[Text/Observation Job Network Columnist Yankee]
On October 7, the People's Liberation Army Daily reported on the front page the deeds of a drone regiment of the Air Force Air Force , which is known as the "pioneer in investigation and attack". Today, when the Russian-Ukrainian conflict has made the concept of drones and unmanned combat known to everyone, the latest official reports have attracted more widespread attention from our drone unit, which has developed for a long time. In the early morning of October 9, North Korea launched two " ballistic missile " with a range of 350 kilometers to the Sea of Japan near Fumikawa City on its east coast, which was supposed to be a 600mm-class long-range rocket launcher) marking that North Korea has launched up to 12 ballistic missiles of various types (including long-range rocket launchers) in the past two weeks. The unprecedented launch density is in sharp contrast to North Korea's almost "zero report" attitude.
Ten years of hard work, "no one" must eventually be someone to do
At the beginning of the new century, with the use of the American "Prector" drone in actual combat, it has accumulated a certain amount of accumulation in the field of drones, and has also had J-10, " Xiaolong " and other China Aviation Industry , which has experience in developing comprehensive avionics system models. Taking the demand of the foreign trade market as an opportunity, it launched the development of the first domestic "inspection and attack" drone system "Winglong" in 2005. In October 2007, the first "Wingdon" prototype made its first flight.
The "Winghound" model was first displayed at the Zhuhai Air Show in 2008. At that time, the aircraft was described as a "medium-low-altitude multi-purpose drone" on the display board, highlighting its reconnaissance performance, and the mounting did not reflect its "integrated detection and attack" attack ability. It is quite low-key
In August 2009, the "Winghound" that just received the national export project approval went abroad for the first time and went to a certain country in the Middle East for a flight display. Within 8 days, the "Winglong" performed 8 flights, and at the temporary request of the foreign party, an additional VIP flight performance was performed for its chiefs and other high-level nobles. This not only achieved the goal of "export project in that year and contracts signed in that year", but also greatly enhanced the international influence of the "Winglong" in the local "circle of friends".
"Winglong" quickly achieved successful export results, promoting the successful project establishment of self-use models. Compared with the basic foreign trade model, our army not only put forward comprehensive improvement requirements for self-used models in terms of technology, but also gave it a formal model sequence of "attack" rather than "no attack". In the context of the era when the Qiang-5 series attack aircraft had not yet withdrawn from the historical stage and the outside world generally believed that "Xiaoqiang" who could carry the laser guided bomb after upgrading can still exert the residual heat, our army gave the "attack" model sequence for the "in-probation and attack" drone, which reflected the determination to replace traditional manned attack aircraft with the new combat force of drones more than 10 years ago.
Attack at the 2014 Zhuhai Air Show-1
According to official reports, as early as February 2011 (at this time the attack-1 prototype has not yet flown for the first time), People's Air Force began to select a group of drone pilots among the old pilots who are about to reach the age of grounding in the entire army. Traditionally, old pilots who are about to reach age can choose to switch to retire or switch to civil aviation, while the investigation and attack integrated drone force under construction provides them with a new way to continue to devote themselves to the development of our aviation force. Technically speaking, in an era when the "intelligence" level of drones is far from comparable to the experience of pilots, the decades and thousands of hours of flight experience of old pilots have given our drone force, which is in the stage of chasing strong enemies at the time, has made our drone force, which is in the stage of chasing strong enemies.
Li Hao, a pilot of the fighter with more than 3,000 hours of flight experience, is an outstanding representative of this group of people.
, represented by these old pilots who volunteered to make use of their remaining energy for the drone cause in our army, and the first generation of people to build new combat effectiveness. First, they went to a brigade of a special purpose (modified from a retired supersonic fighter). These drones that make the old pilots both familiar and unfamiliar, helped them initially establish an understanding of the drone system. At the end of 2011, they packed their backpacks and came to Qilu land and officially formed this new drone unit - a regiment of the former Nanjing Military Region Air Force Aviation Corps.
The regiment's initial unit was equipped with three models. In addition to the attack-1 in the lower right of the picture, the other two regiments were equipped with J-11B and J-7
According to the report of Xinhua News Agency in 2017, during the "Red Sword-12" exercise of the Air Force in the year of its establishment, Li Hao drove the attack-1 of the regiment to complete high-altitude photography, target reconnaissance and image transmission tasks. Although there was no live-fire attack, this still means that as early as 10 years ago, the reconnaissance and attack integrated drones began to integrate into our army's combat system. After a period of actual use, the superiors assessed that the local clearance and safety conditions were still not enough for the drone troops that needed to widely explore various flight subjects in the initial stage. The regiment moved to the foot of the Tianshan Mountains in 2014, and four months later settled down in the depths of the northwest desert.
almost synchronized with their beginning to take root in the difficult desert. In 2014, Attack-1 completed its first live-fire attack training and made its first public appearance in the "Peace Mission-2014" SCO anti-terrorism joint exercise. "Faced with the pressure of participating in the exhibition and observation, Li Hao overcame the interference of 's complex electromagnetic environment , steadily controlled the drone to search and confirm the Blue Army Command and launched the first to defeat the enemy, effectively demonstrating the combat strength of my country's new drone."
In October 2016, in the Air Force's "Red Sword-16" large-scale system confrontation exercise, Attack-1 was responsible for the forward reconnaissance, strike and evaluation tasks, truly demonstrating the "full state" of the aircraft's "reconnaissance and strike". "Faced with the challenges of tight airspace, complex routes, many types of aircraft, and difficult coordination, he decisively adopted the method of alternating command flight and manual operation, timely adjusted the reconnaissance and attack orientation, effectively integrated into the combat system, and successfully completed the established tasks." It is not difficult to see that human factors are still an important part of determining the effectiveness of drone use. Shortly after the exercise, more flight talents represented by Lu Donghui, the " Gold Helmet " J-10 pilot also joined the ranks of "surveillance and attacking pioneers" in early 2017.
Compared with the U.S. Air Force and other foreign air force fighter pilot groups, our pilots who have devoted themselves to the integrated investigation and attack have completely different attitudes towards becoming drone operators. As Li Hao said, "We started a little late, and if we delayed it, we will lose the 'entry ticket' of the drone battlefield!" The old pilots' spirit of seizing the day and setting an example has driven and accelerated the unity and integration process of this young force in the difficult northwest desert. They did not wait too long and replaced the attack-2 with comprehensive performance upgrades.
Attack-2 in the National Day parade in 2019, the aircraft uses a turboprop engine, and its flight performance is comprehensively improved
As mentioned above, the successful experience of the Chengdu Institute of Aviation Industry's J-10 and the "Joinlong" has allowed the "Winglong" family to go hand in hand, which greatly shortened the gap between China's detection and attack integrated drones and the world's advanced level. In today's "20 Era", the rapid development of domestic drone families including the integrated detection and attack model, and the combination of manned and drones mentioned many times in the report are naturally a reality that does not require too much imagination.
Our army's first "inspection and attack" drone unit, which has gone through 10 years, can be said to be a microcosm of the development of the entire army's drone unit in the past 10 years. Represented by Attack-2, No-Reconnaissance-7 and No-Reconnaissance-8, the People's Air Force has initially built a system that focuses on reconnaissance and attack integrated, high-altitude long-time reconnaissance and high-altitude high-speed reconnaissance drones, and has also achieved fruitful results in the fields of stealth high-speed attack and smart wingman models.
2019 National Day parade is a phased demonstration of the development of unmanned equipment mainly based on drones in our army at that time. In the past three years, more models have joined this mighty unmanned army
. If you look at the entire army, the drone power of the People's Navy and even the Rocket Force has now appeared outside the island chain , monitoring the every move of potential opponents, and developing special models such as reconnaissance and early warning according to their own needs.Although the Army Big Brother's various types of drones were relatively low-key, they started late. The early models represented by various types of artillery reconnaissance drones allowed our army's artillery to understand the great convenience brought by drones before achieving full self-promotion; later generations naturally went to the next level. For example, the "Rare Eagle" jet medium-range high-speed drone displayed in the 2019 National Day parade made our army's long-range rocket launcher system more and more praised by the army.
Not long ago, I was lucky enough to "play with" a "Rare Eagle"
No matter how magnificent the career is, it will eventually be realized by people. How to make advanced drones play their due role, not only should we achieve reasonable and efficient personnel configuration within the drone force like "surveillance and attacking pioneers", but we should also start from the top-level design to allow different types of drone forces to find a suitable position within the departments (divisions) of all military and military departments and at all levels. For example, the use of large long-distance reconnaissance drones with large working range and rich detection information needs to be mastered by the war zone or military level; at the brigade and battalion level, vehicle-mounted drones that are flexible and convenient for assaults must show their magical powers; and various intelligent unmanned platforms including small drones will penetrate to the grassroots of the digital troops of the People's Army in the future...
In addition, drones lack the intuitive "human-machine interaction" of manned aircraft to experience this chronic disease, which makes the troops even have to put in less effort than manned aircraft when independently improving drones during use to approach "man-machine integration", and feel every detail of the drone system, which also makes people have a deeper understanding of the sentence "we started a little late, and if we delay, we will lose the 'entry ticket' of the drone battlefield."
The rapidly growing and growing drone flight team is behind the pressure of military struggle that is endless and time-consuming
The years I have paid off will eventually be rewarded. For example, at the starting point of the "gorgeous turn" of the old pilots of the "surveillance and attacking pioneers" - a drone brigade of the Eastern Theater Command Air Force today, under the endless ideas and ingenious skills of the commanders and fighters who have dedicated their youth for military struggle, after decades of renewal and renewal, those seemingly old drones are no longer the same. As drone combat enters "swarm swarm", the unique traditions and wisdom formed by the People's Air Force drone forces are promoting these hard-working " worker bee " to become the commanders of the aviation corps more and more easily used and are gradually recognized as indispensable "all-rounders" in the "on-air call".
A bomb is seen every day, and "Lian root" is difficult to get away from the Sea of Japan
From the arrival of the aircraft carrier "Reagan" on September 23 to the end of the joint exercise at the USS. The United States and South Korea on September 29, coupled with the visit of US Vice President Harris to the South Korean Sea. During this week, North Korea launched 1, 2 and 2 short-range ballistic missiles to the Sea of Japan on September 25, 28 and 29 respectively. As the joint sea anti-submarine exercises at the United States, Japan and South Korea began on September 30, North Korea launched two short-range ballistic missiles again in the early morning of October 1. However, the US ship was not "moved by it". After the exercise ended on October 2, the "Reagan" entered the Western Pacific through the Tsinghua Strait between the Hokkaido and the Honshu Island .
On September 23, the People's Navy's "Kaiyang Star" ship entered the Sea of Japan via Tsukuma Strait . After watching the entire exercise, he followed the "Reagan" formation to the vicinity of the Tsukuma Strait and then turned back. On October 4, he returned to the East China Sea via tsukuma Strait East China Sea
In the early morning of October 4, North Korea launched a medium- and long-range ballistic missile in Wuping, Cijiang Province. The missile flew across the Sea of Japan and crossed the Tsukuma Strait over Aomori Prefecture in northern Honshu Island, Japan. The missile was not far away from the "Reagan" at this time. It continued to fly east for 3,200 kilometers and then fell into the Western Pacific. Its horizontal range of 4,600 kilometers also created a record of the launch distance of North Korea's previous missiles. The last time North Korea launched a missile over Japan was when a Mars-12 medium- and long-range ballistic missile flew over Hokkaido's Kamishang Point and fell into North Pacific , with a flight distance of about 3,700 kilometers.
Japan NHK TV reported the scene of North Korean missile flying over Japan
According to Japanese Defense Minister Hamada Yasuichi said at the press conference that day, North Korea's launch is likely to still be a Mars-12. Interestingly, when North Korea launched the "King Xing-2" satellite in 2009, the defense minister of Japan's Aso Cabinet was also Yasuichi Hamada. At that time, the man also said that "the North Korean rocket flying over Japan should be shot down." According to the flight trajectory of the previous high-ballistic and normal ballistic tests, assuming the warhead weight is about 700 kg, the maximum range corresponding to Mars-12 should be above 4,000 kilometers. If the launch of this time is indeed Mars-12, then North Korea may have made further improvements to the missile.
Back to the 4th, the USS Reagan aircraft carrier strike group urgently returned to the Sea of Japan as soon as possible after hearing the news, and sent an cruiser to join forces with Japanese and Korean maritime forces to form a formation of each "Aegis" ship for joint maritime anti-direction training -
On October 6, the US Navy "Chancesville" cruiser, South Korean Navy "King Sejong" destroyer and Japan Maritime Self-Defense Force "Bird Sea" destroyer (from near to far) took a photo after conducting joint anti-direction training in the Sea of Japan
- At the same time, the US military stationed in South Korea, as usual, conducted "joint response shooting" with the South Korean military to launch medium- and long-range ballistic missiles, that is, they each launched two US-made ATACMS short-range tactical ballistic missiles in the direction of the Japanese Sea in response; but in the subsequent "single response shooting" organized by the South Korean military, a Xuanwu-2C tactical ballistic missile turned 180 degrees on the spot as soon as it was launched, hitting its own air base "without its body and head". Now South Korea must need to further improve its missiles.
In the early morning of October 6, North Korea had never conducted missile tests before, two more shots were fired in the Sanshi area of Pyongyang , the first flight distance was 350 kilometers and the ballistic height was 80 kilometers, which may be long-range rocket shells; the second flight distance was 850 kilometers and the ballistic height was 60 kilometers, which may be a new type of battle tactical ballistic missile nicknamed "Xinskander". On the morning of the same day, the North Korean Ministry of Foreign Affairs mentioned in a media statement, "Our army has taken countermeasures and closely monitors some bad actions that the United States has driven the aircraft carrier battle group to the waters of the Korean Peninsula, posing a serious threat to the stability of the situation on the Korean Peninsula and surrounding areas."
The test launch scene of "Xinskander" with a warhead weighing 2.5 tons in 2021. Referring to the large-scale missile strikes launched by Iran last month on Kurdish armed forces, North Korea has a considerable scale of ballistic missile reserves. It is not difficult to understand.
In the afternoon of the same day, the Joint Chiefs of Staff of the South Korean Army stated that North Korea dispatched 12 military aircraft to conduct drills including formation flight and ground attacks in the airspace 580 kilometers away from the armistice. According to the South Korean army's analysis of the radar signal characteristics, four of them are likely from the almost forgotten North Korean Air Force bomber units. As of 2021, North Korea still has about 30 flying Il-28/H-5 light bombers. In my memory, the bomb drop scenes of these " master " that have been at least 50 years old in public reports. The last time it was traced back to the first flight technology competition of the North Korean Air Force in 2014. The appearance of this model of
naturally does not need to find practical significance from it. It is more about showing a tough and unyielding attitude towards the enemy. It is about
On October 8, in response to the so-called "resolution" of the International Civil Aviation Organization Conference (ICAO) accusing North Korea of projectiles "violating the so-called "resolution" of the ' UN Security Council Resolution' and the International Civil Aviation Convention", a spokesperson for the State Administration of Aviation of North Korea (formerly the State Administration of Civil Aviation) said in his conversation, "Test-launch missiles are a regular and planned self-defense measure from the direct military threat of the United States to safeguard national security and regional peace." On the same day, a spokesperson for the North Korean Ministry of Defense clarified in answering reporters' questions, "the North Korean armed forces are taking the very worrying current developments seriously."
The launch and landing points of two North Korean "ballistic missiles" (presumably a 600mm-level long-range rocket launcher) announced by the Japanese side. On the afternoon of October 9, a new batch of rotational troops of the US military stationed in South Korea, equipped with the "Striker" 8-wheel armored vehicle tribe, the US Army Stryker Brigade-class Combat Team (SBCT) entered South Korea for the first time, replacing the Armored Brigade-class Combat Team (ABCT) that was previously stationed in South Korea - but the latter's tank and other heavy equipment did not evacuate, but stayed in South Korea for "preset". In this way, the two suspected "ballistic missiles" in the early morning of October 9 were not only a "show off" to the "Reagan" that announced the end of the new round of exercises on the afternoon of the 8th, but also a "received" to the "Striker" troops that had been deployed on the Korean Peninsula for the first time (has previously participated in the United States-South Korea joint exercise).
penetration capability and warhead power are relatively poor, but it has a range and speed similar to Mars-11B, a relatively low cost and accurate guidance capability, and is a long-range artillery weapon that North Korea has focused on developing in recent years. It is of course a joke, but some views do believe that North Korea's intensive missile launch is a "double act" between the US and South Korea forces. After North Korea launched a projectile on October 6, South Korea immediately announced that it is used to integrate and compatible equipment between the two anti-missile systems " THAAD " and "Patriot", and has been transported to the US military "THAAD" base to give an example.
In fact, as early as the summer of 2019, when Kim Jong-un and Trump were still shaking hands and meeting and sending letters at Panmen Store , the US military stationed in South Korea announced the integration and compatibility plan of THAAD and Patriots, which will become the development focus of the second and third phases of its "Emergency Operations Demand Plan" to improve the interception efficiency of its anti-missile system in response to high-performance weapons penetration; this year's test of using THAAD's radar system to control the "Patriots" interceptor bombs was carried out.
In my opinion, this thinking is exactly the same as the logic of when THAAD entered South Korea, those who thought that "if North Korea 'be fair and self-substantiated', the United States would have no reason to deploy THAAD to South Korea, and there would be no 'THAAD crisis'." For the new generation of "anti-intervention" weapons and equipment of our army represented by medium-range anti-ship ballistic missiles, which began around 2014, it would be strange if the strong enemy did not respond; on the other hand, when the United States and South Korea officially confirmed the deployment of THAAD in July 2016, North Korea's ballistic missile performance was still very backward, and the missiles launched during the exercise were mostly old models that imitated the " Scud ", but this does not prevent the United States and South Korea from using North Korea to launch the "King Xing 4" satellite as an excuse for "North Korean missile threat".
The nature of the invading army and the vassal army in the US-South Korea military alliance makes the US military almost free of obstacles to deploying various types of weapons in South Korea - if there are obstacles, it will not come from South Korea itself
"Don't be afraid of thieves, build your own door first." North Korea's intensive missile tests did put additional pressure on the United States, Japan and South Korea, especially the medium- and long-range ballistic missile that suddenly flew over Japan on October 4, chasing Reagan to the Pacific Ocean, not only embarrassed South Korea's subsequent "coping fire", but also played a role in disrupting the deployment plan of the USS Reagan aircraft carrier strike group.
As for the other 11 medium and short-range ballistic missiles/long-range rocket shells fired by North Korea, except for the two launches near Shun'an, Pyongyang on September 28 and October 1, the other launch locations are different. The author believes that North Korea is likely to take this opportunity to organize various missile brigades/rocket artillery brigades and other troops to conduct large-scale random inspections and assessments to test the use and daily maintenance of several newly installed missiles after this round of military reform (the time should be in the second half of 2021).
According to statistics from Western think tanks, only one of the 33 short-range ballistic missiles/long-range rocket launchers launched by North Korea this year "seems to fail"; the significantly improved reliability gives North Korea technically confidence to test the combat capabilities of the troops through intensive test-fire
As of now, North Korea still chooses to use text to confirm the correlation between the "projectors" and the US military threat in the form of spokespersons' conversations in the official report, without releasing any information about the missile launch itself. Unlike North Korea's previous test-fire missiles, which almost published pictures, texts and even video reports the next day or the same day, this silence that has remained since April 17 this year, on the one hand, it may indicate that the missiles tested are all models announced and tested by North Korea, and it is considered that the domestic propaganda is of little significance; on the other hand, the reason may be that this intensive test-fire does contain many details of the North Korean ballistic missile forces' refit and initial combat effectiveness stage, and should not be disclosed too early.
The author believes that if North Korea continues to hold the "Self-Defense-2022" National Defense Construction Achievements Exhibition this year after the Party's founding anniversary on October 10, the relevant reports may use some of the launch images (well-selected) in this intensive test launch to boost morale while using the occasion to prevent excessive information from being analyzed by the outside world. If North Korea next conducts other military activities including possible "Self-Defense-2022", we will continue to pay attention to the analysis.
This article is an exclusive article by Observer.com. The content of the article is purely the author's personal opinion and does not represent the platform's opinion. It may not be reproduced without authorization, otherwise legal responsibility will be pursued. Follow Observer.com WeChat guanchacn to read interesting articles every day.
