John Chuckman

COMMENT POSTED TO AN ARTICLE IN THE GUARDIAN

There has been talk of this Chinese anti-ship missile for some years.

Now it would appear to be operational.

It climbs in a very high arc and, when it turns down, an elaborate computer and sensor system guides it to a target.

It reaches a great velocity – many, many times the speed of sound – and the tremendous kinetic energy with which it hits its target makes a warhead almost superfluous.

There are pictures on the Internet of experiments with targets shaped like the decks of flat tops, and the missile punches a big hole right through them.

China is reportedly stationing units of the new ASBM (Anti-Ship Ballistic Missile) along its sea coast.

China with this and other measures is clearly telling the United States that the South China Sea is not an American lake, and rightly so.

Russia, by the way, has another approach to attacking capital ships. Its Sunburn cruise missile travels at several times the speed of sound and weaves unpredictably as it closes in on its target. It is a very effective weapon.

There are yet other new weapons. China has a submarine which entered the space of an American battle group a few years ago and surfaced right in the middle of it undetected by all the American fancy array of electronic gear. The US Navy was said to be horrified at the remarkable feat but has kept quiet about it.

The technologies involved in the submarine – special rubbery coating on its hull and virtually silent screw drives – may well be of Russian design since Russia’s newest submarines are so equipped.

American aircraft carriers grow more vulnerable every day, and, if they are not already doomed in a big war, they will soon be.

A further note, China and Russia both are developing another potentially very deadly weapon, a hypersonic, steerable ram jet vehicle which may be used in various ways, including on top of a missile. China has tested this totally unstoppable weapon at least three times of which I am aware.

JOHN CHUCKMAN

POSTED RESPONSE TO AN EDITORIAL IN TORONTO’S GLOBE AND MAIL

It has long been only a matter of time until an effective anti-carrier missile is developed.

The Chinese – with their intellectual gift for mathematics, engineering, and computers now financed by a successful economy – have long been good candidates for coming up with it.

After all, they have already, in a short space of time, come up with a working satellite-killer and an advanced thermonuclear warhead comparable to the American W-88.

And, not very long ago, during some American naval exercises in the Southwest seas, a brilliant Chinese submarine commander managed to surface his boat right in the middle of America’s ships, America’s hugely expensive and complex electro-magnetic “umbrella” having failed to detect his boat.

The American Navy was hugely embarrassed and rather shaken by this feat, the result of a new coating and other technologies for Chinese submarines.

I think these events remarkable for a country which spends about 15% of what America spends every year on its military.

There is nothing unsettling about it.

Indeed, I think but am not sure the Russian “sunburn” missile, which spirals unpredictably as it homes in at supersonic speeds, may be capable of sinking a capital ship despite its radar-guided Gatling-gun defenses.

The United States for too long has arrogantly roamed the world’s seas with its aircraft carriers, busy intimidating others, carrying on pointless wars and interventions.

A world of multiple powers will be a much healthier one.

In the way international affairs work, having a single unstoppable super-power is just as unhealthy as having a tyrant running a country.

America itself has suffered seriously in its democratic values and human rights from the decaying effects of its monstrous military-industrial complex.

Remember, America spends more on its military than all other nations on earth combined, and it has done so for a long time.

Remember, that since WWII, America has launched an almost continuous series of ugly wars and invasions and interventions, almost all of them pointless and none of them serving the interests of democracy and human rights. Three million dead in Vietnam, a million dead in Cambodia (destabilized by American intervention), a million dead in Iraq, plus countless lesser savage tolls.

And remember, too, that America is the world’s largest arms merchant, spreading death for profit across the face of the planet.

And, last, remember what Lord Acton said about absolute power.

Meanwhile, despite the fears constantly stirred up by our press and the American government, China has kept to its own sphere and it has not started any wars.
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A link to a reprinted chapter of my book of three years ago may be of interest.

See “China’s New Weapons” at:

http://chuckmanwords.wordpress.com/2009/06/05/china%E2%80%99s-new-weapons/

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China’s new DF21-D anti-ship missile is a ballistic missile, as opposed to Sunburn which is a ramjet cruise missile which travels about 3 times the speed of sound. The DF21-D is launched much like an ICBM to arch over a region of sea. Its sensors detect enemy ships, and the warhead’s course is altered as needed from its ballistic arch to rain down on a target at hypersonic speeds, the kinetic energy alone of such a strike being adequate to disable a capital ship. This missile is being installed along the coast of China opposite Taiwan to put American carriers at serious risk should they be used to defend Taiwan. The combination of these two anti-ship missiles may well render aircraft carriers obsolete in parts of the world.