Intercepting cruise missiles that attack ground targets are very different from anti-ship missiles that intercept attack warships.

First of all, cruise missiles do not necessarily only penetrate from ultra-low altitudes, but may also adopt high-altitude penetration and defense trajectory to avoid early entry into the interception area of ​​the final defense system. More importantly, during flight, hypersonic cruise missiles often use higher flight trajectory.

At that time, the heavy cruise missiles and heavy anti-ship missiles equipped by the US military were actually a type of missiles, namely the agm-x series heavy multi-purpose missile developed by Boeing. The number of the US military was agm-212 as a heavy anti-ship missile and the agm-213 as a heavy cruise missile. [..com]

The two types of missiles use the same body, the same engine, and the same inertial guide system. The difference is that different warheads are used, and the mass of the propellant is the end-stage guidance system. The warhead of the agm-212 weighs 1,500 pounds and is equipped with acceleration rockets and attitude control rockets. The warhead of the agm-213 weighs 2,000 pounds, and only attitude control rockets. Because the total mass of the two missiles is not much different, both reaching the maximum designed weight of this type of missile, the propellant of the agm-213 is about 500 pounds less than that of the agm-212. In order to ensure a range of 1,000 kilometers, the agm-213 generally adopts a high-low profile cruise flight trajectory, that is, after launch, it first flies at a super-high altitude of dozens of kilometers, and when approaching the target, it will then reduce the flight altitude and penetrate from ultra-low altitude.

Only when high-low profile flight trajectory is used can the range of agm-213 reach one thousand kilometers.

If the entire range is super low-altitude penetration, the range of the agm-213 is only about 500 kilometers, which is similar to that of ordinary war zone cruise missiles.

Obviously, super high altitude penetration does not have much threat at all.

In an era when both the theater air defense systems and tactical air defense systems can intercept ballistic missiles, it is difficult for any missile that enters the interception range of the air defense missile to survive. Even hypersonic cruise missiles, as long as the flight altitude is too high and exposed too early, the probability of being shot down is very high.

The US military also knows that the Chinese Marine Corps has deployed theaters and tactical air defense systems on Wangwunu Island.

During the 23rd missile attack, most of the theater cruise missiles launched by the US military were shot down by the Marine Corps' air defense system.

In this way, agm-213 has to penetrate from an ultra-low altitude.

At that time, the interception distance of any kind of war zone air defense missile to high-altitude targets exceeded 200 kilometers. Although China's war zone air defense system claimed to be able to intercept high-altitude targets within 400 kilometers, actual combat proved that its maximum effective interception distance was only about 200 kilometers.

The main reason is that most of the air targets now have stealth capabilities. Affected by the distance of the detection system, the range of air defense missiles is no longer the main indicator to determine the interception distance. As a result, the search radar of most theater air defense systems can only detect stealth targets within 300 kilometers at most and start tracking at 200 kilometers. Therefore, air defense missiles with a range of 400 kilometers can only intercept targets within 200 kilometers.

Of course, this only refers to high-altitude targets.

If the tactical data link is not equipped with an early warning aircraft that can cooperate with the air defense system, the interception distance of the combat zone air defense system to ultra-low-altitude targets will not exceed 60 kilometers, usually only 40 kilometers. If it is combated on land, it will be shortened a little.

Based on this situation, the US military has formulated a relatively reliable pass-through flight plan.

According to the attack plan formulated by the US military, agm-213 dives about 150 kilometers from Wangwunu Island, reduces the flight altitude to less than 50 meters at 100 kilometers, and then maintains this altitude to 80 kilometers, and reduces the altitude to less than 20 meters at the last twenty kilometers.

This has an advantage: it can consume the Chinese Marine Corps' air defense missiles, especially the theater air defense missiles.

The reason is very simple: in the face of incoming missile groups, the theater air defense system will definitely open fire at the maximum distance, and the missile's interception point should be 120 kilometers, because the theater air defense missile will fly 120 kilometers, to be precise, it will fly about 150 kilometers (slash distance), and the heavy cruise missile can fly 80 kilometers. In this way, when the heavy cruise missile turns into dives after flying 50 kilometers, the theater air defense missile will not play a role at all. Even if it turns into dives, it will soon lose its target.

However, the US military did not expect that the Second Fleet had entered the Coral Sea on the night of the 23rd.

Of course, the position of the Second Fleet is not very ideal.

Gong Jifei made clear restrictions on the patrol area of ​​the Second Fleet, that is, no more than 100 kilometers from Wangwunu Island, and Tong Shaoyun would definitely arrange the fleet's patrol route according to this limit distance. As a result, when the early warning aircraft discovered the incoming US bomber group, the Second Fleet was 100 kilometers south of Wangwunu Island. Although Tong Shaoyun immediately ordered to turn north and sail at the fastest speed, in the next ten minutes, the fleet only sailed about fifteen kilometers north. More importantly, there was no way to know the exact direction of the cruise missile.

The result is that the twelve large integrated warships can only be arranged from east to west.

Behind, the twelve anti-submarine warships could only be arranged in an interlaced manner on the north side of the cruiser formation.

In other words, Tong Shaoyun evenly distributed the fleet's precious air defense interception capabilities without centralized arrangements.

The result is that on any air defense and anti-missile front, at most two to three large integrated warships and two to three anti-submarine warships can be put into combat.

In fact, this is already the best air defense deployment.

If the warships are concentrated and the cruise missiles are missed, the consequences will be difficult to imagine. According to Tong Shaoyun's air defense tactics, even if all cruise missiles cannot be shot down, a large part of them will definitely be shot down, greatly reducing the combat pressure of the Marine Corps air defense system.

The first thing that was put into combat was not the final defense system, but the medium-range air defense missiles on the warships.

After the US military's heavy cruise missile entered the dive stage, it almost headed towards the Second Fleet. For a moment, even Tong Shaoyun felt that the US military's attack was a sensation in the east and the west, and what it shot was not a cruise missile that hit ground targets, but an anti-ship missile that dealed with warships.

It can be said that Tong Shaoyun was a little regretful at that time and did not allow several large comprehensive warships to adopt air defense configurations.

Before going to war, Gong Jifei made a suggestion to replace the four large comprehensive warships of the Second Fleet with air defense modules to enhance the regional air defense capabilities of the Second Fleet. However, Tong Shaoyun felt that the last defense system was already powerful enough, and his new air defense formation had higher combat efficiency, so there was no need to weaken the strike capability in order to strengthen air defense. Originally, the Second Fleet was a veritable strike fleet.

Fortunately, the US military missiles dive down, which is in line with the appetite of medium-range air defense missiles.

Although all medium-range air defense missiles are mainly targeted at low-altitude targets during design, in actual combat, medium-range air defense missiles are much more efficient at intercepting high-altitude targets. When intercepting in a two-to-one manner, the hit rate of medium-range air defense missiles to dive cruise missiles can be almost 100%. Even if intercepting in a one-to-one manner, the hit rate will not be less than 90%.

Faced with so many cruise missiles, all warships adopt one-to-one interception method.

More importantly, medium-range air defense missiles have full-range self-guidance capabilities and do not require fire control support. In other words, just launch the missile.

At that time, there were only six large integrated warships and four anti-submarine warships involved in the operation.

The main thing is that only these four warships are in the direction of the cruise missile attack.

In just half a minute, ten warships launched almost 500 medium-range air defense missiles, with an overall hit rate of more than 90%.

Immediately afterwards, the last defense system began to show its power.

Although there were still many cruise missiles within the interception range of medium-range air defense missiles during this period, after the last defense system fired, medium-range air defense missiles were useless. The reason is very simple. The last defense system does not have the ability to identify enemies and us, and will attack all nearby high-speed moving objects indiscriminately. This is understandable, because the last defense system only has one or five seconds at most from the discovery of the target to the firing, and there is no time to identify the nature of the target at all, and it is even more impossible to send an identity identification signal to the target.

In fact, all final defense systems are not equipped with an enemy-enemies recognizer.

Next, there were two thrilling minutes.

In these two minutes, only three large integrated warships and two anti-submarine warships were able to fight, and the other warships were too far from the entry point of the cruise missile.

Fortunately, the ones that were fired were not anti-ship missiles.

In other words, on these warships, especially on three large integrated warships, not only four sets of last-stage defense systems facing the direction of cruise missile attack can come in handy, but even the two sets of backwards can play a certain role. Even if the effect of shooting cruise missiles from the rear is not ideal, it is always much better than doing nothing. At that time, the three large integrated warships shot down more than 30 cruise missiles by rear attack.

At the end of the battle, more than 90% of the 1,700 heavy cruise missiles projected by the US military were shot down.

There were only about 150 that successfully broke through the fleet air defense network. Before hitting the target, these cruise missiles had to break through two barriers, namely the Marine Corps' theater air defense system and tactical air defense system. Although the Marine Corps' air defense system is far less than that of warships, because all ground air defense systems are deployed scatteredly and are not concentrated like warships, but there are very few cruise missiles left of the US military.

Under the circumstances at that time, even if all the remaining cruise missiles hit the target, the damage to the Marines would not be very serious.
Chapter completed!