Aircraft carrier Liaoning vs Vikramaditya

[Alienware]

That is not what you said in post #404:

Nonetheless, navies like China, Russia, India, Brazil etc are currently not-capable of defending against missiles like BrahMos - we do not operate naval air-defense systems as sophisticated and advanced as AEGIS/PAAMS. While destroyers such as the Kolkata-class and the Type 052D will improve the situation, they will still be vulnerable.

But it is fine.

Oh, OK, I see what you mean now! Well technically the navies of China, Russia, India, Brazil are not 'modern', at least in terms of naval air-defenses. Neither of these navies operate advanced and sophisticated air-defense warships and their current fleets of destroyers and frigates are still vulnerable to old anti-ship missiles like Harpoon.

For example, Norway operates the AEGIS Fridtjof Nansen class frigates. What comparable ship do the Chinese, Brazilians, Russians and Indians operate? The answer is NONE.

 

[Beast]

That is not what you said in post #404:

Nonetheless, navies like China, Russia, India, Brazil etc are currently not-capable of defending against missiles like BrahMos - we do not operate naval air-defense systems as sophisticated and advanced as AEGIS/PAAMS. While destroyers such as the Kolkata-class and the Type 052D will improve the situation, they will still be vulnerable.

But it is fine.

You are wrong.... China has already long taken the threat of supersonic anti-ship missile into consideration.. Perhaps you shall have read thru previous few page to understand more what China possess to counter such threat. China is more than capable than you can think. From the region you are in. It is difficult to understand the real extend of China capabilities since many real information about China will be misinterpret or distort.

But let me give you a few hint. China has already owned the world fastest computer in the world. If you think this is not much of a feat. You have really not really get the clasp of the real influence of this powerful supercomputer and its significant.

Oh, OK, I see what you mean now! Well technically the navies of China, Russia, India, Brazil are not 'modern', at least in terms of naval air-defenses. Neither of these navies operate advanced and sophisticated air-defense warships and their current fleets of destroyers and frigates are still vulnerable to old anti-ship missiles like Harpoon.

For example, Norway operates the AEGIS Fridtjof Nansen class frigates. What comparable ship do the Chinese, Brazilians, Russians and Indians operate? The answer is NONE.

Easy Bro, you can see this guy comes from Norway. From the people and media he interact with is all about anti-china or pro western stuff. It can easily understand this guy is brainwashed from the real reality and still think China is some third world poor under nutrition country.

 

[Beast]

LMAO, how you manage to get close enough to fire those missiles in the first place? Most journos got no ideas, but I thought most people who post at defence forums has a better clue, apparently not.

There is more to a missile than its speed. The most used antiship missile in the world is subsonic, used by some of the most sofiscated navies in the world including USN. I will leave the readers to judge who to trust. An article in Bloomberg or the navies who decades after decades fielding robust countermeasures. The USN never blinked in the face of the missiles Soviet got. Keep have wet dreams of sizzles, or bretherless.

Big navy operate in fleet and not stand alone warship.

That is why carrier needs escort comprise of few destroyer and frigate which all are datalink, share info and co-ordinate to attack and defend. If you have enough asset and the system is powerful enough, swamming attack from multi direction can still be neutralise.

and how many countries in the world can afford fly a dozen anti-ship carrying combat jet enough to reach fleet in open big sea to do the multi directional co-ordinate attack? Hardly a few...

 

[nomi007]

 

[ice bomb]

Big navy operate in fleet and not stand alone warship.

That is why carrier needs escort comprise of few destroyer and frigate which all are datalink, share info and co-ordinate to attack and defend. If you have enough asset and the system is powerful enough, swamming attack from multi direction can still be neutralise.

and how many countries in the world can afford fly a dozen anti-ship carrying combat jet enough to reach fleet in open big sea to do the multi directional co-ordinate attack? Hardly a few...

Learn to read properly. That is no different than what I wrote.

You are wrong.... China has already long taken the threat of supersonic anti-ship missile into consideration.. Perhaps you shall have read thru previous few page to understand more what China possess to counter such threat. China is more than capable than you can think. From the region you are in. It is difficult to understand the real extend of China capabilities since many real information about China will be misinterpret or distort.

But let me give you a few hint. China has already owned the world fastest computer in the world. If you think this is not much of a feat. You have really not really get the clasp of the real influence of this powerful supercomputer and its significant.

Son, you need to learn how to read properly. The above post is a quote from Alienwave, not my words.

Easy Bro, you can see this guy comes from Norway. From the people and media he interact with is all about anti-china or pro western stuff. It can easily understand this guy is brainwashed from the real reality and still think China is some third world poor under nutrition country.

Actually, I read sino defence, wab, CDF. Probably alot more informed about chinese affairs than some chinese fanboys.

 

[ice bomb]

Oh, OK, I see what you mean now! Well technically the navies of China, Russia, India, Brazil are not 'modern', at least in terms of naval air-defenses. Neither of these navies operate advanced and sophisticated air-defense warships and their current fleets of destroyers and frigates are still vulnerable to old anti-ship missiles like Harpoon.

For example, Norway operates the AEGIS Fridtjof Nansen class frigates. What comparable ship do the Chinese, Brazilians, Russians and Indians operate? The answer is NONE.

I am not sure I agree that they dont have sophisticated air-defense warships. The 052c , 052 Ds and Kolkata-class ships are able ships.
Sure, they are not as capable as the AEGIS, but you dont need AEGIS to defeat anti-ship missiles. A integrated missiles defence with c4r, ciws , RAM, ECM and chaffs are more than enough to meet threats from supersonic missiles.

 

[Anony]

The excessively fast speed of the BrahMos is ironically its greatest weakness vs a modern AEGIS or PAAMS equipped warship.

Now that seems to be the stupidest comment I have ever heard When entire world is investing in research for supersonic and hypersonic platform,calling it a weakness need a great deal of foolishness. Can you tell me where did you heard that or it is your own brain fart.

Consider: BrahMos is non-stealthy, flies hot and high (in comparison to other sea-skimmers) and is more susceptible to soft-kill (I.e ship countermeasures etc) due to its high speeds limiting the ability of BrahMos to react.

The uniqueness of Brahmos is its maneuverability It can fly high as well as dive deep and can change it's flight to sea skimming mode in a matter of secs thus making the high altitude interceptor meaningless. It can also cover the entire distance in sea-skimming mode in which case its range comes down to 220km approx. In addition to that it can cover it's flight distance in more than 10 different paths flying both high or sea-skimming.

There is also the fact that the BrahMos' sea-skimming capabilities are severely impaired in adverse sea states! BrahMos is also useless in the littoral zones or high traffic sea lanes, again due to its high speed and lack of intelligence (I.e High risk of engaging neutral/civilian shipping target).

From where you came up to that conclusion. Do you have any source for it. Free speech are not accepted Rather this again is one of the key features of Brahmos that it can identify target accurately in high clutter also. In a test it successfully identified a house in high clutter of houses around it. This news was also posted here at PDF.

Scenario: An AEGIS or PAAMs system with its powerful long-range AESA radars will see the 'high-flying' BrahMos with its HUGE thermal signature at great distances, most likely before BrahMos has even had time to reach max velocity (est. 1.8 Mach). This would be an easy hard-kill for an AEGIS/Standard combo or a PAAMS/Aster combo. For arguments sake, lets say that the impossible happened and the AEGIS/PAAMS failed to prosecute BrahMos during its initial engagement, and continued to so, what then? Well, the AEGIS/PAAMS warship would deploy countermeasures, decoys etc in-order to lure/trick BrahMos away from the target. As I have said before, the speed of BrahMos denies it sufficient reaction time - therefore if the ships countermeasures succeed, we can pretty much guarantee a soft-kill. Beyond soft-kill we have CIWS as final defense, and western CIWS are tested and proven.

Are you nuts. No missile can engage Brahmos in high altitude as it changes its path when it sense danger. And AEGIS is proven for BM defence not for target flying at sea skimming height and that to at supersonic speed. The CIWS maximum range is 4.5km but effective range to engage sea-skimming objects is only 1.5km or less. Thus it will have less than 2secs to engage Brahmos. In addition to this, Brahmos can circle around target at very low height before hitting it to evede any known CIWS.

Conclusion: BrahMos is just fast, but not really a great anti-ship missile. All the latest in-production anti-ship missiles in the west are intelligent, stealthy subsonic missile such as the Naval Strike Missile/Joint Strike Missile. The United States also favors a new stealthy subsonic anti-ship missile to replace its Harpoon missiles.

EDIT: Can I also mention this; There is nothing particularly impressive about about BrahMos, it isn't a revolutionary design and it isn't a great feat of technological engineering by military standards. Western countries have had the technology to design and produce supersonic anti-ship missiles since the 1960s (at-least).

Conclusion:

I have never heard this type of shi_t here at PDF

Biggest brainfarts comment

No logical interpretation

The author of this comment has no idea about CM, difference between BMD & CMD, CIWS, and features of BRAHMOS

 

[Beast]

Learn to read properly. That is no different than what I wrote.


Actually, I read sino defence, wab, CDF. Probably alot more informed about chinese affairs than some chinese fanboys.

Then its appalling you still do not understand so much of Chinese military since you visited CDF. Read and visit those website does not equal you fully understand Chinese military depth enough.

For example you claim J-20 is still lacking behind Russian PAFKA in design. That's a laughable statement. Didn't you realise China rejected PAFKA participation when they saw what Russian is going to design? J-20 flush airframe is far more suit for the requirement of reduced radar cross section more than PAFKA.

Then J-20 deploy large number of 3D printing for its part and some of it is the most advance in the world. I think I do not need to point out the advantage of 3D printing... As for PAFKA, I hardly know it deploy such technique in making its airframe.

3D printing technology used in Chinese fighter jets

 

[Alienware]

Now that seems to be the stupidest comment I have ever heard When entire world is investing in research for supersonic and hypersonic platform,calling it a weakness need a great deal of foolishness. Can you tell me where did you heard that or it is your own brain fart.

Your whole post was utter bullshit, in fact, your very first paragraph contained such a high content of bullshit, I started to smirk and continued to do so throughout the rest of your ignorant tirade.

In response to what I highlighted in bold; WRONG! All new in-production anti-ship missiles in the west are stealthy subsonic anti-ship missiles. (See Naval Strike Missile/Joint Strike Missile) Also, the US Navy favors a new stealthy subsonic design to replace its Harpoon missiles.

Lastly, if all you can do is respond to my post with insults like "brain fart" while not actually disputing my post with a valid and informed argument of your own, then that serves only to reinforce that I was correct in the first place.

Additionally, you cannot even string a proper sentence together in English, giving me reason to believe you have very little in the way of a proper education. Therefore I am inclined to ignore your posts, as I am not in the habit of "taking a lesson" from those less educated than my self.

If anybody wants to see Anony's original post in full, it is post #427

 

[Anony]

Your whole post was utter bullshit, in fact, your very first paragraph contained such a high content of bullshit, I started to smirk and continued to do so throughout the rest of your ignorant tirade.

In response to what I highlighted in bold; WRONG! All new in-production anti-ship missiles in the west are stealthy subsonic anti-ship missiles. (See Naval Strike Missile/Joint Strike Missile) Also, the US Navy favors a new stealthy subsonic design to replace its Harpoon missiles.

Lastly, if all you can do is respond to my post with insults like "brain fart" while not actually disputing my post with a valid and informed argument of your own, then that serves only to reinforce that I was correct in the first place.

Additionally, you cannot even string a proper sentence together in English, giving me reason to believe you have very little in the way of a proper education. Therefore I am inclined to ignore your posts, as I am not in the habit of "taking a lesson" from those less educated than my self.

If anybody wants to see Anony's original post in full, it is post #427

What the hell according to you was wrong in my post. So according to you the world investing in supersonic and hypersonic platform is wrong. Please go and read some daily news on defence. Since other than this, the only thing you mentioned in your entire tiresome post is my knowledge in English so I wanna inform you that this is a defence forum. Here people with knowledge on defence matters are given due respect and not to some English speaking trollers.

And if I go by your logic then,

Indians are way more educated than Chinese as Indians on an average speaks/writes better English than Chinese and are better placed infront of the world than Chinese as far as knowledge of English is concerned.


And since you are targeting me on my English ability here I point out some of the mistakes you committed in your trolling post


1. you cannot even string a proper sentence together in English

wrong usage of the word STRING. String shows a kind of attachment/binding whereas words(of any language) are not considered as binding.

2. you have very little in the way of a proper education

Again usage of the word LITTLE for PROPER EDUCATION, as education being proper or not can't be measured (abstract term).

3. All new in-production anti-ship missiles

Production can't be termed new or old it's the missile and that to w.r.t. date and not new/old.


4. Your whole post was utter bullshit

ENTIRE not WHOLE, you can't take the comments/views as one unit.

It's true my 'posts' contains grammatical mistakes, but I don't wanna listen this from a person who is no different

 

[Alienware]

What the hell according to you was wrong in my post. So according to you the world investing in supersonic and hypersonic platform is wrong. Please go and read some daily news on defence. Since other than this, the only thing you mentioned in your entire tiresome post is my knowledge in English so I wanna inform you that this is a defence forum. Here people with knowledge on defence matters are given due respect and not to some English speaking trollers.

And if I go by your logic then,

Indians are way more educated than Chinese as Indians on an average speaks/writes better English than Chinese and are better placed infront of the world than Chinese as far as knowledge of English is concerned.


And since you are targeting me on my English ability here I point out some of the mistakes you committed in your trolling post


1. you cannot even string a proper sentence together in English

wrong usage of the word STRING. String shows a kind of attachment/binding whereas words(of any language) are not considered as binding.

2. you have very little in the way of a proper education

Again usage of the word LITTLE for PROPER EDUCATION, as education being proper or not can't be measured (abstract term).

3. All new in-production anti-ship missiles

Production can't be termed new or old it's the missile and that to w.r.t. date and not new/old.


4. Your whole post was utter bullshit

ENTIRE not WHOLE, you can't take the comments/views as one unit.

It's true my 'posts' contains grammatical mistakes, but I don't wanna listen this from a person who is no different

*Sigh* I was educated in the United States, English is my first language, and again, your post appears to have been written by a five year old with as much thrust and intelligence as a piece of dog-shite. You previously failed to respond to my original post with any display of knowledge or maturity, instead you resorted to personal insult calling me a "brain fart". Next time someone posts something you don't agree with, reply with a valid and informative answer - not a tirade of child like insults.

Is there an ignore function on PDF? If there is, then I think I will safely confine you to my ignore list and be done with your immature and pathetic mentality. It takes the stronger man to walk away.

Note: There was nothing wrong with my use of English, if you cannot comprehend synonyms or a degree of eloquence in English, then... well... you really are an idiot aren't you? Rhetorical question, you don't have to answer that

Edit: I found the ignore function. So... yeah... have a great life Anony.

 

[AUSTERLITZ]

LMAO, how you manage to get close enough to fire those missiles in the first place? Most journos got no ideas, but I thought most people who post at defence forums has a better clue, apparently not.

There is more to a missile than its speed. The most used antiship missile in the world is subsonic, used by some of the most sofiscated navies in the world including USN. I will leave the readers to judge who to trust. An article in Bloomberg or the navies who decades after decades fielding robust countermeasures. The USN never blinked in the face of the missiles Soviet got. Keep have wet dreams of sizzles, or bretherless.

Our adversary is PLAN and PN and we can get tactically close with both,if someone has to worry about getting close to USN its china.I gave that link asan example of the difficulty of intercepting modern supersonic ascms that manuevre not to troll USN.
As for never blinking,then what was the alarm over the ss-n-22 sunburn?Or over this current klub.
China's latest anti ship missile by the way is supersonic in most part of its flight,not subsonic.Harpoon and exocet are no longer as competitive ,that is why usa and EU developing LRASM and perseus .

 

[dray]

@Alienware My question was not about Brahmos, I just wanted to know if Chinese CIWS system has been successfully tested against a supersonic Sea-skimming anti-ship missile, as @Beast was claiming that the test was successful against a supersonic anti-ship missile. I can very well understand that for a Chinese, supersonic sea-skimming anti-ship missile systems will continue to remain inferior to the subsonic missiles, as long as China develops one of its own.

However, has the CIWS system been tested successfully against a "superior" subsonic Sea-skimming anti-ship missile?

Now about your below post, as @Anony has given a fine technical rebut to your post, I will try to stick to only common sense.

The excessively fast speed of the BrahMos is ironically its greatest weakness vs a modern AEGIS or PAAMS equipped warship.

Okay, so Indians and Russians are spending money on an inferior supersonic Sea-skimming anti-ship missile, when India can spend the money on a subsonic system, or can buy any western system, as almost everything is available for sale to India.

Consider: BrahMos is non-stealthy, flies hot and high (in comparison to other sea-skimmers) and is more susceptible to soft-kill (I.e ship countermeasures etc) due to its high speeds limiting the ability of BrahMos to react. There is also the fact that the BrahMos' sea-skimming capabilities are severely impaired in adverse sea states! BrahMos is also useless in the littoral zones or high traffic sea lanes, again due to its high speed and lack of intelligence (I.e High risk of engaging neutral/civilian shipping target).

1. Brahmos has stealth features. In any case a small tubular thing has minimal RCS.
2. It can fly at 30 feet height (10 meters)...not good enough to avoid radars? Also see Anony's post #427 above on variable flight path and maneuverability.
3. Which missile fly cold? And heat signature is detected by IR systems, which have limited range. Brahmos will not give any time to react even after detection.
4. Which sea-skimmer's sea-skimming capabilities are not impaired in adverse sea conditions?
5. In addition to Anony's post, which high-traffic zone will remain busy in case of war in the region?

BTW, by your logic, a subsonic low-flying, propeller-plane is better than a hot and high flying fighter jet plane?

Scenario: An AEGIS or PAAMs system with its powerful long-range AESA radars will see the 'high-flying' BrahMos with its HUGE thermal signature at great distances, most likely before BrahMos has even had time to reach max velocity (est. 1.8 Mach). This would be an easy hard-kill for an AEGIS/Standard combo or a PAAMS/Aster combo. For arguments sake, lets say that the impossible happened and the AEGIS/PAAMS failed to prosecute BrahMos during its initial engagement, and continued to so, what then? Well, the AEGIS/PAAMS warship would deploy countermeasures, decoys etc in-order to lure/trick BrahMos away from the target. As I have said before, the speed of BrahMos denies it sufficient reaction time - therefore if the ships countermeasures succeed, we can pretty much guarantee a soft-kill. Beyond soft-kill we have CIWS as final defense, and western CIWS are tested and proven.

1. As discussed, you consider 10 meters as high flying? Isn't that enough for avoiding radar detection?
2. Which radar is tracking heat signature? Is there any new development that I don't know about? Heat signature tracking systems has a limited range.
3. Isn't Brahmos is 2.8 Mach? Isn't higher speed means lesser reaction time for enemy?
4. Read Anony's reply.

We also have to remember that no matter how fast BrahMos is, or how agile it is during its terminal phase, western missiles such as Standard or Aster etc are even faster, significantly more intelligent and much more maneuverable (in excess of 60Gs, TVing etc etc). Additionally, if third party targeting data is available, AEGIS/PAAMS will spot BrahMos at launch, and if it is within their engagement envelope (I.e 120 km), then they can engage BrahMos while its at high-subsonic or low-supersonic speeds.

1. We are not talking about Brahmos vs. western systems.
2. However, please provide a list of supersonic Sea-skimming anti-ship missiles, that are faster than 2.8 mach.

Conclusion: BrahMos is just fast, but not really a great anti-ship missile. All the latest in-production anti-ship missiles in the west are intelligent, stealthy subsonic missile such as the Naval Strike Missile/Joint Strike Missile. The United States also favors a new stealthy subsonic anti-ship missile to replace its Harpoon missiles.

And why Brahmos is not qualifying as a intelligent missile? I mean whatever you claim, when it comes to weapon technology, Russians know much more than China.

Nonetheless, navies like China, Russia, India, Brazil etc are currently not-capable of defending against missiles like BrahMos - we do not operate naval air-defense systems as sophisticated and advanced as AEGIS/PAAMS. While destroyers such as the Kolkata-class and the Type 052D will improve the situation, they will still be vulnerable.

So, after all the tall claims: can I safely conclude that at the moment China doesn't have anything to counter a supersonic Sea-skimming anti-ship missile ? More importantly, on the original question that I asked to @Beast: "So, is your CIWS system capable of neutralizing supersonic/hypersonic sea-skimming anti-ship missiles?", can I conclude that the answer is "NO"?

EDIT: Can I also mention this; There is nothing particularly impressive about BrahMos, it isn't a revolutionary design and it isn't a great feat of technological engineering by military standards. Western countries have had the technology to design and produce supersonic anti-ship missiles since the 1960s (at-least).

Okay, no need to be impressed about Brahmos. Please only provide a list of supersonic Sea-skimming anti-ship missiles, that are faster than 2.8 mach....produced anywhere in the world since 1960s.

 

[Penguin]

You have to take into the worst scenario. Battle station alert mode is not on standby. Radar is still probably on. From detecting , identify and take appropriate action plus asembling the crew to full battlemode. Less than 3mins to neutralise the hostile? I will say that is a tall order.

Let's take Israel-hezbollah war in 2006. I can be sure radar is on, and from what I understand they are not on battle mode. and even a subsonic missile is able to take out israel warship but the fact, the distance is very close. Less than 50km. This give Israel very little reaction time to counter it.

On the coast is a very different scenario from at sea. Plus, this does not represent you typical navy scenario where two forces are building up and then engaging (rather, it was an ambush).

You do realize goalkeeper is fully automated, all it needs is a cue from the command system and is will by itself search, track and engage an incoming missile. If the ship is under emcon, cues would be taken from ESM and in the case of some ships like DUtch LCF/zeven provincien a fully passive IRST system like Sirius or IRSCAN. If radar is on, well, ...

On auxiliary units, Goalkeepers are supported by IRSCAN.
http://www.thales7seas.com/html5_beta/product218.html
IRSCAN can detect and track targets to a maximum range of 20km
http://www.naval-technology.com/projects/rotterdam/

On the new patrol ship of the Holland class there is Gatekeeper in the I-Mast:
"Unlike traditional IRSTs (Infra-Red Search & Track), which mechanically scan through 360°, the new Thales EO family utilises multiple static sensor heads incorporating large IR focal plane arrays, an advanced optical design and dedicated processing algorithms on COTS processing hardware to provide enhanced ship self-protection, particularly in the littoral environment. "
http://www.thales-nederland.nl/nl/news/archive/2006/October-25-2006.shtml

ON LCF Sirius is mounted atop the APAR

SIRIUS plays a vital role in the defence against the supersonic and subsonic sea skimming missile threat. SIRIUS’ unsurpassed sensitivity and resolution invite for many other tasks, e.g. multispectral observation of coastal areas, contribution to Theatre Ballistic Missile
Defence,...SIRIUS greatly enhances ship’s survivability, in particular when:
• The ship is threatened by super-sonic or stealth(low RCS) targets.
• Active sensor performance is degraded by ECM,multipath or interference.
Also under conditions where restricted use of radar emissions is required, SIRIUS will provide adequate detection capability against the anti-ship missile threat

Sirius Range capability : horizon limited for supersonic missile threat
http://www.thalesgroup.com/Portfolio/Documents/Air_Systems_Datasheet_-_Sirius/

Sirius detection against supersonic sea skimmer : 26,5 km
Sirius detection agains SUBsonic seaskimmer :12 km
(both in tropical summer conditions => better in colder conditions and when mounted even higher up)
From Naval Institute Guide to World Naval Weapon Systems by Norman Friedman
http://books.google.nl/books?id=4S3...&q=thales sirius "supersonic missile"&f=false

Since mach 3 = 1 020.87 m/s, I would say Sirius would give both ESSM (response time 6-8 sec) and Goalkeeper (response time 5,5 sec) as well as any ECM systems (jamming, chaff, decoys) more than enough time to engage. Possibly even several times. And , yes, on e.g. the LCF you would be using those systems sequentially (layered defences).

 

[Penguin]

Oh, OK, I see what you mean now! Well technically the navies of China, Russia, India, Brazil are not 'modern', at least in terms of naval air-defenses. Neither of these navies operate advanced and sophisticated air-defense warships and their current fleets of destroyers and frigates are still vulnerable to old anti-ship missiles like Harpoon.

For example, Norway operates the AEGIS Fridtjof Nansen class frigates. What comparable ship do the Chinese, Brazilians, Russians and Indians operate? The answer is NONE.

Well, it remains to be see but I would think the Russian 22350 could be compared to Nansen (remember, Nansen only has 1x 8-cell MK41 for max 32 ESSM installed, with space and weight reserbed for another: it is not strictly speaking an airdefence frigate that can be compared e.g. to German F124, Dutch LCF, Spain's F100, the UK Type 45 or the Franco-Italian Horizon, AEGIS notwithstanding). Also, upgraded, modernized Kirov's and possibly Slava's should not be disregarded. And what about the Chines 052C and D? Kolkata with Barak-8 is approaching this capability too.

project 22350 large pic: http://www.balancer.ru/forum/punbb/attachment.php?item=343427&download=2&type=.jpg

small frontal shot