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| Science & Technology |
| Japan 'Building Missiles to Counter China's Naval Power' |
| 2010-07-22 |
| Japan has begun developing a high-speed anti-ship missile in response to China's growing naval power, according to a media report Wednesday. The missile, called XASM-3, is slated for production starting in 2016, the daily Tokyo Shimbun said. The supersonic missile is "almost impossible to shoot down" and "appears to be aimed at thwarting China's rising naval might," the daily said. The XASM-3, which is 6 m long and weighs 900 kg, is small enough to be mounted on Supersonic anti-ship missiles are used for defense against aircraft carriers, destroyers and cruisers. At present, Russia has the largest numbers of them, to counter U.S. aircraft carrier groups. China has imported them from Russia and is developing its own version. The U.S. has none due to a different military doctrine but apparently began developing them recently. China has been boosting its naval strength and plans to build its own aircraft carrier by 2015. It recently bought four destroyers from Russia and deployed its own Aegis-class destroyers. |
| Posted by: Anonymoose |
| #3 Re: Japanese Aegis. They licensed it, and improved it along the way; they're supposed to be some of the better Burke-"clones" floating around the seas. They are built to be compatible with any sort of anti-ballistic-missile upgrades that are currently being developed or may be developed in the future. Compare and contrast with the British, who thought they could replicate the functionality of the whole Aegis system, radar and missiles, from scratch, for what turned out to be a four-ship production run. Allegedly their equivalent to the ESSM just plain doesn't work, which means their two billion pound destroyers are sitting ducks for a couple million dollar supersonic SSM such as described in this article. |
| Posted by: Things From Snowy Mountains 2010-07-22 11:43 |
| #2 ... and deployed its own Aegis-class destroyers. Did they buy a few from us or did they just steal the plans? |
| Posted by: Steve White 2010-07-22 11:28 |
| #1 Next development will be full-size, fully autonomous submarines/sea mines. |
| Posted by: Anguper Hupomosing9418 2010-07-22 08:31 |