DEFENCE C A PA BILIT Y PROGR A M MES: M A R ITIME

Chinese Anti-Ship Missile Systems

Over the past four decades, China has been developing and exporting families of anti-ship missile
systems at a greater pace than the West. Missile expert Robert Hewson has been following the
programmes and explains their significance

C
hina’s spending on defence technology development is immense
and indisputable. Although there are not, and will never be,
any handy official figures to break down the financials sector-
by-sector, quarter-by-quarter, it only takes a moment to look across the
range of new projects emerging for various branches of the People’s
Liberation Army (PLA) to realise that the level of investment, in time,
money and personnel, is vast.
China has perhaps three next-generation combat aircraft programmes
underway today, while the US and Russia can barely afford one. China’s
output of ground systems and naval vessels is equally prodigious, but the
aerospace sector stands as the one where China is working hardest to
match, and surpass, the West’s perceived superiority. There is a debate to
be had about when, and even if, that will happen – but China’s ambition
and its grasp of the task it faces is clear.
China’s planners understand that platforms alone are not the key to
military success. Much attention is paid to developing properly integrated
systems that bring together targeting systems, command-and-control as-
sets, radars, electronic warfare and weapons. As much as anyone, China’s
military has embraced the concepts of net-centric and net-enabled
operations – both to use itself, and to defeat them when used by others.
China has also expended much effort to develop and field-overlapping
systems that give layers of defensive and offensive firepower. One of the
best examples can be found in its relentless development of anti-ship
missiles (AShMs). Over the past 15 years or more, there has been a
conveyer belt of new Chinese AShM designs emerging from more than one
source, and sometimes competing with each other, but still all with a unity
of purpose. The result is an affordable and well-defined array of weapons
that promises to deliver control of the sea, from the beachfront out to can be seen mostly sharply in Iran, where China’s supply of AShMs has
nearly 300km. already altered the regional balance of power in a much more practical
There is clearly a Chinese requirement for coastal defence. PLA deploy- way than any of Iran’s headline-grabbing ballistic missile projects.
ment of AShMs is moving to mobile land-based systems and, increasingly,
to shipboard weapons that have much greater reach and flexibility. At the Exporting the know-how
same time, China would appear to have almost too many AShM pro- China’s sales pitch is straightforward. At the 2008 Air Show China exhibi-
grammes – several of which are relatively short-ranged and do not seem tion (the most recent event until Air Show China 2010 comes around in
well-suited to defending China’s great landmass. November) a very modern-looking diagram illustrated China’s Modern Sea
Anti-ship missile development is serving two purposes within China. Defence System for interested customers. It showed a series of engagement
The first is to provide a skills and engineering base from which to develop zones in which networked airborne, land-based and sea-going assets attack
new systems for the PLA. Beyond that, China’s AShM programmes have and destroy a hostile naval force. Over-the-horizon targeting is provided by
become vehicles for international co-operation. Out of the limelight, China manned aircraft and UAVs. As the data was aimed squarely at export cus-
has not simply been selling weapons but establishing significant local mis- tomers, China’s own space-based reconnaissance and targeting assets were
siles industries that did not exist before. This approach to doing business left off the chart. However, the accompanying text was quite clear as to

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what was available: “Modern sea-defence system can be used in all-weather
sea surveillance, target indication, communication, command and decision-
making, rapid attack and operational effect evaluation. It mainly consists of
seven parts, namely the command centre, detection and operational effect
evaluation unit, air-based fire units, ship-based fire units, coast-based fire
units, submarine-based fire units and communication systems.”
No fewer than five different missile types were listed as available for
sale. “Licensed export missile weapon system models include C-701, C-704,
C-705, C-802A, C-602 etc, which can be carried on aircraft, ships and
ground vehicles to cover a range of 10-280km.”
The laundry list of missile designations hides a significant level of combat
capability. The earliest anti-ship missiles to be produced in China were the
surface-launched HJ-2 (export designation C-201) and air-launched YJ-6
(C-601), both developed from the elderly Soviet-supplied P-15 (SS-N-2 ‘Styx’).
DEFENCE C A PA BILIT Y PROGA M MES: M A R ITIME
For sale: The array of Chinese
anti-ship missiles available
to export customers includes
the C-705, C-802A, C-602 and
C-704 (with two different
variants just visible here)
Photo: Robert Hewson
From the mid-1970s onwards, China gained increasing access to Western
technology and design assistance and the next weapon to enter service
clearly demonstrated the benefits of that. The radar-guided YJ-8 (C-801)
is an Exocet-class missile that took Chinese AshM capabilities forward by
at least two generations in terms of size, sophistication and capability. As
with the Exocet, the YJ-82 was developed in multiple forms, including a
submarine-launched variant and the air-launched YJ-8K (C-801K).
The rocket-powered YJ-8 led to the air-breathing YJ-82 (C-802) a larger,
longer-range missile powered by a small turbojet. This doubled the range
from about 60km for the YJ-8 to 120km for the YJ-82, all with a 165kg war-
head. A further extended range variant, the C-802A (Chinese designation
unknown) is effective out to 180km, most likely with a datalink for mid-
course updates. This family of missiles is in widespread Chinese service,
has been exported to several nations and its development continues.
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 DEFENCE C A PA BILIT Y PROGR A M MES: M A R ITIME
Beginning in the late 1990s a series of lightweight short- and medium-
range missiles were exhibited in China, none of which entered domestic
service. These designs – such as the C-701, C-704 and TL-1 – were dedicated
export products. Each of these missiles has been developed into families,
with different seeker options for example. They cover a band of combat
ranges from about 5km to 50km. They are intended for use by truck-
mounted shore batteries and small fast-attack craft, making them rapidly
deployable weapons that can be employed en masse.
Iran: a major beneficiary
All of these missiles have since appeared in Iran, under different names,
but all clearly sourced from China. These missiles have either been
designed in China to an Iranian specification, or developed as fully co-
operative projects. From the 1990s and into the last decade the pace of
development never let up, with new missiles or new versions of older
missiles appearing in a regular cycle of two to three years.
Together, Iran and China have developed and fielded a family of anti-ship
missiles that are deployed on land, at sea and in the air. The marketing pitch
described above already exists as a functional and well-established network
of missiles that has been growing for some 20 years. Iran has an identifiable
trio of Chinese missiles: the Kosar series (C-701 and TL-1), Nasr (C-704) and
Noor (C-802) that are effective to a range of about 200km. They are carried
by trucks, ships and aircraft. The significance of China’s AShM capabilities
is not limited to the South China Sea or the Taiwan Straits. In a methodical
and deceptively modest manner, China has helped Iran take charge of all its
surrounding waters and this work between the two nations continues.
In March 2010, as it continued to hedge around the issue of supporting
sanctions that would constrain Iran’s nuclear programme, China was open-
ing a missile factory in the Islamic Republic. On 7 March, Iran inaugurated
a new domestic assembly/production site for its Nasr-1 (Victory 1) anti-ship
missile. The link with China was not immediately obvious. Amid the crowds
of onlookers thronging around General Vahidi, there were no Chinese
officials apparent – although chances were they stood off-camera but on-
hand to mark another milestone in the continuing military/industrial bond
between the two countries. To those who have been watching the various
tactical missiles to emerge from China since the 1990s it was clear that
Iran’s ‘indigenous’ Nasr-1 was identical to a Chinese project, dubbed C-704,
and first seen several years previously.
90 RUSI DEFENCE SYSTEMS 2010
Developed in China, the C-704
missile has entered service in
Iran as the Nasr. It is the latest
example of the long-running
co-operation that exists
between China and Iran in
anti-ship missile programmes
Photo: Robert Hewson
The Nasr/C-704 is just the latest step in a relationship that dates back
to Iran’s acquisition of China’s C-801 and C-802 anti-ship missiles in the
1990s. The C-802 went into production in Iran as the Noor. Crucially, this
programme gave Iran’s industry the experience it needed to manufacture
the key components required by a missile such as the C-802. This included
the active radar seeker and small turbojet engine. Iran has gone further
than China in fielding the C-802, taking what was previously a land- and
ship-launched weapon and producing an air-launched version that can be
carried by the Mi-17 helicopter and fast-jet types.
Follow-on versions of the Nasr are being developed, to include an air-
launched variant. There are other co-operative tactical missile programmes
underway and China’s design bureaus have displayed several ‘export only’
weapons (such as the C-705 lightweight but long-range missile) that would
seem set to follow the established route into Iran.
Future systems
The missiles noted above are, in many ways, missiles of the last decade
and are, therefore, yesterday’s news. A particular set of industrial and
political goals has been met during the 1980s and 1990s. Now China is
looking to extend its power projection capabilities with a new class of
weapons that will start to blur the lines between long-range anti-ship
missiles and cruise missiles. In 2005, the first data on the YJ-62 emerged
– a land- and ship-launched weapon with a range of 280km. By 2006, the
YJ-62 was being marketed internationally as the C-602. A standard coastal
battery comprises four launch vehicles, each with three missiles, plus
command-and-support vehicles. To date, the YJ-62 has been fitted to Type
052C (Lanzhou-class) destroyers of the PLA Navy, but the designers note
that it can also be carried by frigate-sized escort vessels.
Even more recently, the emergence of the DH-10 cruise missile pro-
gramme, now officially acknowledged by Beijing, shows that China’s
designers have the skills to move beyond the tactical arena and develop
‘useful’ weapons with strategic implications. The controversy over the car-
rier-killing capabilities of the DF-21 ballistic missile further underline that
China’s conventional weapons may not be so ‘conventional’. This staged
development of progression is no accident and has been achieved on the
back of fast-paced incremental development that has no modern equal. ■
Robert Hewson is the editor of Jane’s Air-Launched Weapons.