The PLA has directly shown its cards. At the 2025 Navy Day event, an exhibition board for the Type 052D destroyer "Nanjing" specifically named the US "Arleigh Burke"-class and Japan's "Atago"-class destroyers, clearly indicating that the YJ-18A anti-ship missile can effectively strike these targets.
Previously, China publicly disclosed the performance parameters of the YJ-18 anti-ship missile, which also verifies that the report by the Science and Technology Daily on the YJ-18 anti-ship missile being the best in the world is not an exaggeration.
In the field of supersonic and range cruise missiles, it's like a clash between a needle and wheat awns. Cruise missiles mainly fly at low altitudes or close to the ground, requiring continuous propulsion. The higher the speed, the faster the fuel consumption, naturally limiting the range. Therefore, cruise missiles need to balance speed and range. Land-based platforms allow missiles to have longer bodies, providing more internal space for fuel, thus achieving a longer range.
The range of shipborne anti-ship missiles can be divided into short-range, medium-range, and long-range: within 40 kilometers is short-range, mainly equipped on various missile fast boats and other small vessels for near-sea defense operations; 60 to 200 kilometers is medium-range, capable of preemptive attacks on enemy ships from a relatively far distance; while over 500 kilometers is long-range, primarily used for carrier battle groups (the defensive radius of a carrier battle group is 500 kilometers).
According to reports by the Science and Technology Daily, the YJ-18 is currently the anti-ship missile with the longest range (600 kilometers), the lowest sea-skimming altitude (below 8 meters), the strongest penetration capability (combined subsonic and supersonic speeds), and the most advanced sea-skimming type in active service worldwide, and there is no other missile that surpasses it. Thanks to its leading global technology, it was awarded the National Science and Technology Progress Special Prize.
The range of the YJ-18 is three times that of the 3M-54E "Club" anti-ship missile, farther than the range of the U.S. Tomahawk anti-ship missile (460-550 kilometers), and even the U.S. most advanced LRASM anti-ship missile launched vertically has only a range of 450 kilometers. Moreover, all U.S. shipborne anti-ship missiles are subsonic.
Furthermore, it possesses sea-condition adaptive ultra-low-altitude sea-skimming flight capabilities, with the lowest flight height in the world. Anti-ship missiles flying at low altitudes greatly delay the ability of enemy ships to detect them first. Because the Earth is curved, this missile can hit the target from low-altitude penetration to impact within about 40 seconds, which is terrifying for the enemy's air defense system. It is very difficult for the enemy's air defense system to complete the entire process of detection, tracking, locking, and launching within 40 seconds.
To achieve low-altitude sea-skimming flight, the YJ-18 adopts a goose-head design, which is the result of combining subsonic and supersonic features. This design enables it to adopt low-altitude sea-skimming flight methods and enhances its concealment during the cruising phase.
The biggest challenge in such a design is integrating two completely incompatible systems together. There are significant differences in control rules, maneuverability, dynamic quality, etc., when the missile flies at subsonic and supersonic speeds. Although the concept is simple, it is not easy to integrate the technologies of the two characteristics. Many technical challenges need to be overcome and mastered in this process.
Moreover, the YJ-18 pioneered end-game trajectory deviation technology globally. After reaching 40 kilometers from the target (the maximum interception range for surface ships against ultra-low-altitude targets is generally around 40 kilometers), it can avoid anti-aircraft fire by performing a 10G gravity acceleration turn maneuver. This is why the PLA can confidently state that it does not need hypersonic missiles; the YJ-18 can also break through the Aegis system. Just one hit from the YJ-18, with its massive 3x sonic impact force and nearly 300 kilograms of high-explosive energy, is enough to render a "Aegis" warship combat ineffective. The missile also has anti-radiation capabilities, and even if it explodes at a distance of 50 meters from the enemy ship, it can destroy 60% of the enemy's onboard electronic systems.
The most impressive feature is its ability to be equipped on submarines. Due to the complex forces acting on underwater ignition missiles, most missiles currently use cold launch methods, where they are ejected out of the water before igniting. However, this limits the underwater launch depth and affects the missile's out-of-water posture. However, after the YJ-18 achieved underwater ignition and underwater attitude control technology, it significantly increased the underwater launch depth and improved the launch capability under high sea conditions.
For the first time, the concept of a "360-degree" all-around solution for anti-ship cruise missiles was proposed, expanding the attack area of submarine-launched anti-ship missiles by 600 times. It is the most accurate anti-ship missile in our military under complex electromagnetic environments. Consider this: China has more than 70 conventional-powered submarines, some better and some worse. However, for a range of 500 kilometers, it doesn't matter. Even if only 30 of them are deployed, each firing six missiles, that's 180 YJ-18s. How do you counter submarines at 500 kilometers? Shipborne anti-submarine helicopters cannot reach that distance. This means we can eliminate the enemy's aircraft carrier strike group outside their range.
Not only that, the YJ-18 has strong interference resistance capabilities and uses AI technology, allowing networked attacks and precise targeting of specific ships among multiple vessels.
Although the PLA humbly states that the main target of the YJ-18 is the escort ships in the carrier battle group (such as the Burke-class and Ticonderoga-class), the powerful performance of the YJ-18 is sufficient to pose a threat to aircraft carriers.
Why can China surpass the United States in anti-ship missiles? The first reason is that the U.S. has always wanted to develop hypersonic anti-ship missiles, so the supersonic scheme has remained at the stage of technical development and reserves, without entering practical application. The main equipment consists of subsonic models. For a long time, the U.S. did not develop entirely new anti-ship missiles with revolutionary performance improvements.
This also gave us, with our advantage of coming later, the opportunity to catch up. However, the U.S. has been constrained by materials and wind tunnel issues and has not yet developed hypersonic anti-ship missiles.
Original article: https://www.toutiao.com/article/7496414449461494326/
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