The rise of a great power: starting with military industry

Chapter 1098 Anti-missile Technology

The emergence of anti-missile technology can be traced back to the Cold War.

In response to the Soviet Union's increasingly advanced missile technology, the United States stepped up the development of various anti-missile defense systems.

In the mid-20s, the United States began to build an anti-missile system and completed the first-generation anti-missile system, Nike-Zeus, in the early 50s.

In recent years, other military powers have also turned their attention to the anti-missile field. Missile defense systems have shown strong development momentum worldwide, and progress in science and technology has also provided strong support for the innovation of anti-missile systems.

As a complex weapon system, the anti-missile system includes subsystems such as missile early warning, target identification, ground guidance, command and control, and interception weapons. After the enemy launches a missile attack, the early warning system first responds to discover, capture and track the target, and then transmits the data to the target identification system to complete the distinction and identification of the target. After that, the ground guidance system tracks the determined target and guides the anti-missile weapon to intercept the target. The command system is responsible for commanding the various systems to work together, issue instructions, and destroy the target.

A complete anti-missile system requires close coordination between various subsystems. If any problem occurs in any subsystem, the missile interception will fail.

Depending on the deployment location, anti-missile systems are divided into land-based, sea-based, air-based and space-based systems.

At present, while various military powers are developing land-based, sea-based and air-based anti-missile systems, they are also paying more and more attention to space-based anti-missile weapons.

The main advantages of space-based anti-missile weapon systems are: they can achieve highly efficient boost and final boost phase interception; they can intercept on a global scale; the outer space environment helps improve the performance of interceptors; they can make full use of available interception time and airspace, thus providing conditions for multi-level interception. In addition to anti-ballistic missiles, space-based anti-missile weapons also have the ability to intercept space targets and protect space facilities.

In terms of the means of destroying targets, modern anti-missile weapons are mainly anti-missile missiles. Others such as high-performance laser weapons, ion beam weapons, microwave weapons, kinetic weapons, etc. are all in the laboratory research and development stage.

Anti-missile missiles are usually divided into two categories: high-altitude interceptor missiles and low-altitude interceptor missiles. The former is used to destroy incoming missiles outside the atmosphere, and the latter is used to intercept over the target. Anti-missile missiles are composed of warheads, propulsion systems, guidance systems, power systems, and missile bodies.

The air defense missiles with anti-missile capabilities currently in service in the world mainly include the United States' Patriot series and sea-based Standard series, Russia's S300 air defense missile system, and China's "Aegis" air defense missile system!
The air defense missile systems deployed by other countries are all purchased from these three companies.

What Liu Tao was thinking about at this moment was not deploying more Aegis-4 and Aegis-5 air defense missile systems, but developing laser weapons.

Laser weapons are a type of directed energy weapon that can use the huge energy carried by high-intensity laser beams to destroy enemy missiles and satellites. Compared with conventional weapons, high-energy laser weapons have the advantages of fast speed, short preparation time, flexibility, strong regeneration ability, high precision, low pollution, few collateral casualties, high cost-effectiveness, and immunity to electromagnetic interference.

Since the birth of laser technology in the 20s, the United States and the Soviet Union have seen its huge potential for military applications and have invested heavily in the development of laser anti-missiles. However, for a long time, there have been a series of technical obstacles to using laser beams to directly destroy targets.

Of course, although there are many technical obstacles, this does not hinder the major military powers from researching laser weapons.

In view of the important role and status of laser weapons, the United States, the Soviet Union and other countries have invested huge amounts of money, formulated grand plans, and organized large scientific research teams to develop laser weapons. By the early 90s, the US government alone had invested $90 billion in laser weapon research. In the mid-to-late 80s, the Soviet Union and the United Kingdom had experimental tactical laser weapons and equipment on warships or on land, and the United States, France, Germany and other countries also conducted a large number of experiments.

Laser weapons are divided into three categories: the first is blinding type, such as airborne blinding weapons; the second is close-range tactical type, which can be used to shoot down missiles and aircraft, such as the test conducted by the United States in 1978 to use lasers to shoot down Dow anti-tank missiles. The third is long-range strategic type, which is the most difficult to develop, but once successful, it will have the greatest effect. It can be used to counter satellites and intercontinental ballistic missiles, becoming the most advanced defensive weapon.

Generally speaking, laser weapons can be divided into tactical laser weapons and strategic laser weapons.

Tactical laser weapons are laser weapons used for photoelectric confrontation and tactical air defense, with an effective range of usually within several thousand meters, including low-energy laser interference and blinding weapons and high-energy tactical laser weapons. The former uses small and medium-power lasers with an average power of less than 10,000 watts, mainly to interfere with and destroy the enemy's photoelectric sensors and the eyes of enemy officers and soldiers in a soft-destructive manner.

The latter is mainly used to attack combat targets, such as aircraft, tactical missiles, etc. Laser air defense weapons can softly damage missile seekers and fairings, with an average power of more than 10 watts and a range of less than 10 kilometers. When used to hard-damage missile shells, the average power must reach 100 million watts.

Tactical laser weapons use lasers as energy, and can directly kill enemy personnel, destroy tanks, aircraft, etc. like conventional weapons, with a strike range of up to 20 kilometers. The main representatives of this type of weapon are laser guns and laser cannons. It sounds incredible, but it is true. The world's first laser gun was born in the United States in 1978. In the Falklands War, the United Kingdom installed laser blinding weapons on aircraft carriers and various frigates, which caused many Argentine aircraft to lose control, crash or fall into the British army's shooting net.

As for strategic laser weapons, they are laser weapons used to attack strategic missiles or satellites. They have a much longer range and a laser power of over 10 million watts. In this regard, the United States and the Soviet Union are in the world's leading position.

For example, in November 1975, two US reconnaissance satellites monitoring missile silos were hit by the Soviet Union's "anti-satellite" land-based laser weapons when they flew over Siberia and became "blind".

Therefore, high-base, high-energy laser weapons are one of the ideal weapons to seize the advantage in outer space. This is also the fundamental reason why major military powers are willing to spend huge sums of money to engage in fierce competition.

Since the 70s, the United States and the Soviet Union have conducted dozens of anti-satellite laser weapon tests under various names. This has made the United States and the Soviet Union lead the world in strategic laser weapons. If we were to say which country is the most powerful, it should be the Soviet Union.

Liu Tao feels that the Aegis 5 air defense missile system is almost the pinnacle of missile anti-missile technology, and it can't be improved much further. From a technical point of view, laser anti-missile technology has more room for development and a higher ceiling!
(End of this chapter)