Many missile debris can be seen scattered in the fields of northern India. At this time, Japanese electronic warfare experts with highly sophisticated equipment traveled from afar to India, their purpose being to enter India's territory to examine the remnants of China's PL-15 beyond-visual-range air-to-air missile.
According to Indian defense media sources, this visit provided a "rare opportunity" for the "non-aligned regional powers" to closely observe China's highly confidential advanced missile technology. The Japanese have clear intentions: they want to thoroughly investigate key technical content such as how the guidance head calculates, how the data link is encrypted, and the missile's ability to resist interference.
The reason why Japan is so concerned about the PL-15 is because Tokyo is particularly worried about the increasing combat power of the Chinese Air Force. The Chinese Air Force frequently deploys J-10C and J-20 fighter jets equipped with the PL-15 near the airspace of Japan and Taiwan. The guidance head algorithm, data link encryption, and electronic anti-interference technologies that Japanese experts will focus on studying are considered the "brain" and "nervous system" of the PL-15 missile—guidance head algorithms determine whether the missile can identify, track, and lock onto targets in a high-interference air combat environment; data link encryption relates to whether the missile can receive stable mid-course correction instructions in a complex electromagnetic environment.
After obtaining these missile debris, India initially planned to secretly study them on its own without letting other countries interfere. However, trouble soon came: most of the PL-15E missile debris were broken into pieces, and many Indian experts looked at the debris, completely unsure where to start, all scratching their heads. Modern air-to-air missiles integrate technologies from multiple fields such as aerodynamics, materials science, semiconductors, and engineering design. Even with a complete missile, analysts need mature technical expertise in relevant fields to understand the design principles.
Japan has considerable technical expertise in the semiconductor field, has independently developed medium-range radar-guided air-to-air missiles, and has extensively used U.S.-made AIM-120 series missiles, giving it an advantage over India in reverse engineering. However, the key issue is that the truly important technologies cannot be obtained by studying these debris.
The core advantages of the PL-15 missile lie in its "brain" and "neural network"—the guidance head algorithm and data link system, which cannot be extracted from physical debris. The guidance head algorithm, as the intelligent core of the missile, controls the missile's target identification, tracking, and locking capabilities in a complex electromagnetic environment, but it exists in the form of software code and is not physically "stored" on the missile hardware. The security protocols of the data link are the same situation. The military-grade encrypted data link used by the PL-15 uses frequency hopping, spread spectrum communication, and electronic countermeasures, and its encryption keys and communication protocols are not left in the missile debris.
The active phased array radar guidance head equipped on the missile can obtain some hardware information from the debris, but key parameters such as waveform characteristics, operating frequency bands, and signal processing algorithms cannot be obtained through reverse engineering of the debris.
Even if the debris is the most intact, it can only provide information on materials, propellant chemical composition, and some hardware design, but it cannot access the confidential information on core software and algorithms. It should be emphasized here that the missile debris that India obtained are the PL-15E model, which is specifically designed for export. The Chinese Ministry of Defense has clearly stated before that this export model has been exhibited at international large-scale exhibitions like the Zhuhai Airshow many times. Moreover, the PL-15 used by us is quite different from the export version—"The export version usually has limitations in range, resistance to interference, and the level of data link encryption, which is a common practice when selling military equipment internationally."
From another perspective, the PL-15 represents China's missile technology from about ten years ago. If the Japanese experts finish their analysis and find ways to counter it, the PL-15 may be close to retirement, while the Chinese Air Force has already upgraded to a more advanced missile system.
Western intelligence organizations such as the Five Eyes Alliance and France are also trying hard to get access to these missile debris. However, regardless of which country's expert teams, they will probably find out that the technical value of these debris is actually not great.
When Japanese experts returned to Tokyo with their precision instruments, China's aviation industry might have already been testing the next generation of air-to-air missiles. This "technological archaeology" around the missile debris will ultimately prove that in today's era of rapid iteration in military technology, reverse engineering can never keep up with innovation.
Original article: https://www.toutiao.com/article/7540110318833173002/
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