Media reports suggest that a new variant of China’s mighty DF-21D missile has just gone through pre-deployment tests by a specialist brigade of the People’s Liberation Army’s Rocket Force, and that it has ramped-up assault capabilities that could put an aircraft-carrier strike group out of action.
State broadcaster China Central Television and Sina Military reported that the new missile was “30%” more powerful than the previous-generation DF-21D, but no details of its specifications or the parameters of the tests were provided.
It is believed that the series’ launch vehicle has received a big boost to its ability to travel off-road, as compared with the previous model that required support vehicles and would need to park on a huge solid-surface area prior to a launch.
It is not clear if the missile itself has been improved in terms of range or speed.
When the missile family first entered service in early 2000s, it was said to be the world’s first hypersonic, satellite-guided anti-ship ballistic missile capable of targeting a moving aircraft carrier, with a maximum range exceeding 1,450 kilometers on the strength of its maneuverable re-entry vehicles, a terminal guidance system and over-the-horizon radar.
It is thought to be able to carry high-explosive and submunition warheads, as well as a nuclear warhead of 300 kilotons.
In a nutshell, the might of the DF-21D family, nicknamed “carrier killer,” means that Washington would have to think twice before sending its carriers into the Taiwan Strait and risking the lives of its crews should Beijing mount an invasion to reclaim the self-ruling island, which it considers a breakaway province.
In the 1995 Taiwan Strait crisis, the Pentagon dispatched the USS Nimitz to pass through the strait in a high-profile co-defense posture after Beijing held drills in the East China Sea in a bid to discourage Taiwanese against electing a pro-independence president. Beijing had to back down amid Washington’s intervention.
With the DF-21D missile, Beijing has erased that ignominy.
A 2009 US Naval Institute report confirmed the formidable threat of the missile, noting that its warhead would be large enough to destroy a carrier in one hit and that in theory there was “currently no defense against it.”
The Pentagon has marshaled ballistic-missile defense destroyers as well as missile interceptors to the Pacific to give carrier groups stationed there sufficient warning to move away from a targeted area whenever the missile is airborne.
The DF-21D has also been developed into a space-capable anti-satellite variant.
The missile has been deployed along China’s coast in such provinces as Fujian, Zhejiang, Guangdong, Jiangsu, Shandong and Liaoning to make sure that warships in the Taiwanese and Japanese navies and even of the US Seventh Fleet are overawed in the event of a military showdown in the Taiwan Strait.
Hahaha….snap out of your caveman mentality brother. China now is not d China of old.
When the range is longer it won’t just be the taiwan strait the us can no longer enter at will.their carriers will be vulnerable anywhere west of hawaii
good , I waant paworful china
There is saying the taste of the pudding is in the eating..why don’t China and US try their might in actual combat and concentrate only in their mainland
It is difficult to say that missiles would not sink carrier ship.It is difficult to say that US is not capable in shooting the missiles before it hits.Was there a test, to evaluate results of firing this missile.
DF-21D could send a serious message to her adversary to respect sovereignity of a country!
China should try to sink one or two US aircraft carriers using these awesome Chinese hypersonic missile to prove that their weapon is not a dud.
It wasn’t all that long ago we held similar sentiments about cheap, mass-produced products from Japan….
No! No! No! It’s not Nimitz, it was USS Independece (which bear the message of "we mean business").
The drill was an "unannounced" to bluff the Americans that it was a preparation for attack against taiwan because the drills was done after the US bombed Chinese embassy in Yugoslavia (acts of war) which some groups of extremist in the PLA organization demanded to China’s authority to rain the US mainland with Missiles not really for bombing the embassy in Yugoslavia but for attacking the mainland China (Tien an mien square) through people power to topple Deng Shao Ping in hoping to prevent Hong Kong turn over (1997) to mainland that lead to the massacred of hundreds of thousand, if not million of their own children.
After the US apologized for their miscalculated acts of war, China began it’s offensive and the starts of the end of Deng Shao Ping "hide your talents, pretend to be weak" principles has finally change the world as it used to be.
Smoothly but in a fast phase, China shows it’s real strength that the US couldn’t catch up militarily, politically, diplomatically and economically. After the US bite China’s bait (just to make them to engage in a head on military conflict), China conducted an unannounced "war game" and when the US sent it’s 7th fleet in Taiwan’s strait signalling the rules of engagement was technically legal and effective.
China ordered the PLA’s to go back to barracks and with strict authorization to "prepare for war".
The West again miscalculated the withdrawals as retreat but the jubilant west was short lived until China invited all the industrial state in a weapons exhibit where they disclosed it’s "neutron bomb" with the closing ceremony statements that "one neutron bomb is equivalent to one US aircaft carrier". It’s not really the DF-21D.
Americans commitment in supporting Taiwanese freedom can not be deter by fake Chinese nuclear development. Sending a few of America total 19 aircraft carriers to protect Taiwan even with constant threats from Beijing display of weapon, is not an obstacle for the Trumpad ministration.
China which only has one carrier in its PLA should be the one to ???? worry.
And let me make this clear to Xi and his followers that provoking a war stain America and Japan is a serious threat to China security despite its huge army and nuclear development.
Japan for one fact has not been invaded by any country in history except the atomic ???? bomb which Truman ordered in an effort to save thousands of his forces who might not succeed in physical ground battle.
The Chinese still need to be tutor on how the Japanese had subdued them.
The US on the other hand has not experienced any full-scale battle on its soil since the war of 1812 and with the acception of Japanese air attack on Pearl harbor in 1941.
Although Mexican border crisis recorded some unrest in southern US, the dictatorial regime in Mexico city suffered heavy casualties as tens of Mexican raiders were killed the fleeing army pushed behind the border at the cost of less than 30 Americans lives.
The power of these Missiles df-21d that China is proud off may be true or not. China have not been into actual war using their modern war machines. If China insist in taking Taiwan, surely the US will have to protect Taiwan at all cost because they have a bilateral agreement just like the US- Philippines mutual agreement. If US backdown and allow China to take back Taiwan or watch Taiwanese being slaugthered by Chinese soldiers. How will US face the world. All anti US countries will go to China for protection. In both response It will be a cathastropic to US. But definitely war be it conventional or nuclear will be more cathastropic.
Edward I think your also one hell made in china
Dont worry guys. If ever there’s a war between the US and china, it wont last longer than 3 days….because all the armaments of the peoples liberation army are made in china!..just think what would happen to those made in china products…
The so called African has to lick the yankee imperialist ass, so sad!
Have you ever heard the saying" empty barrel makes the most noise"" think about it then think about you
Hahahahaha Remember China is good in making forged gadgets. Look at the pieces of products we buy in the market. All are fake, low quality, and unreliable. That missile is just a scrap of missile case only inside of it is nothing but a sand. It’s easy to replicate a bottle of wine but the content of it China cannot replicate it.
I have study about this story .the thru is US carrier are hundred kilometer away from taiwan and the carrier group are in international water. So don’t make provocative story
In 1995 the US carrier group was 600 nauticles away from the location of Chinese military drill. Others are American propaganda.
Maybe it wasn’t 1995 but at some point several years ago the bandits and fascists of Anglo-American imperialism sent a carrier group apparently ‘to force Beijing to back down’. It was heralded in the "free" press as a show of fascist power and etc. The reality is that the carrier group carried out it’s "show of force" several hundred kms away from Taiwan and in international waters.