I appreciate your answer bro. I am just so surprised by how North Korea managed to develop the Hwasong-8. Since the Hwasong looks to be a copy of the DF-17 I was curios about the unit price.
What will be the main use for the DF-17? To target military bases, airfields etc...?
I know that the DF-100 was designed to land-based facilities, hardened targets, underground bunkers and large warships, including aircraft carriers and amphibious assault ships. According to wikipedia it could can target "moving" aircraft carriers.
If Pakistan could manage to have a couple of hundred DF-100 stationed along our coast it would be a massive boost to our firepower. With a 2000 km range it would be able to target any warship in persian gulf, huge part of the arabian sea. Almost all the way to gulf of aden.
NK's Hwasong-8 looks like exactly the same as DF-17 rocket stage and HGV both look identical.
I guess China controls Hwasong-8 and the weapon is shipped over and kept in case of US escalation of east asia war and causing disruptions than NK forces can be said to be using their own weapon and acting alone. Basically with at least this HGV weapon, it is a proxy actor and guarantor Japan does not get ideas. Japan can be hit by China through NK is the idea and purpose.
I would bet launch control and weapon use is managed by China only.
You need many top end supercomputers and many hypersonic wind tunnels to develop HGV. It is absolutely impossible to do without. Otherwise it would take far too long to test and refine until the weapon is actually good and useful. Only China, USA, and Russia have several hypersonic wind tunnels. Only China and USA have these level of supercomputers at that sort of availability for various programs. Even with all the main tools, developing HGV still takes several decades and multi-billions in development cost. China has been researching HGV since Qian Xuesen created the concept of HGV during the era of Von Braun and Sanger.
Now the interesting thing to realize is that China openly showed the DF-ZF vehicle on DF-17 booster. It is the first and only nation in the world to openly show one of their in service HGV weapons. A short range ballistic missile booster would give the HGV weapon Medium to Intermediate range since the vehicle flies thousands of kilometers under hypersonic shockwave riding techniques. How come they showed it so openly when Russia only dares show some animation?
USA says China has flown hypersonic aircraft and weapons "hundreds of times". This is not an exaggeration and dozens of flights in year 2000s would have been refinement and testing, building accurate mathematical models and collecting data for computation. USA says Russia has two hypersonic weapons in service which are their avangard ICBM warhead carrying type which is probably unpowered by extremely fast like mach 20. Also their zircon boost glide which is probably scramjet powered and around mach 5 to 10 max. Most likely around mach 5 due to scramjet limits.
China developed some exotic scramjets which they comfortably revealed in 2010s and then a few years ago also revealed they are testing world's first finished sodramjet type engine. Americans only conceptualized it but never even built a single one because they don't know how to manage airflow and maybe some other details. China finished it. It is also why China has at least one type of hypersonic aircraft for within atmosphere flight and one for orbit service as part of single stage to orbit programs.
This all indicates that DF-17 is old stuff or not sensitive at all. Could have been in service since early 2010s when hints were given that new generations of strategic missiles to complement anti ship ballistic missiles are denying Americans carrier operations during wartime. Purpose is not only to hit carriers but also medium to intermediate range bases around Pacific and Indian Ocean.
It is so old news that they give some to North Korea. One generation on way out, latest one already in service, and one near service in testing is the rule. Generation on the way out is less sensitive and can be exported and even some important details revealed. Probably considered already well known by adversary intelligence as well. The reason no one else reveals actual pictures of their HGV is because the shape is super secretive. Even small details like where intakes are can reveal things like what the turning performance range and speed might be. If it is boring straight line boost glide scramjet missile like zircon and one HAWCC program missile or advanced like DF-ZF and can "bounce" around at mach 10+ with perfect control.
DF-100 is also more secretive than DF-ZF since they only showed one very blurry video and hidden most of the details but they showed the starry sky prototypes for probably the same program since shape of scramjet intake is very similar. I'm assuming it is the military project that developed from starry sky again they are more than comfortable revealing.
The most secretive ones are these:
ICBM carried glide only for nuclear
hypersonic aircraft that flies within atmosphere entire journey or only a short boost towards edge of space for potential energy or some other reasons
hypersonic capable single stage to orbit transport for space launch service
zircon equivalent for anti shipping. This type is unknown but much less capable than longer ranged HGV because this type is far less capable of rapid controlled turning and much slower compared to HGV boosted to mach 10+ or mach 20 and then makes 300km radius turns to approach from many angles. Also zircon like missile will have much less range in only the hundreds of kilometers vs thousands to tens of thousands of kilometers. Also much less effective than ASBM which drops from space at mach 20 and approaches from vertical angle.
DF-17 type weapons also much more useful at attacking regional bases and probably can carry many types of warheads or electronic warfare equipment. A small missile similar to the anti-ship missiles of today cannot carry even a small warhead and powerful EW equipment. If they can make use of the heat on the surface of the vehicle, they can easily power extremely powerful and large EW equipment.
Chinese sources said back in late 2010s that USA has a powerful EW cruise missile and only China has equivalents at least back then developing that concept. Problem for that idea which is why it is probably now phased out is because stealth drones can do the job better and carry much better EW equipment and have access to more power. Next would be to do that on large HGV like DF-17's vehicle. They can fly low or high and can even be used for recon when the vehicle is not in acceleration and in inertial frame. With HGV you can do that and let it fly with pretty constant speed and direction or in a wide circle.
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