CM-400AKG Hypersonic Carrier Killer Missile |
China has developed a hypersonic Aircraft carrier killer missile and has been deployed by the Pakistan's PAF.
The missile has been described as the PAF’s Hypersonic ‘Carrier
Killer Missile’
Pakistan has deployed a new hypersonic long-range air-launched
missile that officials in the Pakistan Air Force (PAF) have described as “a
hypersonic aircraft carrier killer missile”.
The CM-400AKG is a Mach 4 plus-capable air-to-surface weapon
developed in China and now in service with JF-17 fighter aircraft of the
Pakistan Air Force. The weapon, designated CM-400AKG, was designed and
developed in China by the China Aerospace Science and Industry Corporation
(CASIC) and was revealed at Airshow China 2012, held in Zhuhai in November.
The CM-400AKG is now part of the operational weapon set of the
PAF’s JF-17 Thunder multirole fighter. “This is a mature weapon that has been
fully tested. It is not conceptual. It is in service,” Air Commodore Mahmood
Khalid, PAF JF-17 Deputy Project Director stated. “The CM-400AKG is a very
high-speed missile that is very tough to intercept. It hits the target at Mach
4 or above and its kinetic impact alone is enough to destroy any high-value
target, like an aircraft carrier.”
The CM-400AKG first appeared, briefly, in public at last year’s
Dubai Airshow, when a placard for the weapon was placed alongside a PAF JF-17 –
and then removed. The weapon itself was not shown. At the time PAF personnel
acknowledged it was a new Chinese-built air-to-surface stand-off missile.
However, the initial assumption that it was a derivative of the C-802 anti-ship
missile has proved to be very wide of the mark.
The CM-400AKG is a 400 kg solid-rocket-powered weapon that can
be fitted with either a penetration or blast/fragmentation warhead. It is a
fire-and-forget precision-guided weapon that can be fitted with several seeker
options, which are understood to include an active radar seeker and an imaging
infrared seeker with target-recognition (TR) capabilities. PAF sources say the
missile can be pre-programmed with digital imagery for highly precise attacks
against fixed sites in TR mode, but it can also be re-targeted in flight by
using the radar seeker option.
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