Aircraft carrier target in desert is China’s deterrence message to US, analyst says

[Boats]

Aircraft carrier target in desert is China’s deterrence message to US, analyst says
By: Radio Free Asia - 11-09-21
Re: https://www.rfa.org/english/news/chi...021140235.html

1st photo link: https://www.rfa.org/english/news/chi...69eba83d8.jpeg
Satellite image provided by Maxar Technologies shows a structure shaped like an aircraft carrier on rail tracks in Ruoqiang county, China, Oct. 20, 2021.

The reported building of an aircraft carrier-shaped missile target range in China’s Xinjiang region can be seen as a thinly veiled message of deterrence to Taiwan and its ally the United States, a respected security analyst said.

China has denied any knowledge of the development of missile targets in the shape of U.S. military ships, as revealed by the U.S. space technology and intelligence company Maxar.

But in an interview with RFA, John Blaxland, professor of International Security and Intelligence Studies at the Strategic and Defence Studies Centre at the Australian National University, said this latest satellite discovery may have been deliberate on China’s part in order to send a message to both the U.S. and Taiwan.

Satellite imagery captured in October but only released by Maxar Technologies on Sunday showed structures that looked like a full-scale aircraft carrier and at least two other warships in the Taklamakan desert in Xinjiang, northwest China.

The images led to suggestions that the mock-ups may be used as training targets for Chinese anti-ship ballistic missiles (ASBMs) in the case of naval clashes with the U.S. However when asked about them on Monday, China’s Foreign Ministry Spokesperson Wang Wenbin said he was “not aware of the situation.”

China has been developing ASBM systems in recent years amid growing tension in the waters around it including the South China Sea and across the Taiwan Strait.

“China must have known that the United States would be in the position to monitor through satellites significant developments on the ground,” Blaxland said, adding: “They know it (the range) will be discovered.”

“And they’re quite happy to send signals through that to the U.S. about their preparedness to confront, attack and destroy American aircraft carriers that have been dominant military platforms that enable the U.S. to project power globally in a way unchallenged since 1945.”

2nd photo link: https://www.rfa.org/english/news/chi...05c72e7c1.jpeg
Satellite image provided by Maxar Technologies shows a carrier-shaped designated area in Ruoqiang county, China, Oct. 20, 2021. Credit: Maxar Technologies via AP.

USNI News, a news portal specializing in the U.S. Navy, said what it calls the target range includes the full-scale outline of a U.S. carrier and at least two Arleigh Burke-class destroyers. It says the facility also has “an extensive rail system.”
It notes that an Oct. 9 image from Maxar shows a 75 meter-long target with extensive instrumentation on a 6 meter-wide rail that helps it move and enables target acquisition testing.

“This new range shows that China continues to focus on anti-carrier capabilities, with an emphasis on U.S. Navy warships,” USNI News said.

Blaxland said the development of the range “seems quite an elaborate effort” as it is costly to build such full-scale moving mock-ups.

“I would have thought they’d be able to simulate with computer-generated systems without having to go to such extreme but it’s always good to test the systems out on a large target like a moving simulated aircraft carrier in the desert,” he said.

“Furthermore, China probably feels that money is no object when it comes to sending messages about challenging America’s naval dominance in the Western Pacific,” the professor added.

Cross-strait tensions:

The news of the target range comes as cross-strait tensions have intensified in recent months.

In the first five days of October, Taiwan reported around 150 incursions of Chinese fighter jets, bombers and other military aircraft into its Air Defense Identification Zone (ADIZ). Taiwan’s defense minister Chiu Kuo-cheng on Oct. 6 admitted that tensions with China were “at their worst in 40 years.”

Just last Saturday, Taiwan's Ministry of National Defense said 16 Chinese fighter jets had entered its ADIZ.

The building of the new target range may also be part of the display of China’s military might in order to “ratchet up intimidation towards Taiwan,” according to Blaxland.

“It will be sending a very loud signal to the United States that if it wants to stay in the game and remain a prominent and pre-eminent power in East Asia in support of its allies, it will need to take a considerably different approach and muscle up,” he said.

China has been developing several anti-ship ballistic missile programs. The latest Department of Defense’s annual report on China’s military suggests that in July 2019, the Chinese military “conducted its first-ever confirmed live-fire launch into the South China Sea, firing six DF-21D anti-ship ballistic missiles (ASBMs) into the waters north of the Spratly Islands.”

At the same time, the People’s Liberation Army is seeking to develop a longer range land-based ASBM, the DF-26, as well as anti-ship missiles that can be fired from aircraft and warships.

“Quantitively, the U.S. now has been well eclipsed (by China) in East Asia, so it needs to build its conventional military capabilities,” said Blaxland.

“But there’s a significant knock-on effect for U.S. allies as well and that’s one of the reasons why Australia is now on a more urgent basis pressing to build its military capabilities and acquire nuclear-propulsion submarines,” he said.
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Now here's an U.S. American Report - Same subject:
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Why Is China Practicing Killing U.S. Navy Aircraft Carriers in the Desert?
By: Sebastien Roblin - National Interest News - 11-09-21
Re: https://nationalinterest.org/blog/bu...-desert-195916
Tags: China-ASBM-Carrier Killer Missiles-Arleigh Burke-class-Ford-Class-Aircraft Carrier

China is all set up to do target practice in the desert—on replicas of American vessels like aircraft carriers. Why?

Photos taken by satellite imagery company Maxar on November 7, 2021, on behalf of the U.S. Naval Institute reveal that China has built an accurate mock-up of the deck (but not the island superstructure and other equipment) of a Ford-class aircraft carrier at a missile test range in the Taklamakan desert in western Xinjiang Province.

Also spotted were highly detailed replicas of two U.S. Arleigh-Burke-class guided-missile destroyers and at least two more carrier-shaped targets, as well as a seventy-five-meter-long ship-like target mounted on six-meter wide rails.

You can see the satellite imagery combined in this graphic published by Reuters.
Re: https://graphics.reuters.com/USA-CHI...pl/Targets.jpg

These efforts are almost certainly so the test range can offer more realistic practice targets for China’s growing arsenal of anti-ship ballistic missiles (ASBMs). These weapons, which unlike the more widely used naval cruise loft high into space before plunging down at incredible speeds, have cast a long shadow in military competition between the U.S. and China since Beijing first unveiled its DF-21D “carrier killer” missile in 2009.

The DF-21D, which itself is mounted on a mobile truck launcher making it harder to kill preemptively, has a maximum range exceeding nine hundred miles. That means it could threaten to heavily damage or destroy powerful U.S. Navy supercarriers from well beyond the attack range of its onboard warplanes.

Since then, China has unveiled several more ASBM-type missiles: the DF-26B which may have a range of up to 2,500 miles—meaning it could sink ships at the U.S. naval base in Guam—and several shorter-range ASBM missiles seemingly intended for export (M20B, CM-401, BP-12B). China is reportedly planning to deploy ASBMs on its H-6 strategic bombers and Type 055 missile cruisers.

The mockups at the Taklamakan site are not China’s first carrier-like practice targets—a crude concrete pad had been used as a practice target at Shuangchengzi since 2003 and a mockup near the current site was targeted in missile tests in 2013.

However, the new mockups are much more detailed representations of U.S. Navy vessels. According to USNI, the current equipment was first erected and then dismantled in 2019—only to be reassembled in September 2021 per historical satellite imagery. Extensive instrumentation is visible at the new site to collect data on missile strikes, but no impact craters are visible, suggesting the site hasn’t been put to use yet for missile tests.

Why China Is Testing Anti-Ship Missiles in a Desert

Despite their formidable speed and reach, ASBMs have never been used in combat before, and there’s debate over just how reliable they would prove at hitting moving targets using their terminal infrared- or radar-guidance seekers.

U.S. carriers and destroyers typically maintain high speeds of thirty knots, and once alerted to a missile launch (the launch flash can likely be detected from space) would seek to change course and exit the kill box the missile’s seeker can scan. Thus, to be effective the seeker must either scan a broad enough area and be able to discriminate between desirable and undesirable targets, and/or it should receive midcourse targeting adjustments from friendly surveillance assets tracking the target vessel—say, a submarine, drone, or maritime patrol plane.

The first reports of Chinese tests against a carrier-like target were reported in January 2013 by Want China Times. These were supported by satellite photos showing two craters blasted into a carrier-like structure measuring 200 meters in length. It wasn’t until six years later, China finally had DF-21D and DF-26B test-fired successfully at moving maritime targets near the Paracel Islands.

China’s apparent return to land-based ASBM target tests is likely intended to limit the controversy and observability of tests in the open commons of the Pacific Ocean. In other words, the People's Liberation Army Rocket Force didn’t want the U.S. military collecting nearly as much data from its missile tests as China did.

The land-based tests may also prove less expensive or logistically complicated to orchestrate, and the smaller rail-based target may allow missile units to repeatedly practice striking a moving target. Meanwhile, a more detailed rendering of the Ford-class’s deck shape and the superstructure on the Arleigh Burke-class destroyer may also test the seeker’s ability to acquire and identify those target profiles.

On the downside, the surrounding desert environment will create different discrimination challenges for both radar and infrared seekers than a vessel would at sea, so it’s not a completely satisfactory substitute.

Furthermore, while accuracy against moving targets may be a necessity for Chinese ASBMs to be effective, is not by itself sufficient. That’s because ASBMs are highly visible both to radar and infrared sensors, and the U.S. Navy has been introducing countermeasures against the threat for over a decade, notably including SM-3 anti-ballistic missile interceptors, as well as electronic warfare and other countermeasures to disrupt missile guidance.

Skeptics of Chinese ASBMs also argue that China lacks robust enough maritime surveillance capabilities to reliably detect and track ships at sea necessary to cue missile attacks. Remember, the missile units require communication with naval, aerial, and space-based surveillance platforms to know when and where to lob their missiles. In a conflict, the U.S. forces would certainly do their utmost to disrupt or destroy the spotters and their communication links with both electronic warfare and kinetic attacks.

However, this argument is growing less convincing as China has methodically expanded and enhanced its maritime surveillance capabilities with radars deployed on a network of artificial islands, additional satellites launched into space, and new types of robotic spy submarines, surveillance drones, and maritime patrol aircraft. This map, for example, illustrates the many overlapping sensors China can deploy to track ships entering the waters between The Philippines and Vietnam.

Regardless, practice against realistic and moving target tests, and forming spotter-shooter kill chains seem like necessary prerequisites before simulating more complex tactics used in combat scenarios against a reactive enemy with air defenses, such as salvo-firing missiles to overwhelm a carrier task force’s air defense capacity.

It’s worth noting that—as far we know—China hasn’t yet gone as far as Iran in creating a floating mockup of a U.S. aircraft carrier for target practice. After taking its prescribed pounding in its second outing in July 2020, Iran’s mockup carrier capsized while returning to port. That at least won’t be a problem with China’s desert-based practice targets.

About this writer: Sébastien Roblin holds a Master’s Degree in Conflict Resolution from Georgetown University and served as a university instructor for the Peace Corps in China. He has also worked in education, editing, and refugee resettlement in France and the United States. He currently writes on security and military history for War Is Boring.
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Two reports pretty close to the same but with a different perspective I think?
What do you think?