PLA operation to expel the US Navy from the South China Sea. Biendong Area A2 / AD Details (part of 1)

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MODERN A2 / AD ACCESS AND MANEUVAL LIMITATION AND RECONSTRUCTION AREAS - DIFFICULT-STRUCTURED DEFENSE FRAMES WITH A CENTRAL CENTER. GENERAL INFORMATION ABOUT THE BALTIC “A2 / AD-BARRIERS”»



Today, the true western term “A2 / AD”, which designates the operational-strategic concept of restricting and prohibiting the access and maneuver of enemy naval, ground and air combat means with conventional weapons, is on the agenda of most analytical agencies and military departments of the North American states and Europe. Partly he takes root with us. The Pentagon, as well as the European Command of the US Armed Forces and the Command of the Armed Forces of Europe in Europe have long formed a considerable list of “A2 / AD” zones in various conventional theaters of operations, an attempt to “break through” which may turn out to be unacceptable for the continuation of hostilities to continue hostilities. At the European theater of operations, this list is presented by the Kaliningrad and Leningrad regions, the borders of the Baltic states with the Republic of Belarus, and also the Republic of Crimea. At all these lines, the most powerful “air / missile defense umbrella” was erected from the S-300/400 air defense system, overcoming of which by tactical forces aviation NATO Allied forces will lead to huge losses in dozens of strike fighters.

Similar “A2 / AD-barrier” was built directly on the offshore Baltic conditional theater of operations, where several dozen batteries of anti-ship systems K-300P Bastion-P and 3K60 “Ball” were opposed to NATO, capable of releasing two of the most powerful ships against enemy ships. echelon of several hundreds of super-maneuverable 2,3-flywheel anti-ship missiles 3М55 "Onyx" and subsonic X-35U "Uran". With a similar number of "smart" elements of high precision weapons no known NATO carrier-assault strike force supported by the best frigates and destroyers of the air defense of the Daring class (Type 45), Sachsen (project F124) and Arley Burk. To repel the “star raid” of Russian anti-ship missiles, together with the X-2,5AD / X-4 31-fly-by-wing anti-radar missiles launched from tactical fighter jets, NATO’s naval OVMS fighters simply do not have enough target-channel multifunctional radar systems controlling anti-aircraft missiles. -58, PAAMS ("Sylver") and SM-2.

Moreover, the proximity of the Baltic coast of the Leningrad Region makes it possible to actively use ground-based systems of electronic intelligence / electronic warfare 1L267 "Moscow-1", "Krasuha-4", etc., capable of with great efficiency (aiming and barrage interference) to suppress the work of active Harpoon and RBS-15Mk3 anti-ship missile homing radars launched on surface ships of the Baltic fleet Of Russia. Support from ground-based REP systems on the high seas is not possible, therefore, all defense tasks fall solely on naval air defense systems and electronic warfare systems. The proximity of coastal military infrastructure with friendly EW units in a network-centric warfare is the first important advantage of the littoral zone of restriction and prohibition of access and the A2 / AD maneuver in comparison with a similar zone located away from its own shores.

The second significant tactical "chip" of the "A2 / AD" zone, established in the Gulf of Finland and the southern part of the Baltic Sea, is the possibility of using ultra-low noise diesel-electric submarines, 877 Ave. Paltus, 636.3 A. Varshavyanka, etc. 677. Lada. In terms of acoustic secrecy, these submarines are ahead of even the most modern multi-purpose nuclear-powered submarines of the type “Sea Wolf”, “Pike-B”, etc. 885 “Ash”. Consequently, they are able to approach the NATO naval strike groups at a distance of a couple of tens of kilometers, after which an underwater launch of anti-ship missiles 3М54Э1 Caliber or 3М55 Onyx can be carried out. The appearance of a whole “swarm” of Russian anti-ship missiles in the immediate vicinity of the United Navy’s NCC) will be a real surprise for the operators of the enemy’s shipboard air defense systems.

The combat information and control systems of surface ships will have a minimum of time to take missiles to escort, capture, and further open fire. Under the conditions of the open sea / ocean, the use of diesel-electric submarines in the underwater mode will be extremely limited by the small range of the course and the need for ascent to launch a diesel power plant and recharge batteries. Surfacing the P-8A “Poseidon” anti-submarine aircraft and the MIT-4C “Triton” reconnaissance UAVs, scanning the water surface for the presence of logging and snorkels of our submarines, may be a very risky necessity. As you can see, the creation of the “A2 / AD” zone in the littoral area has a number of advantages.

DEFENSE OPPORTUNITIES OF NOAH ON THE SOUTHERN OPERATIONAL DIRECTION BEFORE THE BEGINNING OF STRENGTHENING THE AIR AIR AND ANTI WATER "BONES" IN THE SOUTH CHINESE SEA. INDIGENESS OF THE AUSTRALIAN TERRITORY IN THE PROCESS OF CREATING A PLASDARMA OF THE USAF FOR A CONFRONTATION WITH CHINA

A similar list of “A2 / AD” zones was compiled by the Pentagon for the Asia-Pacific region. They belong exclusively to the People’s Republic of China. Today, these zones cover almost all waters of the Yellow and East China Seas (from the eastern coast of the PRC to the territorial waters of Taiwan and Japan in the area of ​​the disputed Spratly Archipelago), which are part of the “first chain” of the strategically important borders of the PRC in the Pacific direction. The “first chain” is the near 300-500 kilometer boundary in accordance with the “Three chains” concept described in the White Paper of the PLA. Most of the operational and tactical aspects envisioned by the Three Chains concept will, for at least a decade and a half more, fully correspond to the realities of a possible Chinese-American conflict in the Asia-Pacific region.

Meanwhile, it is still very early to put the A2 / AD section of the Chinese zone in the area of ​​the controversial Diaoyudao and Spratly archipelagoes on the same level with similar operational-strategic "barriers" of Russia in the Baltic and Kola directions. The US Navy, together with the Japan Self-Defense Forces, are doing everything possible to restrain Beijing’s regional ambitions even in the near-sea zone of the “first chain”, not to mention the borders of the “second chain” “Guam-Saipan”. Official Washington, having received a convenient and “uncontestable” alibi, consisting in protecting the pro-American states of the APR and Southeast Asia from the “missile threat” from the DPRK and Beijing’s territorial claims, opened a real blank check on the large-scale militarization of this unpredictable region. But the United States is not going to limit itself to covering only the aforementioned states. The main goal of the blank check is to create an advanced military infrastructure of the impact profile, designed to “break through” the main defensive lines of the People’s Liberation Army of China in the event of an escalation of a regional conflict.

To this end, the US Navy regularly strengthens the operational and tactical capabilities of the 7 fleet, the main objects of which are represented by the large naval bases of Yokosuka (Japan) and Apra (Guam). As can be seen from the example of the North Korean “nuclear program”, any jump in the degree of tension in the region leads to the arrival in the Pacific of two or three reinforced carrier-based strike forces comprising 3 aircraft carriers of the “Nimitz” class (in the future “Gerald Ford” will be added), The 3-6 class Ticonderoga cruisers and roughly the 6 EM Arleigh Burke.

Specialists of the US Department of Defense are well aware of all the risks associated with the possible activation of the Chinese fleet and air force in the Pacific theater of operations and off the coast of Indochina, and therefore they insure themselves through the technological adaptation of the Australian Tyndall airbase for the unlimited basing of the B-1B Lancer strategic missile-carrying bombers. These plans were repeatedly reported in 2015-2016 in Western news resources. "Lancers" make it possible to deliver pinpoint strikes with tactical long-range missile systems AGM-158B JASSM-ER on military infrastructure on the island of Hainan, as well as on the entire southern coast of the PRC from the borders located over the central part of the South China Sea.

At the same time, the number of suspension nodes allows you to place cruise missiles of this type on each B-1B to 24, while the B-2A “Spirit” units are designed only for 16 JASSM-ER, which makes the first ideal strategic strike complex for performing massive missile and air strike from supersmall heights. Moreover, despite the “silence” of official sources at the Pentagon and the company “Boeing”, which today serves and modernizes the data of the “strategy”, they can also be used for “decapitating” anti-ship operations against Chinese naval and carrier strike groups, where »Will be a low-profile low-profile AGM-158C LRASM anti-ship missile system, developed on the basis of JASSM-ER. For example, 20 "Lancers" are the carriers of 480 unobtrusive LRASM RCCs or JASSM-ER CRs, which will be a very weighty argument even if the PRC Navy has advanced Type 52D EM URO equipped with a H / ZBJ-1 MUSD and multichannel shipboard HKHR .

No less significant detail are also previously announced plans for the transfer of strategic air tankers KC-10A "Extender" to the same AvB Tyndall. Now almost everyone has forgotten about this information, but the fact remains. The transfer of the largest US Air Force tanker aircraft to this region is necessary for Washington as air, because the B-1B Lancer’s strategic missile-carrying range is 5000 km, which will only reach the launch line for JASSM-ER / LRASM cruise missiles, and then immediately return to the Tyndal air base, while the operational-strategic situation may require long-term bombardment of the bombers over the Philippine and South China Seas, awaiting any action by the Chinese fleet. The fact is that in addition to the standard strategic percussion functions, the B-1B "Lancer" is capable of performing long-term combat duty, observing the actions of the enemy. To conduct optical-electronic and radio intelligence, the Lancers have 3 main tools:

- AN / ALR-56M advanced radar warning station from enemy radar (SPO) (the station is part of the AN / ALQ-161 airborne defense complex together with the ALQ-214 IDECM eB station and towed AN / ALE-50 radio emitters) ; The information database AN / ALR-56M, loaded on special drives, contains data on the frequency modes of operation of several hundred survey and multifunctional sea / land / air-based enemy radars at once;
- airborne radar with passive phased array AN / APQ-164, capable of operating in synthetic aperture modes (with high-precision mapping of the earth's surface and identifying small ground targets), tracking moving ground targets (GMTI), as well as a low probability of radio interception from a high-speed frequency hopping (LPI) );
- AN / AAQ-33 “Sniper-ATP” (“Advanced Targeting Pod”) container-based optic-electronic sighting system, which allows to obtain high-resolution images in the television and infrared channels of sight; There is also the possibility of long-term video recording of explored objects with a resolution of 1080p and simultaneous use of 30-50-multiple optical zoom.



Strategic B-1B rocket carrier bomber with an overhead container optical-electronic sniper-ATP surveillance and targeting complex


Despite the low supersonic speed of the B-1B (1,2М), in the 21st century network-centric theater of operations, this machine looks more than worthy due to advanced onboard radio-electronic equipment that allows you to perform the widest range of tasks. That is why their lifespan is extended to 2040. On the basis of the above, a quite adequate question may arise: why relocate cars to Avb Tyndall, getting additional “headache” and financial expenses for expensive logistical support for the KC-10A Extender, when you can deploy them much closer, for example, on one of the air bases of the Japan Self-Defense Air Force? It is explained quite simply.

All airbases located in Japan and South Korea are under the greatest risk of a massive response missile response from the Chinese Navy and Air Force, as well as the PLA 2 artillery corps, which has a huge number of medium-range ballistic missiles DF-3A / C intended for striking the island military infrastructure of the US Armed Forces within 1750 - 3000 km (within the first and second "chains"). Moreover, the army of the Celestial Empire has several hundreds of strategic ground- and air-launched cruise missiles of the CJ-10 (DH-10) family with a range of about 2500 km, which are analogous to the Caliber and Tomahawks. Single complex strike with cruise missiles and MRSD in the amount of 300 - 500 units. will be enough to disable all US Air Force facilities operating in Japan and the Republic of Korea. At the same time, due to the distance from the Chinese coast in 800 - 1000 km, even a few dozen Aegis ships with SM-3 / 6 antimissiles and THAAD and Patriot PAC-3 anti-missile systems covering the Japanese airbases will not save the Americans. because the flying time of “Dunfen” and “Swords” will be only a few minutes: no more than three minutes will be left for interception.

Another thing is the remote Australian Tyndal airbase, on the way to which, in the Sulu, Sulawesi, Banda and Timor Sea seas, you can build four shipborne anti-missile lines from the Argues Burley, with the simultaneous "connection" of new Australian EMs URO "Hobbart." As you see, Australia is a much more secure American outpost for basing strategic aviation in the APR, rather than a bridgehead of Japan and the Republic of Korea. Notable is the fact that the remaining instability in relations between the PRC and Indonesia, caused by Jakarta’s dissatisfaction with the actions of the crews of patrol ships of the Chinese Navy in the Riau archipelago, will play into the hands of the Americans. The benefit is that in the event of a major conflict, Indonesians not only will not prevent the deployment of the US naval missile defense system in the internal seas of the archipelago, but they may well provide their territory for the units of the USMC / SSO, etc., which will greatly complicate life to Beijing.

While the US Air Force Global Shock Command is preparing to begin building a new safe air harbor for the B-1B in Australia’s Northern Territory, the degree of tension continues to rise in the South China Sea, where Beijing, for obvious reasons (from a superpower position), continues to challenge the Spratly Islands and Paracel Islands, which are claimed by such states as Brunei, the Philippines, Malaysia, Vietnam and Taiwan. In the immediate vicinity of the airspace over the Spratly, regular patrols are conducted by P-8A “Poseidon” long-range anti-submarine aircraft of the US Navy, probing the sea depths for the presence of Chinese MAPL and DEPL using a tail sensor of magnetic anomalies, as well as visually observing any activity of Chinese military personnel on artificial islands with the help of turret optical-electronic complexes MX-20HD. Over the past 2 of the year, a number of incidents involving the Splayly maritime destroyers of the Arleigh Burke class were also reported, causing protests in official Beijing.

Most seriously, the Chinese were alarmed by the 16 incident of December 2016, when the USNS Bowditch research vessel of the US Navy attempted to explore the underwater space of the South China Sea (northwest of Subic Bay) with a small unmanned underwater sonar complex " Slocum G2 glider ". Despite the fact that the command of the Pacific Fleet of the US Navy claimed that it was an unsecured operation, its real purpose remained a mystery. One of the most plausible versions may be a hydroacoustic study of the bottom relief before the forthcoming arrival of American multi-purpose nuclear submarines of the following classes: Virginia, Ohio (in the SSHN SSHM attack version), with possible support from the super low-noise diesel-electric submarines of 636.3 Pr. in service with the Vietnamese Navy. All these tricks were not ignored by Beijing, and already in the summer of 2017, a worthy asymmetrical response followed, which began to rapidly shift the balance of forces in Southeast Asia towards the Celestial.


FIRST SIGNS OF THE FORMATION OF THE BENDONG ZONE A2 / AD IN THE SOUTH CHINESE SEA

In particular, on June 22, 2017, the military-analytical resource "Military Parity", with reference to the news publication defensenews.com, published a message about the deployment of Y-8Q anti-submarine aircraft at one of the air bases of Hainan Island (in the amount of 4 or more units) , as well as unmanned reconnaissance drones long-range Harbin BZK-005 and KJ-500 airborne early warning and control aircraft at Lingshui Air Base (southeast coast of the island). At first glance, this is quite an ordinary event, by Chinese standards, indicating that the PLA does not plan to sit idly by in the face of increasing operational and strategic pressure from the US Navy. Yes, such an interpretation is very accurate, but if we delve into the subtleties of the issue, then we have before us the final phase of creating the first most complete and echeloned so-called “Byendong zone A2 / A2”, which indicates the imminent “expulsion” of the American fleet from the central part of the South -Chinese Sea, where the Spratly archipelago and the Paracel Islands are located.

The events that took place from 18 to 24 in February of 2016 caused a great resonance in Southeast Asia. Then it was decided to deploy two anti-aircraft missile battalions HQ-9 on Yonshindao Island (Woody), which is part of the Paracel archipelago. Already, this moment markedly constrained the capabilities of the US Navy patrol aircraft in neutral airspace over the South China Sea. These divisions formed an almost continuous (not counting the low-altitude section) “anti-missile parasol” together with HQ-9 batteries on Hainan Island, thanks to which the deck aircraft of the US Navy and the Vietnamese Air Force instantly lost their ability to have total air control over the Paracel Islands.


The dashboard of the upgraded multi-role fighter J-11B. In addition to installing advanced display equipment, these machines are equipped with a completely sophisticated on-board weapon control system that allows you to quickly adapt numerous modifications of missile-bomb weapons, for example, PL-15 or PL-21D super-long-range air combat missiles with a range of 300 and 150 km, respectively. The tactical information exchange terminal with more powerful radar tools present in the pilot's dashboard interface will allow launching the aforementioned missiles on remote air targets even if the airborne radar with slot-hole AR cannot detect it. J-11B is a completely network-centric machine. Perspective modification J-11D (photo below), created on the basis of Su-27SK, and improved by the recently acquired Su-35С, can receive radar with PFAR and AFAR: the fighter will enter the generation of "4 ++".


On 5, the color indicators of the Chinese fighter can be displayed significantly more tactical information than on one Su-33 CRT monochrome display (this is also a tactical map with terrain, and displayed markers of surface / air defense systems with intended lines of action, and EW station , etc.). As an air-to-air weapon, the same nomenclature is used as that of the JH-7A. At the same time, the on-board radar from the AAR to the J-11B has a much larger diameter and power capabilities, which allow detecting an F / A-18E / F with suspension target at a distance of about 130 km. Therefore, J-11B today is a very serious competitor for carrier naval aircraft of the United States. In the future, all existing J-11B can be brought to the modification “D”, which provides for equipping the on-board radar with a passive / active phased antenna array, the range of which can reach 250 - 300 km on a fighter-type target (EPR = 3 м2) . As an example, for the development of a new station, the “Irbis-E” radars obtained by the Celestial Empire along with two ordered Su-35С squadrons can be used.

The redeployment of J-11B to Yongxing Island makes it possible not only to regularly patrol the airspace with two controversial archipelagoes, but also to accompany the RJDN KJ-500 aircraft deployed on Hainan Island. In the event that the number of enemy carrier-based aviation forces the use of all fighter squadrons based on island air bases, the cover of the KJ-500 on duty can be placed on the shoulders of the HQ-9 anti-aircraft missile divisions. In accordance with all the above, we see well-built anti-aircraft and anti-ship components of the Biendong zone A2 / AD, but there is also an underwater component that provides for the creation of an underwater "barrier" consisting of: diesel-electric submarines, diesel sterling electric submarines with an air-independent power plant, anti-submarine aircraft of the RSL, depth bombs, as well as surface warships equipped with anti-submarine rocket-torpedo complexes. It was this component that began to strengthen in June 2017.

Its air component is represented by X-NUMX-powered turboprop anti-submarine aircraft Y-4Q, some of which are relocated to Hainan. The machine can perform patrol operations with duration from 8 to 8 hours and has a range of about 11 km, which is 2800% less than that of the P-36C Orion. However, the Y-3Q cargo compartment holds more than 8 SQ-100 "Sonobuoys" radio-hydro-acoustic buoys, which is enough to keep control of the submarine area of ​​more than 5 km5000 (depending on the sonar characteristics of the submarines). Unlike Orion, whose crew consists of 2 people, Y-11Q requires all 8-7 people, among which, apparently, 8-2 pilot and 3 operators of systems receiving and decoding acoustic information received via secure radio channels with the RSL, as well as additional information from the magnetic anomaly detector, the nose radar complex for viewing the water surface, third-party targeting devices, etc. On the technological sketches of Y-5Q, placed on the Chinese Internet, you can pay attention to the presence of a turret optical-electronic sight-sight complex directly in front of the cargo hold. Operating in television and infrared channels, this turret viewfinder is not the worst analogue of the American MX-8HD, and is capable of conducting reconnaissance of small-sized objects with high resolution at a distance of several tens of kilometers in a passive mode.


Airborne radiohydroacoustic buoys of the Sonobuoys SQ-5 family


The internal weapons bays are designed for a 10 ton payload mass, which can include both Yu-7 anti-ship missiles (possessing active-passive sonar ghosts), anti-ship missiles and mines, and specialized UUV “Haiyan” smart underwater drones ("Petrel-II HUG"), capable of carrying out continuous sonar and visual scanning of the underwater space, attention, within a month! An underwater glider with a length of 1800 and a diameter of 300 mm has a mass of 70 kg and is capable of sinking to enormous depths (up to 1500 m) and has a cruising range of approximately 1000 km. Underwater reconnaissance drone has a maximum speed in the 3 node with a compact tail propulsion and 0,8 node when planning in underwater currents. As for the ventral on-board radar in the radio transparent radome (located in the nose of the Chinese anti-submarine aircraft), it has the same qualities as the American AN / APY-10 (P-8A "Poseidon"): there are synthesized aperture modes, as well as the possibility detection of small targets such as "periscope".

Looking at the anti-submarine capabilities of the Y-8Q aircraft, it becomes clear that the American Aegis cruisers / destroyers, with their praised sonar systems AN / SQQ-89 (V) 10-15, are not standards of PLO, exactly the same as Poseidons. The smaller operator staff of Y-8Q, given the superior information capabilities of search engines, points to a more advanced and high-performance computing base of the “Chinese” avionics, and therefore any common thoughts of pseudo-analysts about the complete backwardness of Chinese electronics from the west look utter nonsense. Yes, there is some lag in terms of AFAR-radars, as well as in the field of casting single-crystal turbine blades by the method of directional crystallization using nickel-tungsten seed, but China will also soon find a way out of this situation. What is worth the creation of a promising wear-and heat-resistant niobium-titanium-aluminum alloy, which has almost 2 times less density, but identical strength. The alloy was created by the summer of 2012, thanks to 20-year-old research from the State Laboratory of Promising Metals and Materials of China. Let us return to the anti-submarine component of the A2 / AD zone in the South China Sea.

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  1. +4
    4 July 2017 06: 48
    I was somewhat surprised by the unfamiliar title “Bendong zone” to most Russian readers. Bjendong is a purely Vietnamese name, and I doubt the appropriateness of using this name in the article, since Vietnam is not trying to create A2 / AD in this region.
    Biển Đông (East Sea) - this is how the Vietnamese called the South China Sea a long time ago, without any political context (unlike the Philippines, who began to call this sea the West Philippine Sea recently).
  2. +6
    4 July 2017 07: 39
    An interesting article, the message of which - if you want peace and the absence of American "peace pigeons" near your borders - do not spare money and forces for arming your army and navy.
  3. +2
    4 July 2017 07: 47
    Surfacing under combat alert conditions of the P-8A Poseidon anti-submarine aircraft and the MQ-4C Triton reconnaissance UAVs scanning the surface of the water for the presence of cuttings and snorkels of our submarines

    What snorkels are still made of metal? Can’t you use some more radiolucent material? Now they just haven’t come up with something. For example, high-pressure polyethylene propylene? Anything else. recourse
    1. +1
      4 July 2017 09: 44
      Unfortunately, no one has canceled IR radiation yet ...
      1. +4
        4 July 2017 09: 54
        Quote: Sasha_Sar
        Unfortunately, no one has canceled IR radiation yet ...

        So does snorkel work on suction? Exhaust probably, like boats can be "organized into the water". The counterpressure will certainly be great, but you can still come up with something. The head is not only to eat and wear a hat.
  4. +4
    4 July 2017 19: 17
    to the author plus, the Yankees only understand the lash, and this lash should always be kept ready ...

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