Dominate South Asia

"We are imitating the Patriot missile body in China, and have already figured out the fuel composition of this high-thrust solid rocket engine. If everything goes well, we may be able to complete the trial production of the body within a year. However, our most important later integration may still take some time, and we have a technical problem that is being discussed." Bai Xue said.

Everyone is excited to be able to make a breakthrough in a short period of time. This air defense system is not only developed for Pakistan. After it is successfully finalized, it will definitely be equipped in large quantities in China, becoming a field and shipborne air defense system used by the two countries. It is also related to the future maritime regional air defense capabilities of the motherland.

In China, it takes many years to develop an air defense missile. For example, the Hongqi 61 has been studied for more than 20 years. By the time it was installed on the ship, its performance had long been outdated. The Hongqi 9, which was highly anticipated, was also developed for more than ten years. It was not until the Russian-made S-300 was introduced that it was successfully developed.

One of the important reasons is the lack of objects to imitate. The Western blockade of China has always existed. In the absence of advanced models as specimens, self-development will take a lot of detours.

If you develop it yourself, you have to study, think and test all aspects yourself. If you have a mature missile in front of you, you only need to map the other party and understand the other party's design ideas. The technical difficulty of the two is completely different.

Therefore, the current development progress of regional air defense missiles can be so fast because there is a mature Patriot missile system to rely on.

In addition, skilled technicians, like Bai Xue, who devote themselves to their careers, will make rapid progress, not only understand all the technologies. And also make improvements on this basis.

Now, Bai Xue said there was another technical problem, and Muhammad was immediately very concerned: "What technical problem?"

"Our missile system uses inertial guidance in the early stage, and radio command guidance in the middle stage. These are our common guidance methods. After using phased array radar, the target is refreshed very quickly, which allows our missiles to have a more accurate flight trajectory. However, the terminal guidance method is still immature." Bai Xue said to Muhammad: "If you want to control the missile to hit the target in the end, you need the precision guidance capability in the terminal stage."

The long march has come to the last step. Whether the missile can be successfully guided to hit the target depends on the final terminal guidance.

"Yes, what is the problem here?" Muhammad asked Bai Xue.

"We have repeatedly mapped the Patriot missile system. The terminal guidance of this missile uses the TVM method. This is a composite guidance system that combines a modified semi-active and command guidance. When the missile approaches the target, the direction finder on the missile receives the illumination signal scattered by the target and can measure the precise angle of the target relative to the missile, and send it back to the ground through the command downlink channel. The ground station processes it, calculates the control command, sends it to the missile, and controls the missile's flight. The difference from semi-active radar guidance is that the missile control command is generated by the ground guidance station instead of the missile itself. This guidance method has high accuracy, and the guidance accuracy does not decrease with the increase of the weapon system's range. The closer the missile is to the target, the higher the accuracy." Bai Xue talked for a long time, trying not to use professional language to describe it to Muhammad. So that Muhammad can understand.

"Yes, that should be the case." Muhammad understood: "What's the problem?"

"As long as this semi-active method is used, the radar needs to gather more beams to guide the missile, so that the radar beams scattered to other directions will be reduced, that is to say. We lack sufficient observation capabilities. We have calculated that the Patriot missile system can guide up to five missiles at the same time, and there is no launch unit to provide additional scanning signals. This will seriously affect our multi-target defense capabilities." Bai Xue continued.

The problem is here. If you want to guide in a semi-active way. You have to irradiate radar waves. Although phased array radar has great advantages, the antenna does not need to rotate and can be irradiated wherever you want, but in order to provide guidance signals for missiles, especially the later the guidance accuracy, the higher the need, then more powerful radar waves are needed, and there will be less that can be distributed to other directions. If you want to guide multiple missiles at the same time, there will be no extra radar signals to scan the airspace.

The American data claimed that it could guide up to nine missiles at the same time, but in fact, being able to guide five missiles at the same time was already the limit. If you want to maintain the ability to search the surrounding airspace and guide missiles at the same time, you can only deal with three targets at most.

This system is not only used on land, but also on the sea. You know, the environment at sea is even worse. If a large number of missiles fly over, then this air defense system of our side will not have the ability to resist saturation attacks at all, and it will not be able to meet the use on the battlefield in the future.

This is exactly what Bai Xue is worried about.

"Is there any other way?" Muhammad asked.

"According to the analysis of public data, the US Aegis system uses another illumination radar in the final stage to provide the final guidance for its missiles." Bai Xue continued.

The U.S. Navy developed a powerful Aegis system to counter the Soviet Union's saturation attack. With the vertically launched standard missile, it is said to be watertight. In fact, the loopholes are still huge.

The combat mode of the standard missile is divided into three steps. First, launch, turn, and fly to the approximate direction of the target. This process does not require any guidance and is completely controlled by the program. Second, receive the command from the data link to continue approaching the target, obtain the target information by the phased array radar and send it to the missile via radio. This is the radio command guidance stage. Third, after the missile approaches the target, start the AN/SPG-62 illumination radar on the warship and start illuminating the target. The standard missile receives the signal from the illumination radar, corrects its trajectory, and attacks the target. This is the passive radar guidance method.

Therefore, the Aegis system is equivalent to adding an additional illumination radar to meet the terminal guidance of the missile. In this case, the Aegis system, which is known to resist saturation attacks, can deal with as many targets as possible at the same time, which depends entirely on how many illumination radars it has.

A Burke-class destroyer has three AN/SPG-62 radars, while a Ticonderoga-class cruiser has four. In this way, they can only deal with four targets at a time.

Of course, the actual situation is that the targets do not fly at the same time, and the illumination radar is also guided according to the information of the missile queue. When the terminal guidance of a missile is carried out, other missiles continue to fly. When the terminal guidance of a missile is completed, it immediately turns around and guides another missile that is about to reach the terminal guidance program. Only by alternating in this way can multiple targets be dealt with. Of course, if too many targets fly at the same time and there is no time to guide, the final result will definitely be very tragic.

The Cold War in later generations has never entered a state of war. If the US Navy really fights with the Soviet Navy, countless supersonic anti-ship missiles will fly. Whether the Aegis system can withstand it is really a question mark.

Why not get a few more illumination radars? This is not possible, because due to electromagnetic interference, each radar must be separated by a certain distance.

In fact, the task that Muhammad gave to Bai Xue was just to imitate the Patriot missile system. However, Bai Xue knew that the task was important and took it as her own task. She kept improving and hoped that this air defense system would be the most perfect. The problem of the final guidance had to be overcome.

Now, neither method was the best, and Bai Xue was very troubled.

Muhammad looked at Bai Xue's frowning face. In theory, Muhammad was indeed a layman for such technical problems and could not help much. However, Muhammad was still thinking about it. There must be a way to solve the problem! Although this is a surface-to-air missile, it seems to have a lot in common with air-to-air missiles. After all, many air-to-air missiles have been converted into surface-to-air missiles. How is the problem of air-to-air missiles solved?

In the past, semi-actively guided air-to-air missiles must allow the carrier aircraft to aim at the target when guiding. Later, it became active radar guidance. Didn't it solve the problem?

Yes! Active radar guidance in the final stage! At the end, the radar on the missile seeker has the ability to emit electromagnetic waves. Let it guide itself. Isn't that enough? It doesn't matter how many missiles are launched at the same time. It takes care of itself!

Thinking of this, Muhammad blurted out: "Bai Xue, we can solve this problem. Active guidance is used in the end!"

Muhammad didn't know that he was talking about the transformation of this missile. In later generations, when the Patriot developed to PAC-3, it used active guidance, while the standard missile, S-300, and even China's Hongqi-9 all used active guidance!

Hearing Muhammad say this, Bai Xue's face was not excited, and said: "We have thought about this, but we don't have any technology at hand. If we want to do it, I'm afraid it will seriously delay the progress."

China is good at surveying and copying, but it's not good for independent research and development. If it is temporarily changed to an active guidance head, it may take many years to develop, and I'm afraid it won't be able to make a breakthrough.

Once the development time is too long, it may face variables in the end.

Seeing Bai Xue's worry, Muhammad said, "Don't worry about that, Bai Xue. We have our own technology."

If it was before, Pakistan really didn't have much technology, and the active guidance of air-to-air missiles is a very complicated technology, but now Pakistan has enough technology, just transplant the active sky flash guidance head. (To be continued ~^~)