{"id":177223,"date":"2019-11-19T19:51:00","date_gmt":"2019-11-20T00:51:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/2019\/11\/19\/remember-skybolt\/"},"modified":"2019-11-19T19:51:00","modified_gmt":"2019-11-20T00:51:00","slug":"remember-skybolt","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/2019\/11\/19\/remember-skybolt\/","title":{"rendered":"Remember Skybolt?"},"content":{"rendered":"
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I am referring, of course, to the GAM-87 Skybolt air-launched ballistic missile<\/a>, which was developed by the United States in the early 1960s as a was to penetrate increasingly capable Soviet air defense systems.<\/p>\n

It was canceled when the Polaris SLBM was determined to better fit the needs.<\/p>\n

We now have evidence that the People’s Republic of China is developing a very similar system<\/a>, though it will likely not be used as a strategic system. <\/p>\n

It appears to be a derived from the mobile land base DF-21 of the It will be used to target aircraft carriers, and the air launched capabilities will force carrier groups even further from China, particularly since the platform China’s upgraded Badger the H-6N, is designed with air to air refueling capabilities:<\/p>\n

A centrefold graphic recently flourished intimate details of a Chinese bomber carrying a stark new weapon. State-controlled media has since gone into cover-up mode. But military analysts think Beijing may have been caught with its pants down.<\/p>\n

The government produced Modern Ships<\/i> magazine has splashed high-resolution computer-generated images of China\u2019s most recent addition to its strategic bomber line-up \u2013 the H-6N \u2013 over the front and feature pages.<\/p>\n

But that\u2019s not what drew the eye of the world\u2019s defence thinkers.<\/p>\n

The graphics showed the new bomber carrying a huge ballistic missile slung under its fuselage. And that missile looks a lot like one of a family of ballistic weapons deployed by China\u2019s People\u2019s Liberation Army Rocket Force (PLARF) as aircraft carrier killers.<\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

I do not think that this is an unintentional release of information.<\/p>\n

After all, how can you deter a CVBG if they do not know about the threat.<\/p>\n

The carrier aircraft is extensively modified as well:<\/p>\n

Defence enthusiasts noted several strange things about the latest N variant of China\u2019s Xian H-6 series of strategic bombers when it was unveiled to the public at the 70th National Day parade in October.<\/p>\n

The state-controlled Xinhua news service simply said it was a \u201chomemade strategic bomber capable of air refuelling and long-range strike\u201d.<\/p>\n

But when a flight of three of the bombers flew over Beijing, military experts saw it doesn\u2019t have bomb-bay doors. Instead, it has what appears to be new heavyweight attachment points in a recess along the centre-line of its fuselage.<\/p>\n

Also noted was its modified, extended nose-cone and an air-to-air refuelling nozzle.<\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Assuming that the system can be made to work reliably, and this would include a multitude of sensors and cuing systems, it would be a formidable areal denial system. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I am referring, of course, to the GAM-87 Skybolt air-launched ballistic missile, which was developed by the United States in the early 1960s as a was to penetrate increasingly capable Soviet air defense systems. It was canceled when the Polaris SLBM was determined to better fit the needs. We now have evidence that the People’s …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[384,487,379,511,382],"class_list":["post-177223","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","tag-aviation","tag-china","tag-military","tag-missiles","tag-technology"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/177223"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=177223"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/177223\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=177223"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=177223"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=177223"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}