Defense Tech

An anonymous UK official told Eurasia Times that British war games pitting their carrier task force groups against China’s long-range ballistic missiles called “aircraft killers” show “the carriers get sunk” most of the time. The key to their threat lies both in their new class of long-range ballistic missiles and its use of Over the Horizon (OTHR) sites, a cold-war technology that gives it the ability to locate and target carriers well off their shores.

China’s Anti-Ship Missiles ‘Sink’ British $7.8B Aircraft Carriers In Wargames; Are Flattops Getting Obsolete? – Eurasiatimes.com
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Excerpt:

Wargames have shown that the constant technological evolution has made aircraft carriers vulnerable to modern missiles.

An official familiar with the wargames has been quoted in the media that “the carriers get sunk” in most of the iterations.

China’s long-range ballistic missiles, which have earned the sobriquet “aircraft carrier killers,” have challenged the naval power projection of Western countries, and the UK is no exception.

Royal Navy strategists are seized with the huge progress in the Chinese anti-ship missile arsenal. The missile technology has made it capable of locating and tracking Britain’s naval fleet.

China has also been reviving Cold War-era technology by building large Over the Horizon Radar (OTHR) sites, which can be used to locate the sites of its adversary’s fleet from a great distance. Two types of OTHR can be deployed: a skywave and a surface wave. Both systems were used during the Cold War era but lost their importance to modern-day radars.

The OTHR is set to make a comeback as it can address the range limitations of current radars. OTHRs’ range can extend into thousands of miles as they consist of an extensive array of antennae spread out over an area, with the transmission and receiving equipment placed geographically away from each other.

China’s latest missile in the arsenal is the DF-17, which is equipped with a hypersonic glide vehicle. The missile is fast and long-range, with a high-precision strike capability, leaving enemies with little time to react. The hypersonic glide vehicles have higher maneuverability and lower altitudes, making them harder to track and predict their flight path.

During the wargames, the Royal Navy’s ‘ability to survive’ is ‘stretched to the limit,’ with a scenario eventually arising whereby a carrier would be sunk.