In late July it was reported that canisters like those of the DH-10 land-attack cruise missile (a Tomahawk-type weapon) were on board a Chinese naval test ship, presumably as a preliminary to surface-vessel deployment in this form. The DH-10 reportedly is based on the Russian Kh-55/65 (AS-15), an air-launched cruise missile developed in the 1980s. In that form it is a long-range turbofan-powered missile (a range of 2,500 km—about 1,350 nm has been quoted) with either a nuclear or conventional payload, the latter typically credited with a 410-kg warhead.
These figures are roughly those of the strategic version of the Tomahawk. After the Soviet Union’s collapse, Kh-55/65 missiles remained in the Ukraine. Some were illegally sold to China; a photograph of a Chinese cruise missile in a wind tunnel probably shows one of these weapons. The Chinese likely also obtained unexploded U.S. Tomahawks, particularly after the 1998 strike against al Qaeda in Pakistan.
In land-based form the DH-10 is typically fired from a triple-inclined launcher. It uses INS/GPS guidance and terminal electro-optical guidance, possibly digital scene-matching. The missile also may be air-launched (a modified Chinese-built Badger bomber apparently carries six missiles). All of this data is open to question. In its most recent report (August 2011) the Department of Defense credited China with a total of 200 to 500 ground-launched long-range cruise missiles (presumably all DH-10s) on 40 to 55 launchers. The figure in the 2008 report was 50 to 250 missiles on 20 to 30 launchers, the difference giving some idea of the estimated production rate.
It is also possible that the Chinese cruise missiles are based on the Russian sea-based cruise weapon, now known as the Klub series, which was actively advertised to the Chinese beginning about 2000. That seems to be the case with the tactical YJ-62 (C-602), but it has nothing like the range claimed for DH-10. The range difference is due mainly to the use of a small turbofan engine on DH-10. The situation is complicated by the known difficulties the Chinese still have in turbofan engine production, most likely because of gaps in metallurgy due in turn to the remaining echoes of the disastrous Cultural Revolution of the 1960s and early 1970s (the Chinese still depend on foreign-made high performance fighter engines, for example).
YJ-62 is already on board ships, so presumably the new canisters indicate a different missile. However, the weight of the new weapon is probably not far from that of YJ-62, so it could replace the earlier missile on a one-for-one basis. Given that the Russian missiles on which both DH-10 and YJ-62 were based had comparable performance, it is not clear why the Chinese chose to deploy two separate missiles. That may have been a matter of industrial policy (the two missiles are made by different organizations).
Parallels with the U.S. Navy
It is tempting to compare possible Chinese naval deployment of a long-range land-attack cruise missile with the initial U.S. Navy deployment of Tomahawks aboard surface ships, including battleships, in the 1980s. That would be unfortunate. The point of initial U.S. Tomahawk deployment was to saturate the Soviet ocean-surveillance system. It was well known that the Soviets felt compelled to track any Western warship or formation capable of attacking the Soviet Union, which meant carriers, large amphibious ships, and, after the mid-1980s, surface combatants armed with land-attack Tomahawks. The deployment of those ships increased the numbers the Soviets had to monitor by an order of magnitude. There also was reason to believe that the Soviet tracking system was badly stretched.
The U.S. Navy surely already tracks Chinese surface warships, and there is little reason to imagine that the few at sea at any one time badly stresses it. It is unlikely that small numbers of long-range land-attack missiles, nuclear or non-nuclear, on board a few large Chinese destroyers would make much of a difference in this respect.
A more interesting possibility is that the Chinese plan to use their cruise missiles the way the West uses Tomahawks, to hit particular precision targets from unexpected axes. For example, a Tomahawk shooter can support air operations by destroying enemy air-defense command centers or radars. The range of the missile, and its GPS guidance, make it possible to fire from an unexpected direction, and from a platform far out to sea.
If the Chinese fielded large numbers of their DH-10s aboard surface combatants, they might present defenders (for example on Taiwan) with a serious problem. When the Royal Navy adopted land-attack Tomahawks on board submarines, its view was that the missiles offered leverage, in that they could disable air defenses and thus make limited numbers of carrier strike aircraft far more effective. The U.S. Navy may have a similar view of the value of land-attack Tomahawks on board its own submarines.
However, the totals available seem limited. U.S. attack submarines have 12 Tomahawk tubes. The British have not revealed their load-outs, but Royal Navy nuclear submarines can probably carry a comparable number of missiles. The greatest current Chinese destroyer missile load is 16 weapons, and topweight might limit replacement by DH-10s or their equivalent to no more than 8, if that. Very few Chinese destroyers are so heavily armed, and it’s doubtful one could carry as many Tomahawks as a U.S. or British attack submarine. They would be useful only as part of a larger attack.
In all of these cases, incidentally, effective missile range is substantially shorter than the 1,000 or 1,500 nm with which the nuclear Tomahawk was always credited. That probably has to do with the flight profile necessary to avoid being shot down near the target (not to mention the greater weight of the non-nuclear warhead).
The other possibility is that, having watched the U.S. Navy carrying out massive precision strikes with Tomahawks, the Chinese navy or its government has something similar in mind. In recent years many missile manufacturers have advertised land-attack capability added to antiship missiles, which generally means providing them with GPS guidance. The result can certainly fly to a designated spot with considerable accuracy. What is omitted is that a single missile carrying 500 pounds or so of conventional explosives is not a particularly devastating weapon. Ships are unusual targets, in that a single large warhead in the right place can disable or even sink them. Most land targets are larger, and without a great deal of special knowledge they are nearly impossible to disable with only a very few hits.
Making an Impression
Would anyone really be all that impressed by eight or so small warheads dropped on, say, a coastal city? The result would certainly be outrage, but would anyone be coerced? Even the most optimistic air power enthusiasts would agree that it takes hundreds or thousands of such weapons to make an impression on a strategic scale (and many others doubt that this scale of attack would make much of an impact).
That even applies to concentrated targets such as air defense radars. One missile may well destroy the radar antenna, but professionals tend to stockpile spare antennas. That is why anti-radar missiles are generally rated by the time it takes to repair the damage they do. There is no good reason to think that a missile directed to hit a designated spot will be much different from a 500- or 1,000-pound bomb delivered against a radar site.
The U.S. Navy well understands that a few spectacular hits are not enough. That is why it deploys Tomahawks by the hundreds aboard missile destroyers and cruisers, each of which may have a hundred or more vertical launch cells.
Even then there is a rub. The vertical launch cells cannot be reloaded effectively at sea; once the Tomahawks are gone, the ship has to go back to port or, at the very least, has to reload very slowly from another ship in sheltered water. The canisters the Chinese are now testing are no easier to reload afloat, and the Chinese have many fewer ships, each of which can carry many fewer missiles. Right now the only kind of ship that can easily take weapons aboard at sea is a carrier, because they can be loaded horizontally and struck below in bulk storage. Small numbers of precision strike weapons offer a synergistic effect in combination with a massed naval air force, because they may help suppress its enemies. They are by no means a substitute for the massed aircraft, which can keep returning to rearm after they attack without going to a rear area.
Land-attack cruise missiles on board Chinese destroyers certainly do, in theory, give the Chinese navy a kind of global non-nuclear reach it has not previously had. A Chinese ship loaded with its eight or so cruise missiles could sail anywhere in the world to fire those weapons. The reality is very different. The destroyer is not going to steam very far without a lot of logistical backup, which is very limited. Chinese economic control of many port systems is unlikely to provide that backup, because the local governments will still be unwilling to risk military responses from countries hit by the few cruise missiles afloat in the Chinese fleet. Nor has the Chinese navy demonstrated much in the way of long endurance. Its best performance to date has been sustained presence as part of the antipiracy force off the Horn of Africa.
Ultimately the Chinese program may be nothing more than a reflection of the prestige accumulated by the Tomahawk, the idea being that something similar is wanted. During the Cold War the Russians often acted in this manner. Every so often there were stories about Soviet military professionals and scientists complaining that their leaders rejected perfectly good Soviet-developed systems because they were sure that anything developed in the West, particularly in the United States, was better. Examples included their version of the Space Shuttle and their copy of the IBM 360 computer.
The Soviet missiles on which the new Chinese cruise missile is based may reflect similar practice. We can’t be sure, because much of the time the Russian professionals had their way and were allowed to make decisions based on their own views. All of this was quite aside from the well-known Soviet (and Chinese) reliance on industrial espionage to solve research and development problems.