Chapter 619 The Confused Annan People Are Sailing in the Air?

The designated airspace for this soft-kill test of simulated cruise missile targets was chosen near the China-Saudi Arabian Sea, about 600 kilometers away from Qiong Province.

That is to say, the equipment of the naval aviation, especially the South China Sea Fleet aviation, has been updated relatively rapidly in the past two years. If it had been four or five years earlier, few aircraft would have been able to fly there safely and conduct some low-altitude tests before returning...

As for why we had to choose a place so far away...

Naturally, this was the result of discussions between Xu Yang and Chang Haonan before the test.

Although at the time of initial design, the range of this "soft-kill self-defense countermeasure system" was only calibrated between 20-30km, the situation between electronic equipment and mechanical structures is really different.

Because electromagnetic waves are extremely affected by environmental factors, even Chang Haonan cannot accurately grasp the design values ​​​​as he did when designing aircraft, leaving as little margin as possible so as not to "waste" performance.

Moreover, in his estimation, the place where this equipment would work would be a city in the midst of war. The signal environment is extremely complex, and it may even face electromagnetic interference from both warring parties.

Therefore, he must leave enough redundancy in the design.

But in this way, in places like Qiong Province where the background noise is quite clean, how far can this thing reach...

No one is counting.

Moreover, this thing is said to be specially designed to interfere with positioning and navigation signals, but firstly, the frequency limit cannot be so precise, and secondly, the GPS signal itself has a certain width, such as the L1 frequency band at 1575.42MHz, the L2 frequency band at 1227.60MHz, etc.

In order to avoid making too much noise, such as affecting the operation of radio equipment in a certain big city, it is more worry-free to place it in a slightly distant location.

Fortunately, the naval aviation force has conducted more high-sea flight training in the past two years than in the past few decades combined, so for Tang Yiping, who had just taken off, this was not a big deal.

Moreover, at a distance of 600 kilometers, the airborne shortwave radio station can still communicate with the Lingshui base through ionospheric reflection.

In the absence of a satellite positioning system, aircraft can only navigate through a few methods such as gyroscope integration or wireless power triangulation, and rely heavily on flight vision to find landmarks for positioning.

After about 40 minutes of flight, Tang Yiping finally saw a reef that was half hidden under the blue sea surface and roughly in the shape of a "door".

He lowered his head and compared it with a photo placed in the transparent pocket on his thigh to confirm that the features were exactly the same.

"Base, No. 01 has visually discovered the Shenhu Sands and is about to enter the test airspace."

The quality of communication on the shortwave station was average, so he repeated it two more times.

The slightly vague voice of the tower commander soon sounded on the radio:

"Received, the target missile carrier is currently located southwest of the Shenhu Sands, about 40 nautical miles in the 240 direction. Please pay attention to the airspace in this direction."

After confirming that his position was correct and adjusting the flight direction according to the instructions of the base, Tang Yiping lightly pushed the joystick and lowered the aircraft to an altitude of about 500 meters——

In fact, for flying over the sea, 500 meters is not considered high (less than 1,000 meters is considered low altitude).

Besides, the purpose of his descent was to provide a relatively mild electromagnetic wave emission angle for the fire control radar and self-defense countermeasure system, rather than a low-altitude penetration like when he faced the Royal Navy fleet before.

There is no need to play it so thrillingly.

In just this moment, the HUD in front of Tang Yiping already showed a target flying diagonally towards him at a high subsonic speed, about 80 kilometers away.

Of course it couldn't be a target bullet.

The Eagle 8A is small in size and roughly cylindrical, and the radar reflection area is not large. For a radar like the 1472, which was of a satisfactory technical level in the early 1990s, it is impossible to catch the target at a distance of 80 kilometers.

"It's probably the JH-7 that was on the accompanying flight evidence collection mission..."

Tang Yiping quickly judged the nature of the target.

Sure enough, about half a minute later, the radar detected three more signals with weaker signals and slightly lower flying altitudes.

This test is divided into two parts, corresponding to Mode 3 and Mode 4 of the preset interference algorithm, which respectively correspond to the key interference height signal and the key interference plane position signal.

Therefore, the six target missiles will be launched in two rounds.

At this time, the South China Sea Fleet did not even have a surface ship that was on standby and could launch the Eagle 8A. It had no choice but to transfer a 053H2 frigate Huangshi from the East China Sea Fleet.

This model, which has not left any significant mark in the People's Navy series, uses a rather special weapon arrangement. All anti-ship missiles it carries can be launched sideways and forward at the same time, which has become one of the reasons for being selected to participate in the test.

After confirming that the target could be searched stably, Tang Yiping tried to adjust the radar to tracking mode before entering the interference distance.

This was not part of this test session, he simply wanted to see if he could lock a target the size of a cruise missile at this distance.

The result was as expected, it failed.

It could only track the JH-7 with a huge target, but until it was about 35 kilometers away, it was still unable to track the other three small targets.

In order to prevent the two JH-7 pilots from listening to the radar warning sound for too long, Tang Yiping quickly turned off the tracking mode, then pressed the button labeled "SKSPCS (ON)" on the multi-function display, and then Silently waiting for the results to appear.

The charm of electronic warfare lies in this. It is invisible and intangible, but it can defend the enemy invisibly.

On the other side, two JH-7 pilots had just recovered from the harsh RWR sound.

The weapons control officer in the back seat held up his camera and pointed it at the right side of the aircraft.

Although not much can be seen with the naked eye, through the enlarged picture in the viewfinder, you can see three missiles painted in a black and white grid shape flying forward at high speed with tail flames behind them.

The Eagle 8A missile still uses a solid rocket motor with a booster instead of a turbojet engine, so even during flight, there will be a relatively obvious tail flame effect.

This is of little significance for radar-guided weapons, but would be easily detected by infrared means.

"Deputy Commander Tang couldn't have made a mistake...why did he use radar to lock..."

He felt that his hand holding the camera was a little numb:

"And these three missiles don't seem to have any reaction. Will they work..."

The flight altitude of this JH-7 was much lower than that of Tang Yiping's No. 01 aircraft, so the pilot focused almost all of his attention on the sea and did not respond to the complaints about the ballast weights behind him.

The weapons control officer wanted to say something more, but at this moment, the three missiles in the distance suddenly began to decrease in altitude almost simultaneously.

"I'll go...it seems to be really effective..."

He quickly pressed the shutter button continuously to capture this most critical stage.

Normal anti-ship missiles will also drop in height when the seeker searches for the target and enters the end of the attack, but these three target missiles do not have this function.

In fact, they were even stripped of their guidance radar and radio altimeter.

According to the setting, it will keep flying about 100-150 meters until it is disturbed, or the fuel and speed are completely exhausted.

Now that their rocket engines have not even completely stopped working, it is obviously impossible to be the latter case.

The flying attitude of the target missile does not seem to be diving, but more like a fine adjustment of the flying attitude after discovering that it is not at the preset flying altitude.

It is also consistent with the working logic of interference mode 3.

Finally, after about 40 seconds, the three targets fell into the sea one after another, and were instantly shattered by the huge impact of the water surface, causing a small splash of water on the calm sea.

The weapons control officer's camera captured the moment precisely.

"Okay, get ready for the second round of testing."

He was finally able to put his arms down and take a break while reporting over the radio.

…

However, at the same time.

The three planned target missiles are not the only ones affected by interference from the satellite positioning system.

About 15 nautical miles further away from Huangshi, the Annan Navy's HQ-15 Pham Ngu Lao frigate is sailing southeast.

This ship is actually a Biejia-class ship of the original Red Navy. It has a displacement of only 950 tons and has been in service for nearly 40 years.

However, after the easing of relations with the United States in the late 1980s, limited improvements were made to the old ship, so it was able to continue in service.

Its appearance here was completely coincidental and had nothing to do with the test on the Chinese side. It was just a routine delivery of supplementary supplies and rotation personnel to about a platoon stationed in a bunker on Nanhua Reef.

Inside the bridge, Captain Ruan Yingjun is holding a telescope and looking at the sea in the distance.

Of course it's not for searching for any target.

This was already the late 1990s. If we waited until we could see the target with a telescope in naval battles, we would have been sunk countless times.

Besides, even in the within-line-of-sight naval battles that occurred in earlier years, Annan's navy had never won.

In fact, since China has been completely unable to effectively control the southern seas for a long time, such transportation missions to the southern seas are generally considered to have no risks.

Just because a reporter from Annan TV was conducting interviews on board the ship, he needed to take a series of photos showing the captain's image.

"Captain Ruan, the photo has been taken."

The reporter put down his camera:

"Can you please tell me how to determine our position in such a vast sea with no reference?"

Ruan Yingjun put the telescope aside, turned his head and explained:

"In the past, sextants were used to measure the angle between celestial bodies and the sea level to determine the longitude and latitude, but the accuracy was relatively poor. In many cases, radio or landmarks were needed to assist..."

"But now you can directly use the satellite positioning system. Here, now almost every ship of ours will..."

He took the reporter to the satellite navigation terminal and pressed a few buttons to calculate the current position.

But the words got stuck in his throat just halfway through his words.

The terminal showed that the altitude of their ship, which was sailing on the sea level, was...

350 meters?