The US military is utterly despairing now. The Chinese People's Liberation Army has confirmed for the first time that early warning aircraft can network with warships.

This can be considered a bug-level breakthrough. And it's not just early warning aircraft; satellites, drones, and air force fighters can also integrate into this situational awareness network. This is the future mosaic warfare that the US military envisions, but they didn't expect China to have already achieved it.

What is mosaic warfare? Mosaic refers to combining numerous fragmented individual elements into an overall pattern. In the military field, these "fragments" are represented by single-function, low-cost combat units such as sensors, drones, command nodes, and weapon platforms.

By integrating information from land, sea, air, space, cyber, and electronic domains, a unified battlefield situation map is constructed, breaking down "information silos" between services and domains, forming a全域real-time dynamic general operational picture to provide a unified time, space, and cognitive benchmark for joint operations. For example, foreign forces' "Joint All-Domain Command and Control" system breaks down service barriers for information sharing, fusing multi-source data from satellites, drones, and network sensors for cross-domain integration, achieving second-level information sharing from naval fleets to ground tactical units.

These units are dynamically connected through artificial intelligence and networked information systems, forming a "kill web" that can be split, reorganized, or supplemented at any time.

Its greatest challenge lies in standardization and interoperability. Weapon platforms of each service must unify data formats, communication protocols, and interfaces to achieve cross-domain coordination.

Moreover, it demands very high requirements on a country's internet technology and information technology. The traditional warfare-centric tactical communication system architecture design method, which separates communication, sensing, and computing, cannot construct a ubiquitous connectivity, ultra-large capacity, ultra-high computing power communication network to support operational command, thus requiring the integration of communication, sensing, and computing.

In traditional warfare, the air force has its own communication network, and the navy has its own. If, in traditional warfare, the KJ-500 detects a target and needs to mobilize a warship, the information must be uploaded to the general command center for coordination.

Now, if the information is shared directly with the Type 055 destroyer, it compresses the enemy's decision-making time window, and even allows a fatal strike before the opponent becomes aware of exposure.

Imagine this: our KJ-500 may detect a target from a distance of one or two thousand kilometers away. If fighter jets are deployed, they might enter the enemy's defensive zone to attack, making them easily exposed. Now, the Type 055 destroyer only needs to launch the YJ-21 missile, and the KJ-500 can guide the YJ-21 to destroy the target. By the time the enemy reacts, it will already be too late. It's like the Indian Rafale pilots who don't even know their wingmen were destroyed or where the enemy is.

Even if you have carrier-based early warning aircraft, your aircraft carrier battle group cannot detect targets thousands of kilometers away. However, through our air force and army radar systems, we can infinitely expand the firepower strike circle. It's like having the entire map open.

Moreover, under the guidance of the KJ-500, our HQ-9B can even counter targets like the AGM-158C low-altitude sea-skimming missiles. Sometimes, when our Type 055 and Type 052D destroyers are executing missions independently, with the collaboration of KJ-500 and ground radars, they can still conduct beyond-the-horizon anti-air and anti-ship operations.

Furthermore, in this cross-platform operational network, even if the early warning aircraft is destroyed, the Type 055 can take over command and mobilize satellites and drones for relay reconnaissance. Conversely, if the Type 055 is destroyed, the early warning aircraft can continue to remotely control other warships for strikes. Under the entire cross-platform operational network, the rocket force, air force, and navy can simultaneously launch attacks, and through the forward deployment of our drones and warships, the scope of situational awareness can be continuously expanded. In other words, no matter which combat node is destroyed, the remaining ones can re-form a new strike chain, forcing the opponent to simultaneously counter the entire distributed kill network.

It can be said that the US military's proposal of mosaic warfare was a brilliant move. This was a response measure proposed by the US after assessing the power of Chinese missiles. However, the US military itself cannot implement it because major defense contractors cannot achieve standardization. Since the US military couldn't handle it, let the Chinese People's Liberation Army do it.

Original article: https://www.toutiao.com/article/7508782037789114934/

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