China hasn’t officially unveiled their new super-weapon in the never-ending battle for naval superiority with the United States. The new Dong Feng is rumored to have been unveiled at a parade in Beijing, and the US has seen evidence enough to suspect that the Chinese may have indeed developed a game-changing missile capable of taking out a United States aircraft carrier with a single shot. The new weapon is the Dong Feng 21D, a new class of anti-ship ballistic missile as hilariously-named as it is deadly.
No one in the US military is laughing. “The Navy has long had to fear carrier-killing capabilities,” said Patrick Cronin, senior director of the Asia-Pacific Security Program at the Center for a New American Security. “The emerging Chinese antiship missile capability, and in particular the DF 21D, represents the first post-Cold War capability that is both potentially capable of stopping our naval power projection and deliberately designed for that purpose.”
Of course, building the weapon is one thing. Designing a guidance system that allows it to hit a target with any reliability is another entirely. The Chinese might be 10 years away from that, but given how little we know about China’s military technology, they might already be waiting with a sophisticated guidance system since they can’t date anymore.
Tags: Dong Feng 21D, anti-ship ballistic missile, China, Chinese military, anti-ship missile, missile capable of destroying aircraft carrier, naval superiority, US Navy, Patrick Cronin, Center for a new American Security, DF-21D
