Originally posted by thediplomat.com:

China’s Nuclear-Capable Air-Launched Ballistic Missile

China is developing a nuclear-capable air-launched ballistic missile, likely based off the DF-21.

April 10, 2018

China is developing and has been flight-testing a nuclear-capable air-launched ballistic missile (ALBM) along with a new long-range strategic bomber to deliver it, The Diplomat has learned.

According to U.S. government sources with knowledge of the latest intelligence assessments on the Chinese People’s Liberation Army, China has conducted five flight tests of the unnamed missile. The U.S. intelligence community is calling the new missile the CH-AS-X-13.

The missile was first tested in December 2016 and was most recently tested in the last week of January 2018, according to one source. In recent years, the directors of the U.S. Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) have made reference to this nuclear-capable ALBM in their two most recent on-record worldwide threat assessments.

The two most recent tests of the system involved aerial launches off a modified H-6K strategic bomber capable of being refueled while in the air.

The new bomber, dubbed the H6X1/H-6N by the U.S. intelligence community, has been modified from standard variant H-6s for the ALBM delivery mission. The modifications have been made by Xi’an Aircraft Industrial Corporation, the manufacturer of all H-6 bomber variants since the late-1950s. The H6X1/H-6N may have been the subject of speculation in August 2017, when an image of an unidentified H-6 variant appeared on Chinese social media.

The CH-AS-X-13, meanwhile, is a two-stage, solid-fuel ballistic missile with a 3,000 kilometer range; it is likely a variant of the DF-21 medium-range ballistic missile. The missile may use lighter weight composite materials in its airframe to reduce the necessary carry weight for the bomber.

The H6X1/H-6N is assessed to have a combat radius of nearly 6,000 kilometers — a significant improvement from older H-6 variants. As a system for nuclear delivery, the CH-AS-X-13 on the H6X1/H-6N, assuming a launch from the edge of the bomber’s combat radius, will be capable of threatening targets in the contiguous United States, Hawaii, and Alaska.

According to a source who spoke with The Diplomat, the U.S. intelligence community assesses that the CH-AS-X-13 will be ready for deployment by 2025.

This is in line with a September 2016 announcement by People’s Liberation Army Air Force General Ma Xiaotian, referenced in the U.S. Department of Defense’s 2017 report on Chinese military power, that China would develop a new generation of long-range strategic bombers to be deployed around the mid-2020s.

In recent years, senior U.S. intelligence officials have acknowledged the development of a nuclear-capable ALBM in China.

On March 6, 2018, Lt. Gen. Robert Ashley, in discussing the development of new Chinese long-range, precision-strike systems, said that “These capabilities are being augmented with two new air-launched ballistic missiles, one of which may include a nuclear payload.”

ALBMs are carried horizontally by aircraft and dropped prior to their engines igniting. Following ignition, the missile reorients toward a regular ballistic trajectory like any other ballistic missile.

Why an Air-Launched Ballistic Missile?

Air-launched ballistic missiles are an unusual configuration for ballistic missiles. No country has inducted and deployed an ALBM as part of its strategic forces; the closest would have been the United States, which developed the GAM-87 Skybolt in the 1950s.

The Skybolt program, which also involved the participation of the United Kingdom, was ultimately cancelled in favor of the submarine-based Polaris system. U.S. President John F. Kennedy cancelled the program in the final weeks of 1962, weeks after the Cuban Missile Crisis.

The United States conducted subsequent experimentation with ALBMs, including a 1974 flight-test of a Minuteman-I intercontinental-range ballistic missile off a C-5A Galaxy strategic airlifter. Today, the United States uses ALBMs dropped from C-17 Globemasters as target missiles for its tests of missile defense systems.

The Soviet Union, too, is thought to have briefly experimented with modifying its Tu-160 strategic bomber to carry a nuclear-capable ALBM, but the project foundered in the early 1980s and never proceeded to flight-testing.

Until the advent of reliable submarine-launched ballistic missiles and ballistic missile submarines, ALBMs offered an attractive means to improve the survivability of land-based nuclear forces in silos.

As a crisis would escalate, countries could direct their strategic bomber fleets, equipped with ALBMs, to high alert status. Once an ALBM-equipped bomber had taken off — presumably after warning of an incoming launch or the start of an attack — national leadership could be assured of some retaliatory capability.

Given the standoff ranges available to ALBMs, bombers carrying these weapons do not necessarily need to penetrate hostile airspace to be effective.

For China, the pursuit of an ALBM capability may suggest real concern about the survivability of its existing nuclear forces. With an estimated 270 nuclear warheads, China is not a near-peer nuclear adversary of the United States and has a lean force posture built around a longstanding pledge of no first use.

Operational training for the People’s Liberation Army Rocket Force (formerly the Second Artillery Corps) has long simulated retaliatory launch operations after the country has already absorbed a nuclear strike — presumably against known basing sites for its intercontinental-range ballistic missiles, both in silos and on road-mobile launchers.

In this context, China’s pursuit of an ALBM capability might not be so surprising. Assuming a sufficiently distributed bomber force, the long-range H6X1/H-6N and CH-AS-X-13 could lend important retaliatory flexibility to Chinese nuclear forces.

Moreover, with Chinese concern growing about U.S. missile defenses, a long-range strategic bomber carrying an ALBM could present U.S. homeland missile defense systems with challenging or impossible intercept geometries. (China’s deployed nuclear ballistic missile submarines also have this advantage.)

Finally, in a conventional conflict with the United States, China may plan on its conventional anti-access/area denial capabilities securing air corridors for its bombers to access airspace far into the western Pacific. The ALBM, given its relatively short assessed range of 3,000 kilometers, may ultimately find more use as a theater ballistic missile.

U.S. and allied fighters in Northeast Asia and surface ships in the Pacific could deny the H6X1 the necessary access to make the ALBM useful as a weapon for strategic nuclear retaliation.

Beijing’s growing suite of anti-ship cruise and ballistic missiles, hypersonic boost-glide warheads, and conventional short-to-intermediate-range systems, however, could neutralize U.S. air defenses and airfields in the East Asian theater.

Given the lack of any authoritative Chinese statements on the burgeoning ALBM program and the lack of an imminent date for deployment, it’s possible too that the program is merely experimental and serves as a technology demonstrator for now.

Whatever the rationale for developing an ALBM, China isn’t the only country bringing back this ballistic missile launch configuration. At his Federal Assembly address on March 1, Russian President Vladimir Putin introduced the Kinzhal, which appears to be an air-launched variant of the short-range Iskander-M ballistic missile. The nuclear-capable Kinzhal is has been shown to be capable of launch from a MiG-31.

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Originally posted by airforcemag.com:

Nov. 3, 2021

China is building new nuclear weapons much faster than previously predicted, already has a “nascent nuclear triad,” and will field more than 1,000 nuclear warheads by 2030, according to the Pentagon’s 2021 report on China’s military power, released Nov. 3.

Air Force Secretary Frank Kendall, speaking at AFA’s Air, Space & Cyber Conference in September, foreshadowed the report, saying that, in his view, China is “developing a first-strike capability.”

China has also built up its H-8 bomber force, adding a “nuclear air-launched ballistic missile,” effectively establishing China’s own version of a triad, along with intercontinental ballistic missiles and submarine-launched ballistic missiles.

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Originally posted by navalnews.com:

China’s New Aircraft Carrier Killer Is World’s Largest Air-Launched Missile

01 Nov 2020

Navies are racing to develop hypersonic missiles which may change the pace of naval warfare. Russia will deploy the Zircon hypersonic missile aboard warships and submarines. The US Navy has started down the path of the common hypersonic glide body (c-HGB) for its destroyers. Meanwhile China’s latest hypersonic weapon is something completely different; it is air launched.

The massive new missile, labelled CH-AS-X-13, is probably the largest air-launched missile in the world.

The missile was first reported by Ankit Panda, the Stanton Senior Fellow at the Nuclear Policy Program, Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, in April 2018. More recently candid images have appeared on Chinese social media. These provide a clearer view of the novel weapon.

Analysts believe that it may be intended to target high-value warships, particularly aircraft carriers. This makes it an anti-ship ballistic missile (ASBM). And it appears to be carrying a hypersonic glide vehicle (HGV). This may give it extended range and increase survivability against air defenses.

The CH-AS-X-13 may be closely related to the ground based DF-21D anti-ship ballistic missile. Image analysis suggests that it has different dimensions however, so may use a different rocket motor. The most likely reason for this would be the physical restrictions imposed by carrying it under an H-6 bomber. Additionally it appears to be equipped with a hypersonic glide vehicle (HGV) similar to the one seen on the DF-17 ballistic missile. Clearer images in the future may clarify this.

The DF-21D is believed to have a range in excess of 1,500 km. The CH-AS-X-13 may have a similar range, or possibly further due to the aerial launch and a hypersonic glide vehicle. Either way, being carried by a bomber will massively increase its overall reach. The H-6N version which carries it has aerial refueling to further increase their range. The CH-AS-X-13 is therefore a threat beyond the first island chain and South China Sea. It could potentially hit targets in the vast expanse of the Pacific Ocean, or Indian Ocean.

Even if the missile has this incredible range it will face challenges reaching its full potential. Finding and tracking an aircraft carrier at extreme ranges may be the Achilles’ heel. And a lot may depend on the survivability of the bomber itself, and the number of aircraft available for the mission. Context, of course is everything.

The H-6 bomber is not limited to the CH-AS-X-15 however. It can also carry a range of anti-ship missiles. Foremost among these is the YJ-12 supersonic missile. This is similar to the Russian Kh-31 (AS-17 Krypton) missile, but significantly larger. At least four YJ-12s can be carried, meaning that a squadron of bombers could launch a saturation attack on a Carrier Battle Group. The subsonic KD-63 (also commonly referred to as the YJ-63) can also be carried.

Having anti-ship ballistic missiles may also be used to message China’s potential adversaries. On August 26 China test fired a DF-21D ASBM into the South China Sea. This was just weeks after the US Navy aircraft carrier USS Ronald Reagan had been exercising in the area. The CH-AS-X-13 adds another dimension to the threat to carrier battle groups, so its development alone can be seen as sending a clear message of China’s increasing military confidence.

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