes that the air defense and anti-missile system that the Taiwan military has been working hard for decades to build should be "strategically despised and tactical attention". Through the introduction and self-development measures, it has made Taiwan the area with the most dense firepower in the world, and it still has certain air defense and anti-missile capabilities. However, in the context of imbalance in the military power comparison between the two sides of the Taiwan Strait, the actual performance of these anti-missile systems will be like a mantis armed in a car. The Taiwan Army's "Patriot" missile position was shot by satellite.
First of all, due to geographical restrictions, Taiwan has almost no strategic depth. The narrowest part of Taiwan Strait is only 135 kilometers. Whether for combat aircraft, ballistic missiles and long-range rocket launchers, the time required for the span is calculated in minutes, so the early warning and interception time left for the interception system on the island is very limited.
Secondly, mainland ballistic missile technology has long been different from the past. Some new types of ballistic missiles can use high-spreading trajectory or low-pressure flat-extended trajectory. In particular, missiles flying with high ballistics will enter the top conical detection blind spots of the Patriot system radar and Changbai radar over the target area. It is very difficult to achieve full-range detection. Although the Taiwan military can use the US military to support space-based information and long-range early warning radar to issue early warnings, continuous tracking cannot be achieved in the critical final interception stage, and it is even more difficult to lock the target and guide the interception.
Third, Taiwan’s anti-missile system performance is doubtful. Although the US military claimed that the Patriot 3 had an interception rate of 100% in the US-Iran war in 2003 and the test interception rate for general ballistic missiles was more than 80%, there are generally doubts about this. For example, shortly after the Gulf War, research by the US General Audit Bureau showed that the success rate of the Patriot missile may not exceed 9%, while the maturity of the "Sky Bow" 3 is far less than that of the "Patriot". In fact, the performance of the war can be imagined. Take this missile crossing Taiwan Island as an example. Since the "Patriot" 3 missile with the strongest anti-missile capability is only about 30 kilometers high, and the People's Liberation Army missile is completely above its launch height, so we can only sigh at the "blasting".
Finally, for the anti-missile system of the Taiwan military, in addition to ballistic missiles, we have shown various types of cruise missiles, , long-range rocket launchers and drone that we showed at the parade can also play a great role. Under the joint firepower assault of multiple armies, its ultimate fate is self-evident.
(The author is a special researcher of Yuanwang Think Tank Researcher of of Chahar Society)
Editor-in-charge: Xie Ruiqiang Picture editor: Jiang Lidong
Proofreading: Zhang Liangliang
