Chinese PHL03A long range rocket system destroys ship target.

According to the National Defense Military Channel of China Central Radio and Television, as forwarded by China Arms website on January 4, Li Wentao, commander of a remote fire battalion under a brigade of the 79th Group Army in the Northern Theater of the Chinese Army, recently led the long-range rocket launcher battalion to successfully complete the 79th Group Army’s quarterly live-fire exercise strikes against moving targets at sea.
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A single rocket fired by the PHL03 system is believed to cost 750,000 Yuan ($117,269). Its shooting range is about 70 kilometers (Picture source: en.china.cn)

From the video released with the report, it can be seen that multiple 300mm long-range rockets launched by the battalion successfully hit the target ship traveling on the sea and completely destroyed the target ship. This is the first public video of the Chinese army using far fire to attack moving targets on the sea surface.

It can be found from public reports the main battle equipment of the 79th Group Army’s long-range rocket artillery battalion is still mainly PHL-03A 300mm long-range rocket launchers, of which the overall technical source and tactical performance is similar to that of the Russian Army’s 9K58/БM-30 Tornado 300mm rocket launcher. It is also inferred that the specifications of PHL-03A 300mm long-range rocket launcher should be similar to that of the “Fire Dragon-140” 300mm rocket for export that was exhibited at the Zhuhai Air Show. So its actual combat range should be 130 to 150 km, and when using the kill blasting cluster warhead, its nominal damage radius is about 100 meters, and it lacks terminal guidance capabilities and high-precision guidance components.

As the successor of the PHL-03 rocket launcher, PHL-16 long-range rocket launcher can launch a variety of rockets and missiles. The effective range of PHL-16 300mm guided rockets is 150 kilometers, and when launching 370mm guided rockets, it can reach up to 300 kilometers, while launching 750mm short-range ballistic missiles or cruise missiles would ensure a longer range and higher accuracy, and It is rumored to be able to strike 400 km away with an error of no more than 10 meters, China Arms concludes.

Chinese Army PH-03 300mm MLRS Multiple Launch Rocket System during reloading operations (Picture source: CCTV)