Chapter 1049 New Tactics Pilot Unit


    ?Chang Haonan''s reaction immediately aroused some confusion.


    After all, A-to-B guidance is not a new concept.


    In fact, the use of airborne radar to relay and guide anti-ship missiles launched by warships or submarines has become one of the very mature tactics of the Red Navy in the late 1970s.


    ?Although that was indeed the peak stage of the other country, in terms of communication technology alone, there is no reason that China in the early 21st century should be inferior to the Soviet Union more than 20 years ago.


    ?So it took Chang Haonan about twenty minutes to finally explain why this "A-shooter and B-guide" was very difficult to implement.


    The main reason is that the nature of the goals is too different.


    Surface ships are generally 200-300 meters long, have a maximum speed of no more than 30 knots, and can only move on a two-dimensional plane.


    Planes generally have a wingspan and length of about 20 meters, can reach speeds of 600 knots or faster, and can move around in three-dimensional space.


    The latter’s requirements for target refresh rate and communication delay are far more than 20 times that of the former.


    Similarly, the two processes of searching and locking have very different requirements for the target refresh rate.


    Hence, providing guidance for an air-to-air missile may occupy a bandwidth that is two orders of magnitude larger than guiding an anti-ship missile, or sharing target information with friendly aircraft.


    With the communication technology at the beginning of the 21st century, it is far from having the luxury to allocate precious data link bandwidth to such usage needs.


    ?In addition, in terms of hardware, each missile first needs to be equipped with an airborne two-way data link of the same level as the aircraft.


    The resulting cost issues can be imagined.


    Even if you exclude the factor of money, the size of a complete antenna and processing system at the beginning of the 21st century is quite large.


    For an airplane, of course, it can be inserted wherever you want.


    But on an air-to-air missile where every inch of space is extremely valuable, it is actually not easy to leave a large enough space.


    To take a step back, the C-band radar of the early warning aircraft was not designed for fire control. Its accuracy is limited and it is not enough to guide the air-to-air bombs to a close enough position.


    Let alone the L-band on the other side.


    In short, if you only test it once or twice under ideal conditions, it may not be impossible to succeed.


    But if you want to use it in real combat...


    It can only be said that the future is promising.


    This result can only be said to be not unexpected.


    After all, less than an hour ago, China achieved data link communication between an early warning aircraft and a combat aircraft for the first time.


    Even centerless data sharing between two combat aircraft has not yet been tested.


    It’s indeed a bit too early to want to do other fun things right now.


    ?However, the truth is the truth.


    Some feeling of pity is inevitable.


    Looking at the scene in front of him, Chang Haonan suddenly had an idea.


    After about half a minute of brainstorming, he roughly determined the feasibility of this new idea:


    “Although under current conditions, it is still somewhat difficult to use early warning aircraft to guide air-to-air missiles, we may be able to change our thinking.”


    Originally, everyone else had already looked at the computer screen again.


    As a result, his words drew everyone''s attention back.


    “How to say?”


    A senior staff officer asked curiously.


    “If you use fighter jet radar to guide surface-to-air missiles... it will be much easier.”


    ?Chang Haonan expressed his thoughts:


    "Because surface-to-air missiles, especially long-range surface-to-air missiles, are large enough, they can be relatively easily stuffed with some additional hardware equipment. You can even design a communication system specifically to be responsible for the communication between the aircraft and the missile without relying on a universal data link. information transmission, and the missile-borne guidance radar is also large enough to complete autonomous locking at a distance from the target, so there is not such a high demand for guidance accuracy and transmission delay..."


    "Of course, this is only from a technical perspective. The actual implementation of the project will not be that simple, and the most important thing is... the cost may be difficult to reduce." He said this, his original intention was just to comfort the people who just suffered. It''s just the Air Force leaders who are attacking, and they don''t really want to come up with any specific product.


    Because there is another issue that he did not mention.


    It is the range.


    At the beginning of the 21st century, the maximum range of surface-to-air missiles was only about 150km, and ground-to-air missiles were generally deployed far away from the contact line. After calculation, it was actually not much different from fighter jets launching their own missiles.


    When there are surface-to-air bombs with a range of 300km in the future, it will not be too late to consider this matter.


    ?However, Chang Haonan still clearly underestimated the desire of today''s PLA commanders and fighters to pursue new technologies and new tactics.


    And the level of trust in him.


    “Sounds like… quite useful?”


    After a period of silence, the first comment was given to Chang Haonan.


    Unexpectedly, there are still people responding:


    "really…"


    “In this way, at least when facing a large number of low-altitude targets, the ground-guided troops can respond in advance, instead of just watching and functioning at the end..."


    …”


    Hearing this, Chang Haonan suddenly realized something -


    Due to the rapid development of China''s various technologies in recent years, my understanding of this era has been much slower than when I was first reborn.


    In any case, it’s only 2002.


    ? ?The new three attacks and three defenses are still a key issue that the People’s Liberation Army needs to consider.


    Especially anti-cruise missiles.


    Compared with previous years, the pressure has not decreased, but has increased.


    ??Because after huge mistakes occurred in the Allied operations, the U.S. military also made urgent efforts to remedy the situation and quickly upgraded its military GPS terminals to the third generation in the following years.


    At least in a short period of time, the effect of electromagnetic interference will be reduced.


    ?In this context, the technology that allows surface-to-air missiles to overcome the curvature of the earth and attack low-altitude targets hundreds of kilometers away is obviously very attractive.


    After all, although China’s air-to-air ammunition equipment has increased rapidly in recent years, it is still reserved according to the standards of normal air combat.


    ??If used to intercept a huge number of cruise missiles, it really seems a bit stretched...


    “Comrade Haonan, do you have any research and development plans for this type of technology now?”


    ?? Qiao Chenqing obviously felt that what came out of Chang Haonan''s mouth was probably being advanced quietly.


    It should be said that this situation did happen many times.


    But not this time.


    The latter quickly shook his head:


    “It was just my idea, there is no research plan yet…”


    “Then what if…”


    ?This time, Chang Haonan could guess what it meant without the other party finishing his sentence:


    "If there is a real need, we can develop it based on the existing data link technology and conduct a few test launches to see the situation. This matter is not difficult. Let the comrades of the Aerospace Science and Industry and the Electronic Science and Technology Group cooperate and it should be completed. "


    “It’s just that if we want to test it, it will involve aviation, ground guidance, radar and other units. I’m afraid it will require special coordination from the Air Force..."


    Now almost half of the Air Force leadership stands next to Chang Haonan.


    Coordination, of course, is not a problem.


    But Qiao Chenqing obviously had other ideas.


    After lowering his head and thinking for a while, he turned to the staff officer beside him:


    “Can we go one step further, use the current Dingxin training base as the backbone, and then include other arms besides aviation to build a long-term future-oriented pilot unit specifically for new technologies and new tactics?”


    (End of this chapter)