HMS Sheffield Hit by Exocet Missile

The Falklands war back in 1982 saw the dawning of a whole different weapon. The Exocet. The Exocet sent shock waves through the western world because Naval vessels were very vulnerable. The Missile homed in on the electromagnetic signature of the operations room.



The reason I bring this up is that the Russian Hypersonic missile Zircon, and the Chinese Dong Feng DF 21 are part of the SCO's strategy of keeping the US Navy at bay.

They are kinetic weapons and do not carry a conventional warhead. The amount of kinetic energy impact on a carrier by an object moving at 5-10's the speed of sound would effectively cut a aircraft carrier in two. There would be no bulkhead or hatch that would hold.



The Chinese Militaries island claiming is based upon deploying the DF 21 (2500nm) w/a/v/ to keeping the US CSG's (Carrier Strike Groups) out further than the effective range of their aircraft (500nm).



Its interesting to me that the symbol of imperial industrial might of our past age, the Aircraft Carrier, (i.e. monopolisation, massification, etc) has made it a liability rather than an asset.

MTH