For various reasons having to do with national pride, military hubris, or the desire of belligerents to emit propaganda, there has been a tendency in the press to deprecate China’s rapidly developing military prowess. The downing of as many as two Indian Rafale planes by Chinese PL-15 missiles carried by Chengdu J-10C is depicted as a shocking upset, demanding re-evaluation of the quality of Chinese weaponry.
What happened was completely predictable. India’s air attack was initiated by 4th generation aircraft, without first acquiring air superiority and unaccompanied by standoff radar jammers. Every U.S. simulation scenario has demonstrated that 4th generation aircraft sustain losses. Against competent air defenses, these are unsustainable.
The U.S. has long regarded the PL-15 as a major threat, prompting the crash program to develop the AIM-260 and several other long range missiles. It should be no surprise that at least some Chinese weapons, such as the PL-15, may have superior capabilities not yet bounded on the upside by intelligence. Better known efforts, such as China’s stealth fighters, are at least credible efforts, likely superior in overall capability to advanced 4th generation fighters.
India and Pakistan these days have highly manipulated media. It is entirely possible that decision makers in these countries are consuming their own propaganda. Even after loss of two or more planes, India could not stop gloating. Quoting from (Eurasia Times) Tech Bonanza For India! Recovers ‘Near Intact’ China’s PL-15 BVR Missile Likely Fired At IAF Jets:
Squadron Leader Vijainder K. Thakur, an Indian Air Force veteran and a regular contributor to the EurAsian Times, said the missile was found intact, suggesting its self-destruct mechanism did not work…“It is a tech bonanza for India and its allies. The missile has tech issues because the self-destruct didn’t work. It could have other issues. It’s not a mature weapon.”
The missile downed two + or – jets and it’s not mature? See (National Defense Research Wing) Pakistan’s J-10CE Jamming Claims Mocked as Rafale’s Spectra Outshines KG600, The problem with this claim is that it was the responsibility of Spectra to deflect the PL-15 missile! Pakistan may be equally guilty of PR bloviation, but is too terse to pin down.
The outcome was within the bounds of the expected. That the Thales Spectra self-defense jammer failed against the PL-15 may be a minor surprise, but this kind of failure can be anticipated with electronic warfare. Combined with pilot response, it is responsible for survival of the 4th generation Rafale.
Initially, the launching plane provides the radar beam and guidance for the PL-15. If the PL-15 gets close to the target, the reflection will be strong enough to transfer entirely to the onboard seeker, a complete miniature radar system.
Jamming is a dark art. The jammer tries to fool the seeker by replacing the reflected pulse of the missile radar with its own pulse, which contains false information. To do this, the jammer must have intimate knowledge of the technology of the missile radar, or be so powerful as to overwhelm the electronic circuitry. For success, the jammer must have an up-to-date threat library, a “threat dictionary”, which is hard to get from an enemy — but there is more.
There is a kind of “IQ” competition between the missile and the jammer. Until recent, the anti-jamming capability of a missile like the PL-15 was limited by the need for promptness to two strategies:
- Home-on-jam, where the missile guides itself to the source of the jamming.
- A bunch of techniques based on the linear “matched filter”, a practical method that uses minimal computing power, fitting easily inside a tiny radar weighing just a few pounds. Pulse compression is an example.
With modern semis, the lid comes off complexity and clock speed. This opens the door to nonlinear signal processing, even neural nets. A technique such as CDMA, if it were adapted to radar, could make jamming almost impossible. Which of these, if any, is true? Thales Spectra is 15 years old.
One word to Thales, India, Pakistan, and anyone else afflicted with weapon hubris: