Report: Chinese Develop Special "Kill Weapon" to Destroy U.S. Aircraft Carriers

[vector7]

China steps up anti-carrier missile tests: US commander

by Staff Writers

Tokyo (AFP) Dec 28, 2010



China is stepping up efforts to deploy a "carrier-killer" missile system, the commander of the US Pacific Command has said in an interview with a Japanese newspaper, published Tuesday. "The anti-ship ballistic missile system in China has undergone extensive testing," Admiral Robert Willard told the Asahi Shimbun in Honolulu, according to a transcript of the interview on its website.

Willard said China appeared to have achieved "initial operational capability" but it would take "several more years" before fully deploying the system.

US military analysts have warned China is developing a new version of its Dongfeng 21 missile that could pierce the defences of even the most sturdy US naval vessels and has a range far beyond Chinese waters.

Washington has expressed rising concern over China's military intentions
following a string of double-digit increases in Chinese military spending and the rapid modernisation of its armed forces.

In the interview, Willard also said China aims to become a global military power by extending its influence beyond its regional waters.

"They are focused presently on what they term their near seas -- the Bohai, Yellow Sea, South China Sea, East China Sea," Willard said.

"I think they have an interest in being able to influence beyond that point, and they have aspirations to eventually become a global military," he said.

"In the capabilities that we're seeing develop, that is fairly obvious."
Referring to tensions on the Korean peninsula, Willard warned that North Korea is ready to take another provocative step and called on China,

Pyongyang's sole major ally, to play its role in defusing the situation.

"I think, for now, we're past this particular crisis, but we have no doubt, given North Korea's history, that a next provocation is readied," Willard told the daily.

"It's a matter of assessing how it might be deterred or how the North Koreans might be dissuaded from exercising the next provocation," he said.

"We think the US-Republic of Korea (South Korea) alliance is part of that deterrence effort," he said. "We think the international community and China in particular are another part of it."

Tensions have been high following the North's shelling of a South Korean border island, which killed four people, including two civilians. The South's forces are on alert for any fresh attacks.

[American Patriot]

Carrier Killer = Nuke.

They already have them.

They will use them.

[MagnetMan]

Carrier Killer = Nuke.

They already have them.

They will use them.

That's a good point, it's not like some specially designed warhead is needed. A big enough explosion will do just fine.

[Ryan Ruck]

Suck it ChiComs!

Sea-Based Missile Defense Flight Test Results in Successful Intercept

April 15, 2011

The Missile Defense Agency (MDA), U.S. Navy sailors aboard the Aegis destroyer USS O’KANE (DDG 77), and Soldiers from the 94th Army Air and Missile Defense Command operating from the 613th Air and Space Operations Center at Hickam Air Force Base, Hawaii, successfully conducted a flight test of the Aegis Ballistic Missile Defense (BMD) element of the nation’s Ballistic Missile Defense System, resulting in the intercept of a separating ballistic missile target over the Pacific Ocean. This successful test demonstrated the capability of the first phase of the European Phased Adaptive Approach (EPAA) announced by the President in September, 2009.

At 2:52 a.m. EDT (6:52 p.m. April 15 Marshall Island Time), an intermediate-range ballistic missile target was launched from the Reagan Test Site, located on Kwajalein Atoll in the Republic of the Marshall Islands, approximately 2,300 miles southwest of Hawaii. The target flew in a northeasterly direction towards a broad ocean area in the Pacific Ocean. Following target launch, a forward-based AN/TPY-2 X-band transportable radar, located on Wake Island, detected and tracked the threat missile. The radar sent trajectory information to the Command, Control, Battle Management, and Communications (C2BMC) system, which processed and transmitted remote target data to the USS O’KANE. The destroyer, located to the west of Hawaii, used the data to develop a fire control solution and launch the SM-3 Block IA missile approximately 11 minutes after the target was launched.

As the IRBM target continued along its trajectory, the firing ship’s AN/SPY-1 radar detected and acquired the ballistic missile target. The firing ship’s Aegis BMD weapon system uplinked target track information to the SM-3 Block IA missile. The SM-3 maneuvered to a point in space as designated by the fire control solution and released its kinetic warhead. The kinetic warhead acquired the target, diverted into its path, and, using only force of a direct impact, destroyed the threat in a “hit-to-kill” intercept.

During the test the C2BMC system, operated by Soldiers from the 94th Army Air and Missile Defense Command, received data from all assets and provided situational awareness of the engagement to U.S. Pacific Command, U.S. Northern Command and U.S. Strategic Command.

The two demonstration Space Tracking and Surveillance Satellites (STSS), launched by MDA in 2009, successfully acquired the target missile, providing stereo “birth to death” tracking of the target.

Today’s event, designated Flight Test Standard Missile-15 (FTM-15), was the most challenging test to date, as it was the first Aegis BMD version 3.6.1 intercept against an intermediate-range target (range 1,864 to 3,418 miles) and the first Aegis BMD 3.6.1 engagement relying on remote tracking data. The ability to use remote radar data to engage a threat ballistic missile greatly increases the battle space and defended area of the SM-3 missile.

Initial indications are that all components performed as designed. Program officials will spend the next several months conducting an extensive assessment and evaluation of system performance based upon telemetry and other data obtained during the test.

FTM-15 is the 21st successful intercept, in 25 attempts, for the Aegis BMD program since flight testing began in 2002. Across all BMDS elements, this is the 45th successful hit-to-kill intercept in 58 flight tests since 2001.

Aegis BMD is the sea-based midcourse component of the MDA's Ballistic Missile Defense System and is designed to intercept and destroy short to intermediate-range ballistic missile threats. MDA and the U.S. Navy cooperatively manage the Aegis BMD Program.

[American Patriot]

Heard about this friday in an email I received. Sorry I didn't post it.


Glad someone else did. hehe

[Ryan Ruck]

Chinese ‘Carrier Killer’ Based on US Technology

June 25, 2011

China’s ‘carrier killer,’ the DF-21D anti-ship ballistic missile that can destroy American ships, had a unique origin: its base technology was pilfered from U.S. military trash during the 1990s, according to recent revelations by a Chinese military analyst.

Further, a key part of the rocket system for that missile was obtained from U.S. engineering firm Martin Marietta, also in the 1990s.

Richard Fisher, who has kept close tabs on the transfer of military technology to China, says that a “U.S. source” recently told him what he had suspected all along: that from the tons of military scrap China bought from the U.S. a decade and a half ago, intelligence was gathered to develop the radar guidance system that is now being used in the Dongfeng-21C, which enabled the People’s Liberation Army to develop its DF-21D medium range ballistic missile for destroying American aircraft carriers.

“Due to China's guile and America's gullibility, China is in 2011 able to threaten the Asian balance of power with a new unique weapon for which the U.S. has no defense,” Fisher said in an email. “A US carrier has a crew that numbers up to 6,000. That's nearly twice the number of Americans who died at Pearl Harbor.”

Fisher was put on the trail in late 1996 at the Zhuhai Airshow. He began questioning the engineer at a display for GPS guidance systems, gleaning that GPS was being applied to the short range ballistic missile under development at the time, and that the medium range ballistic missile—the DF-21 series—was using radar technology for the guidance system.

Diamonds in the Trash

One month later a 6,000 word article appeared in U.S. News and World Report describing in painful detail how a Pentagon program for selling U.S. military refuse had spun out of control. Incorrect coding on sensitive items and lack of oversight meant that 20 billion dollars worth of equipment was being moved from military bases each year, an unmitigated disaster that persisted despite repeated complaints from insiders.

When China got a whiff of this they got in quick, and for 15 years agents on the bottom rung of a Chinese espionage network systematically bought up this refuse.

One Chinese buyer in Georgia referred to a military surplus depot as “the candy store.” The military base, he wrote in a note to his boss, “will fill our needs into the next century.”

After a 16-month investigation, $157 million in equipment was found illegally shipped to Asian countries, including China, but that was only a portion. In cracking open one of the seized containers destined for Hong Kong (a common waypoint before the mainland), investigators found “fully operational encryption devices, submarine propulsion parts, radar systems, electron tubes for Patriot guided missiles, even F-117A Stealth fighter parts. Many of these parts, sold as ‘surplus,’ were brand new,” US News reported.

No evidence, like a shopping list from Beijing, was uncovered to incriminate the Chinese agents on the ground in the United States. “I think the reason for that… is that they don't need to communicate directly,” a customs agent told US News. “These people have been doing this for 15 years. They know exactly what their country wants.”

These vast quantities of sensitive military equipment were shipped back to China for intelligence processing.

Missile Components

Five years earlier the U.S. had begun dismantling its Pershing-II medium range ballistic missile, as part of the 1987 US-Soviet Intermediate Nuclear Forces Agreement.

Discarded parts from this missile then got into the military garbage supply.

In 1997 Fisher suspected that “China's garbage espionage may have contributed to their being able to develop a terminally guided ballistic missile.”

And Fisher’s source recently confirmed to him this was the case. The Epoch Times could not obtain any further information about the source, nor interview him or her directly.

However, the timeline that Fisher presented matched up with that found in a document on a Chinese military website. A long, highly detailed technical article described research on the guidance system for the missile being completed in 1996, as well as the development of a radar system.

[Ryan Ruck]

Chinese Succeed With SLBM Launch

February 6, 2011

Reports are swirling around that the People’s Liberation Army Navy has successfully tested Submarine Launched Ballistic Missiles. If so, this achievement would represent an important advance in China’s strategic capabilities.

Norman Polmar, the respected naval and intelligence author. mentioned this at a presentation Wednesday evening while discussing his new book, Project Azorian. Since then, we’ve been trying to get more details. Polmar says in an email that the missile test submarine is a Soviet-built Project 629/Golf diesel-electric submarine. The only public mention of this so far (in English) comes in a South Korean newspaper, the Chosun Ibo. This is what the South Korean paper says the Chinese daily said: “The Changcheng 200 smoothly accomplished scores of test-launch missions of ballistic missiles over the past 46 years. It received the title ‘vanguard submarine of underwater test launches’ from Hu Jintao, the chairman of the Central Military Commission, last August,” the daily said. (We can’t find any mentions in English.)

[vector7]

China's carrier-killer missile undergoing tests

Indo-Asian News Service, Updated: July 12, 2011 15:34 IST


image courtesy: http://pinoytutorial.com

Beijing: China's ambitious new long range ballistic missile with a range of 2,700 km dubbed as carrier-killer is undergoing tests, a top military official has said.

Chen Bingde, chief of the People's Liberation Army (PLA) General Staff acknowledged that China is developing Dongfeng-21D with an ability to strike moving targets - including aircraft carriers - at sea.

"The missile is still undergoing experimental testing and will be used as a defensive weapon when it is successfully developed, not an offensive one," Chen was quoted as saying during his rare interaction with media coinciding after talks with Mike Mullen, chairman of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff here yesterday.

"It is a high-tech weapon and we face many difficulties in getting funding, advanced technologies and high-quality personnel, which are all underlying reasons why it is hard to develop this," he said about the ballistic missile which has a maximum range of 2,700 kilometers.

The development of the missile caused considerable in US as it was believed to have been developed to target aircraft carriers.

Chen also said the first Chinese aircraft carrier, Varyag a refurbished version of an old Ukrainian ship will be used for research.

"I have nothing more to say about Chinese aircraft carriers, since prominent media outlets have already reported on them so much. Our American friends all know that China bought an old aircraft carrier, the Varyag, from Ukraine. It's very valuable for us to research these things this way," he said.

[AWM]

You guys are absolutely correct about the lethality of this D-21 missile when combined with nuclear warheads. During the late 80's the Soviets had ICBMs configured to attack US carrier battle groups. Combined with Naval Aviation and Submarine Cruise Missile attacks, it would have been a knockout blow. With ten RVs on a SS-18, you would have an excellent chance of getting the CBG.
They probably still have quite a ways to go on the conventional warhead package. Much harder to guide a ballistic missile precisely to a moving target than a cruise missile.

[American Patriot]

But lob a few big nukes in the general area and wouldn't the blasts, EMP, etc... have a good chance of knocking something out decisively? I'm just wondering.

Depending on the size and accuracy of nuclear warhead, most likely you'd take out an entire Carrier Group in one hit. At the very least you're going to sink a few of the ships. But it would have to be a higher altitude burst.

EMP will be somewhat negated by the ships systems because they are PROBABLY hardened against such stuff.

A direct hit of course, it wouldn't matter how hardened a vessel is. It's going to melt.

[Toad]

And tying into this thread:

http://www.transasianaxis.com/vb/showthread.php?t=8525

China, with substantially increased military satellite presence, suddenly guiding ballistic or cruise missiles to distant targets becomes much more doable.

[American Patriot]

The Chinese can buy and use GPS equipment the same as anyone.

They are also masters of reverse engineering.

Which means they have all this shit already there, already using it, and into their missiles.

[Brian Baldwin]

It's our Ohio class subs they have to worry about. Not our carriers. China is huge, but they concentrate much of their forces in a few areas. They're going to need more than Carrier killers if they hope to engage us.

[American Patriot]

Shhhhh! Brian!

Carriers are good for obliterating land nearby.

The subs obliterate everything far off.

Don't tell them that. They have no need to know.

[Ryan Ruck]

Report: China Building Electromagnetic Pulse Weapons For Use Against U.S. Carriers

July 22, 2011

By Bill Gertz

China's military is developing electromagnetic pulse weapons that Beijing plans to use against U.S. aircraft carriers in any future conflict over Taiwan, according to an intelligence report made public on Thursday.

Portions of a National Ground Intelligence Center study on the lethal effects of electromagnetic pulse (EMP) and high-powered microwave (HPM) weapons revealed that the arms are part of China’s so-called “assassin’s mace” arsenal - weapons that allow a technologically inferior China to defeat U.S. military forces.

EMP weapons mimic the gamma-ray pulse caused by a nuclear blast that knocks out all electronics, including computers and automobiles, over wide areas. The phenomenon was discovered in 1962 after an aboveground nuclear test in the Pacific disabled electronics in Hawaii.

The declassified intelligence report, obtained by the private National Security Archive, provides details on China’s EMP weapons and plans for their use. Annual Pentagon reports on China's military in the past made only passing references to the arms.

“For use against Taiwan, China could detonate at a much lower altitude (30 to 40 kilometers) … to confine the EMP effects to Taiwan and its immediate vicinity and minimize damage to electronics on the mainland,” the report said.

The report, produced in 2005 and once labeled “secret,” stated that Chinese military writings have discussed building low-yield EMP warheads, but “it is not known whether [the Chinese] have actually done so.”

The report said that in addition to EMP weapons, “any low-yield strategic nuclear warhead (or tactical nuclear warheads) could be used with similar effects.”

“The DF-21 medium-range ballistic missile has been mentioned as a platform for the EMP attack against Taiwan,” the report said.

According to the report, China’s electronic weapons are part of what are called “trump card” or “assassin’s mace” weapons that “are based on new technology that has been developed in high secrecy.”

“Trump card would be applicable if the Chinese have developed new low-yield, possibly enhanced, EMP warheads, while assassin’s mace would apply if older warheads are employed,” the report said.

According to the report, China conducted EMP tests on mice, rats, rabbits, dogs and monkeys that produced eye, brain, bone marrow and other organ injuries. It stated that “it is clear the real purpose of the Chinese medical experiments is to learn the potential human effects of exposure to powerful EMP and [high-powered microwave] radiation.”

The tests did not appear designed for “anti-personnel [radio frequency] weapons” because of the limited amounts of radiation used.

However, the report said another explanation is that the Chinese tests may have been research “intended primarily for torturing prisoners,” or the tests may have been conducted to determine safety or shielding standards for military personnel or weapons.

The medical research also appeared useful for China's military in making sure that EMP weapons used against Taiwan and “any vulnerable U.S. [aircraft carrier] would not push the U.S. across the nuclear-response threshold,” the report said.

“China’s [high-altitude] EMP capability could be used in two different ways: as a surprise measure after China’s initial strike against Taiwan and other U.S. [aircraft carrier strike group] assets have moved into a vulnerable position, and as a bluff intended to dissuade the United States from defending Taiwan with a CVBG,” the Pentagon acronym for carrier strike groups.

The bluff scenario would include China’s announcement of a resumption of atmospheric nuclear testing and warn of tests during a specified period and then attacking Taiwan’s infrastructure with conventional forces.

China then would wait and see whether the U.S. carriers were deployed to defend Taiwan.

The report concluded that China could consider using EMP weapons against Taiwan’s electronic infrastructure or against U.S. carriers if a conflict breaks out in the Taiwan Strait.

“The minimization of military casualties on CVBG assets is calculated to lessen the likelihood of a U.S. nuclear response to a Taiwan strike employing nuclear EMP,” the report said. “The minimization of casualties on Taiwan is calculated to lessen the animosity among Taiwan’s population over forced reunification.”

Taiwan broke with mainland China after nationalist forces fled to the island when communists seized power in 1949.

The United States is bound by a 1979 law to prevent the forcible reunification of the island with the mainland, and China has said it is prepared to use force to claim the island.

Peter Pry, a former congressional aide who helped direct a commission on EMP several years ago, said the commission found that China plans for nuclear EMP strikes against the United States, as well as Taiwan and carrier forces, are part of its military doctrine and exercises.

“There is also evidence that China is developing, or has already developed, super-EMP nuclear weapons that generate extraordinarily powerful EMP fields, based partly on design information stolen from the United States,” Mr. Pry, president of the group EMPact America, said in an email.

Mark Stokes, a former Pentagon specialist on China's military, said the report’s details on high-powered microwave are new.

The same state-run institute, the China Academy of Engineering Physics, that makes China’s nuclear warheads is also a center of microwave weapons research, he said.

Microwave weapons would be used to shut down enemy radar, communications, computers and other electronics in an opening salvo. The weapons also could jam electronics of attacking aircraft and anti-radiation missiles, and as an anti-satellite weapon, degrade sensitive satellite electronic systems, he said.

Richard Fisher, a China military analyst, said EMP warheads are likely to be an option for China’s new DF-21D anti-ship ballistic missile for the purpose of attacking large U.S. Navy ships without inflicting immediate massive casualties.

“Less is known about the longer-term effects on personnel of this kind of radiation attack,” said Mr. Fisher, who is with the International Assessment and Strategy Center. “The more powerful nuclear-propelled neutron bomb was designed specifically for killing personnel without a massive blast.”

[AWM]

We don't have a lot of info on the US Microwave weapon capability, but apparently quite a variety have been fielded that do not depend on nuclear blasts to generate power levels sufficient to fry even hardened electronics. The fact that the radars on some US fighters have the capability to operate in this "mode" is sobering.

You're flying a SU-27 with 2 wingmen and out of the blue, so to speak, all the electonics go out, you have to manually engage "eject" just to try to survive, not even knowing of microscoptic cellular brain damage you have sustained. And this attack could have been from the US AWACS you were passively tracking 240 miles out, or the Raptor, unseen at 35 miles, and 55,000 feet, or the USN destroyer on the horizon.
What are the capabilities? Nobody knows, but the fairly recent "exercise" where India's fighters "defeated" USAF fighters in mock combat was, in the words of a USAF fighter pilot, "not representative even remotely" of USAF capabilities.

The world and combat has changed totally from our concept and understanding of it's implications. When powered by nuke blasts, what did all that star wars research by Reagan turn up? And who has it, how is it deployed, and how can they use it? And the non nuclear tech is so far advanced now as well.
Back in the 70's some things were already into the 90's and beyond, we just didn't know about it, wonder where they are now.
In 1963 there was the first YF-12A flight! The engines first ran in 1958!!!!
They launched AIM-47 missiles while at Mach 3.2 and 74,000 feet in 1965!!!!!

[vector7]

Chinese Missiles Designed to Explode on Aircraft Carrier, Kill Sailors, Cripple Flight Deck

Updated: Wednesday, 04 Jan 2012, 7:44 AM EST
Published : Wednesday, 04 Jan 2012, 7:43 AM EST
By The Wall Street Journal


Artist's concept of CVN-78 Aircraft Carrier (U.S. Navy)

NEWPORT NEWS, Va. - The USS Gerald R. Ford was supposed to help secure another half-century of American naval supremacy. The hulking aircraft carrier taking shape in a dry dock in Newport News, Va., is designed to carry a crew of 4,660 and a formidable arsenal of aircraft and weapons.

But an unforeseen problem cropped up between blueprint and expected delivery in 2015 -- China is building a new class of ballistic missiles designed to arc through the stratosphere and explode onto the deck of a US carrier, killing sailors and crippling its flight deck.

Since 1945, the US has ruled the waters of the western Pacific, thanks in large part to a fleet of 97,000-ton carriers -- each one "4.5 acres of mobile, sovereign US territory," as the navy puts it. For nearly all of those years, China had little choice but to watch American vessels ply the waters off its coast with impunity.

Now China is engaged in a major military buildup. Part of its plan is to force US carriers to stay farther away from its shores, Chinese military analysts say. So the US is adjusting its own game plan. Without either nation saying so, both are quietly engaged in a tit-for-tat military-technology race. At stake is the balance of power in a corner of the seas that is growing rapidly in importance.

Pentagon officials are reluctant to talk publicly about potential conflict with China. Unlike the Soviet Union during the Cold War, Beijing is not an explicit enemy. During a visit to China last month, Michele Flournoy, the US undersecretary of defense for policy, told a top general in the People's Liberation Army that "the US does not seek to contain China" and that "we do not view China as an adversary," she recalled in a later briefing.

China's state media has said its new missile, called the DF-21D, was built to strike a moving ship up to about 1,700 miles away. US defense analysts say the missile is designed to come in at an angle too high for US defenses against sea-skimming cruise missiles and too low for defenses against other ballistic missiles.

Even if US systems were able to shoot down one or two, some experts say, China could overwhelm the defenses by targeting a carrier with several missiles at the same time.

As such, the new missile -- China says it is not currently deployed -- could push US carriers farther from Chinese shores, making it more difficult for American fighter jets to penetrate its airspace or to establish air superiority in a conflict near China's borders.

In response, the US Navy is developing pilotless, long-range drone aircraft that could take off from aircraft carriers far out at sea and remain aloft longer than a human pilot could do safely. In addition, the US Air Force wants a fleet of pilotless bombers capable of cruising over vast stretches of the Pacific.

The gamesmanship also extends into cyberspace. US officials worry that, in the event of a conflict, China would try to attack the satellite networks that control drones, as well as military networks within the US. The outcome of any conflict, they believe, could turn in part on who can jam the other's electronics or hack their computer networks more quickly and effectively.

Read more: online.wsj.com


China-U.S. Arms Race Takes to the Sea

January 4, 2012 1:12 AM

The Wall Street Journal reports at-length about the accelerating naval arms race between China and the United States, and a new ballistic missile technology China is developing to keep American aircraft carriers away from its shores:

China’s state media has said its new missile, called the DF-21D, was built to strike a moving ship up to about 1,700 miles away.

U.S. defense analysts say the missile is designed to come in at an angle too high for U.S. defenses against sea-skimming cruise missiles and too low for defenses against other ballistic missiles.
Even if U.S. systems were able to shoot down one or two, some experts say, China could overwhelm the defenses by targeting a carrier with several missiles at the same time.

As such, the new missile—China says it isn’t currently deployed—could push U.S. carriers farther from Chinese shores, making it more difficult for American fighter jets to penetrate its airspace or to establish air superiority in a conflict near China’s borders.

In response, the Navy is developing pilotless, long-range drone aircraft that could take off from aircraft carriers far out at sea and remain aloft longer than a human pilot could do safely. In addition, the Air Force wants a fleet of pilotless bombers capable of cruising over vast stretches of the Pacific.

Rhetorical brinksmanship on both sides has heightened over the past year as China has sought to enhance its military capabilities amid American intentions to play a larger role in Asia. China acquired its first aircraft carrier and a Japanese patrol plane reported the first confirmed sighting of a Chinese secret drone last year, and in December President Hu Jintao instructed the Chinese navy to speed up its development and prepare for warfare. Bloomberg also reports that a Pentagon defense strategy review, scheduled to be released tomorrow, will urge the branches of the U.S. Armed Forces to combine resources to ensure that China cannot block America’s access to the South China Sea:

The military services must work more cooperatively to pool their intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance capabilities and cyber-security tools, as well as operational concepts, the review is expected to say, according to an administration official familiar with the review who asked not to be identified.

The U.S. should be able to deter any emerging anti-access capabilities such as the diesel attack submarines being developed by China and the anti-ship ballistic missiles deployed by China and Iran, and if necessary, defeat them, said the administration official.

[Ryan Ruck]

China Deploys Carrier Killer Missile Near Taiwan

April 22, 2013

As Korea festers, our friends in Beijing have deployed near Taiwan a powerful missile designed to take out U.S. aircraft carriers as Beijing strengthens its ability to prevent U.S. forces from aiding Taiwan.

When North Korea announced the 1953 Armistice was considered null and void and threatened renewed missile tests, the U.S. rushed naval assets to the region, including two destroyers equipped with the Aegis anti-missile defense system. We presumably would do so if things heated up between Beijing and its claimed "lost province," Taiwan.

That option became increasingly problematical when news of China's deployment of an anti-ship ballistic missile near Taiwan came in written testimony by the Pentagon's head of intelligence, Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn, delivered to a Senate committee on Thursday.

The missile, designated the DF-21D, is one of a "growing number of conventionally armed" new weapons China is deploying to the region, adding to more than 1,200 short-range missiles opposite the island democracy, Flynn, the Defense Intelligence Agency director, told the Senate Armed Services Committee.

The Dong Feng-21D is intended to give China "the capability to attack large ships, particularly aircraft carriers, in the western Pacific," the Pentagon's 2012 China report said. The report cites estimates that the missile's range exceeds 930 miles (1,500 kilometers).

The land-based missile is designed to target and track aircraft carrier groups with the help of satellites, unmanned aerial vehicles and over-the-horizon radar. Launched into space, the DF21D re-enters the atmosphere, maneuvering at 10 times the speed of sound towards its target.

Critics argue that this move only shows the vulnerability and obsolescence of the aircraft carrier in the missile era while others say our missile defense capabilities can handle the new threat. Certainly these floating air bases are no more vulnerable than fixed bases that cannot be moved to where they might be needed.

As its military, its economy and its ambitions grow, so too has Chinese assertiveness about control of the Yellow Sea, the South China Sea, and the larger East China Sea. Chinese military doctrine refers to establishing dominance over what it calls the "first island chain," which encompasses the East China Sea.

Beijing has also long declared the South China Sea to be its territorial waters and has laid claim to two disputed island chains, the Paracel Islands about 200 miles from the coast of Vietnam, and the Spratly Islands in the southeastern part of the South China Sea.

[American Patriot]

Ah.... the KEY to "Level 5". You have to have properly aimed nukes to get a nuclear war!

Well, this is going to be "Game Over!" soon enough.