1st battalion of 4th Air Defense Brigade of Chinese army equipped with HQ16A missile system 1603122
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Military Defense Technology News - Chinese HQ16A |
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| Friday, March 16, 2012, 04:51 PM | |||
| 1st battalion of the 4th Air Defense Brigade of Chinese army equipped with HQ16A missile system | |||
The
HQ16A
anti-aircraft air defense missile system enters in service with the 1st
battalion, 4th Air Defense Brigade, 38th Army Group of the Chinese Armed
Forces. |
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 View of HQ-16A air defence missile system in Air Defence Brigade of Chinese Armed Forces (Source Internet) |
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In
September 2011, the Newspaper Global Times announced China's new land-based
mid-range Surface to Air Missile (SAM) system has reached operational
capability. Military observers say that deployment of this missile system
will boost China's air defense capability. In a recent drill, two HQ-16 missiles fired by the unit successfully hit their aerial targets, the official website of the People's Liberation Army Daily reported Monday. As
well as being able to engage aerial targets at high altitude, the mid-range
HQ-16A is also able to intercept very low-flying
targets at a distance of up to about 40 kilometers, filling the gap between
the HQ-7 short-range SAM and the HQ-9 long-range SAM systems, Lan Yun,
editor of Modern Ships, a Beijing-based military magazine, told the Global
Times. |
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According
to Modern Navy, the official magazine of the PLA Navy, the naval variant
of the missile system, which has been fitted on Type 054A frigates, can
intercept sea-skimming missiles that fly less than 10 meters above the
sea surface. In modern air attacks, large numbers of land-attack cruise missiles, such as the US Tomahawk missile, are being used, Lan said. "They fly about 50 meters above the ground to avoid early radar warning and interception attempts," he added. But the current mid-range SAM missile system HQ-12 can only engage targets that fly 300 meters above ground, according to the promotion brochure of its export version, called the KS-1A system. "Besides the low-altitude engagement capability, the HQ-16 is also more accurate than the HQ-12. The deployment of the land-based HQ-16 can greatly enhance the mainland's capability to counter modern air attacks," Lan said. |
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