Beijing: In a development that India would have monitored closely, China has reportedly test-fired a stealth anti-ship cruise missile, bearing a black coating to evade radars.
Identified as a new variant of the YJ-18A, the missile, with a black radar-absorbing finish, would improve penetration and visual camouflage over deep water, the Hong Kong-based South China Morning Post quoted military experts as saying, on Wednesday.
During a test in an unknown sea area, a missile was fired from a navy ship’s vertical launch system for an extreme-performance test of a new type of anti-ship missile, the Post said.
State broadcaster CCTV released footage of the black coated missile last Saturday.
The missile is a variant of YJ-18A, the anti-ship missile that cruises at subsonic speed before making a supersonic terminal attack, often equipped on the 7,500-tonne Type 052D and 12,000-tonne Type 055 destroyers, experts have said, as per the report, quoted by PTI.
The black coating was a type of stealth coating with strong radar-wave-absorbing properties, reducing the amount of radar energy reflected to enemy radar and making the missile harder to detect, Song Zhongping, a Chinese military commentator and former People’s Liberation Army instructor, told the Post.
“Don’t assume that the sea is always blue; in fact, the colour of the deep sea can be quite dark, even approaching black. So it provides both radar stealth and visual camouflage by matching the colour of the sea,” he told the Post.
“What matters most for an anti-ship missile is its ability to penetrate enemy defences,” Song said, adding that there were two ways to do this: through stealth and through high-speed flight – and the YJ-18A combined both.
“In its terminal phase, it can penetrate defences at supersonic speed while also employing stealth. Maintaining stealth throughout its flight can further improve its ability to penetrate enemy defences, particularly when striking large surface vessels,” Song said.
The original YJ-18, was derived from the Russian 3M-54E submarine-launched anti-ship missile system. It has a range of 540 km.
It has a cruise speed of 966 km/h, and when approaching a target, its warhead can accelerate to Mach 3 speed, according to a state-run China Daily report.
In recent years, the Chinese military has been focussing on stealth technologies, including fighter aircraft and naval frigates.
This includes sixth-generation stealth aircraft, alongside stealth drones, naval aviation and technologies intended to detect or defeat enemy stealth aircraft.
India would be concerned if these missiles land up with Pakistan. Over 65% of Pakistan’s military hardware is from China. Chinese fighter jets, missiles and air defence systems were used by Islamabad during Operation Sindoor.
