The China Aerospace Science and Technology Corporation (CASC), a state-owned supplier for the Chinese aerospace and defense industries, announced that it has developed a solid-fuel ramjet engine that has the potential to be mated to a missile.
According to sources in Beijing, the CASC has conducted a series of hypersonic test flights and concluded that its current ramjet technology could triple the range of the military’s beyond-visual-range missiles (BVRAAM). If true, China’s new ramjet engine would extend the range of the PL-12, an air-to-air missile, from 62 to 200 miles.
Currently, CASC engineers are said to be working on a miniaturization program that would allow the ramjet engine to be mated to missiles that could be fired from aircraft and SAM missile carriers. If a ramjet engine could be fixed to a missile, it could make those projectiles impossible to avoid if fired at close range. Given the fact that a hypersonic missile has to travel at least Mach 5 (3,836 mph), if a target was close enough a hypersonic weapon could render any evasive action moot.
For any adversary, that reality would be frightful and would certainly bring about a moment of pause when engaging Chinese forces. For China, which has been aggressively pursuing territorial expansion in the South China Sea, a weapon of that capacity might be a perfectly suited threat to backstop their ambition.
But still, there are some limitations to China’s new ramjet engine technology.
Although the CASC has made a major breakthrough in engine technology, BVRAAMs aren’t effective weapons on their own. To reach their ultimate devastating power, BVRAAAMs must be paired with sophisticated long-range sensor networks that can identify and track potential targets. If the Chinese military could create such a network, the country’s ambition of creating a blue-water navy could be accelerated, at least artificially, through a combination of carrier-based aircraft and BVRAAAM missiles.