China Air Submarine-200 frequently patrols the Taiwan Strait. What is the mysterious anti-submarine patrol aircraft doing?

According to media reports on October 25, a Y-8Q anti-submarine aircraft (i.e., Air-Submarine-200) of a regiment subordinate to a special pilot division of the Naval Air Force in the Eastern Theater of the Chinese People's Liberation Army exited the southwest airspace of the island of Taiwan that afternoon.

Correspondingly, the Taiwan Air Force also adopted "standard countermeasures": According to the information disclosed by the Taiwan Air Force that night, the Taiwan Air Force implemented "patrol response", "broadcast drive away", and "ground guidance tracking" against the activities of the navy and air force. "To put it simply, it means that the aircraft was sent to track and threatened our military aircraft. Incidentally, the air defense missile radar of the Taiwan Air Force Missile Command was turned on.

Strategic perspective

Although it was quite lively on the other side that the aircraft was dispatched and the ground guidance was activated, if we simply look at the "Chinese navy and air force plane going out of Taiwan's southwest airspace", it is estimated that most readers will find it dull:

On the one hand, in mid-September, the Chinese People’s Liberation Army navy and air force have mobilized large fleets of aircraft out of the Taiwan Strait and the airspace around the island for many consecutive days. The aircraft used in the operation range from the J-10A to the J-11B to the J-16. It includes most of the active tactical aircraft of the Navy and Air Force.

However, the navy and air force have recently begun to use the Yun-8 high-tech aircraft to implement forward missions after the introduction of large aircraft groups. The scale of dispatch has also changed from large aircraft groups to small formations or even single aircraft. Naturally, this "special point" is Not enough to attract attention;

On the other hand, when the PLA Navy and Air Force had frequent activities around the Taiwan Strait last month, we have written a series of articles to conduct a preliminary analysis of the PLA Air Force’s strategic considerations, mode of action, and future development. They are all conservative.

The facts have proved that the PLA Air Force’s action model basically followed our previous predictions. Therefore, from a strategic point of view, I feel that there seems to be no further analysis of the Chinese Navy’s and Air Force’s operations out of the Taiwan Strait or around the island of Taiwan. It's necessary.

Tactical perspective

However, although from a strategic point of view, the operations of the Chinese Navy and Air Force’s air force around Taiwan’s main island still belong to the conventional "strategic squeeze" category, but from the perspective of operational tactics, the Y-8Q anti-submarine force of the Naval Aviation Special Aircraft Force during this period The action of the patrol plane is rather interesting to me.

It’s very simple. During this period of time, the -8Q was in the airspace of the southwestern island of Taiwan. This activity was too frequent. According to the news of the Taiwan media, especially after October, the People’s Navy will ship -8Q almost every other day. They were sent out, and in just 20 days, there were more than a dozen racks monitored by Taiwan. Even from a tactical point of view, the trend of our army is worth analyzing.

U.S. military experience

Then, after entering October, the Chinese naval aviation force suddenly used a large number of aviation anti-submarine forces to enter the airspace around Taiwan's main island, and the attack area and the route of action were relatively fixed. What kind of combat and tactical considerations were the actions taken? I think we should focus on understanding the "opening method" of anti-submarine patrol aircraft. After understanding the opening method of anti-submarine patrol aircraft, we probably understand why the Chinese navy will use Y-8Q anti-submarine aircraft in Taiwan in the near future. The surrounding airspace was patrolled back and forth.

Let’s take the P-8A Poseidon anti-submarine aircraft equipped by the U.S. Navy as the reference object. According to the model of the U.S. Navy using the P-8A anti-submarine patrol aircraft, this type of anti-submarine patrol aircraft probably has the following "opening methods": Anti-submarine in offshore areas, the second is hydrological intelligence collection, the third is battlefield situation awareness and electronic intelligence collection (ISR/ELINT), and the fourth is ocean anti-submarine.

The first is the anti-submarine patrol mission in offshore areas. When undertaking such tasks, anti-submarine patrol aircraft often adopt the local deployment mode. Depending on the mission requirements, anti-submarine search is carried out on a preset battlefield, a certain important waterway, and a certain maritime throat.

When performing such tasks, anti-submarine patrol aircraft often cooperate with destroyers that are active near shore and have certain submarine search and attack capabilities to give full play to the large area of ​​the anti-submarine aircraft search area, the faster zigzag search speed, and the The advantages of extensive use of active detection systems, combined with the active sonar that surface ships can use "unscrupulously" in the continental shelf area, form a relatively dense anti-submarine cordon to "copy" the opponent's attacking nuclear submarine from the seabed that is trying to "cross the line".

Followed by the task of collecting hydrology and underwater acoustic intelligence. This includes two aspects, one is the collection of ocean hydrological background intelligence, and the other is the collection of underwater acoustic intelligence on enemy ships.

The former is part of the pre-determined battlefield construction. It is mainly used to figure out the seabed topography, sea temperature and salinity, thermocline and other characteristics of a certain sea area in advance for our surface ships and attack nuclear submarines. Because of the comparison of the hydrological information that can be searched by anti-submarine patrol aircraft Limited, so it is often necessary to cooperate with the Navy’s oceanographic survey ships to carry out marine scientific investigations and intelligence investigation tasks, and to constantly improve the hydrological database of a certain sea area to ensure the perfection and accuracy of battlefield intelligence information, and to ensure that the fleet and submarines are in place. Can get complete hydrological data support in wartime;

The latter is part of the enemy’s daily intelligence collection, mainly for its own surface ships and attack submarines to improve the underwater acoustic signal signature database of enemy ships and submarines. Because the enemy ships of different types and models have completely different underwater sounds When the same type of ship is specific to a certain ship, the underwater acoustic signal may also have subtle differences. Therefore, daily improvement of the underwater acoustic signal feature library is of great significance for the identification of friend or foe and target judgment in wartime.

The third is the task of battlefield situation awareness and electronic intelligence gathering. As we all know, when the P-8A anti-submarine patrol aircraft undertakes submarine search and attack submarine tasks, it mainly uses special equipment including AN/ASQ-508 "advanced magnetic anomaly detection equipment" and AN/SSQ-101 airdrop sonar direction finding Buoys and AN/APY-10 maritime surveillance and target indicating radars located on the head.

Among them, the magnetic anomaly detector is mainly used to detect the abnormal magnetic field gradient caused by the submarine cutting the magnetic field in the deep sea. The sonar direction-finding buoy is mainly used to monitor the acoustic signal characteristics of the submarine in the active and passive mode, and the maritime surveillance and target indication radar is mainly used for surveillance. The periscope and snorkel of the submarine.

And it is precisely this AN/APY-10 radar that can not only be used for wide-area search in the ocean, but also can be used for synthetic aperture imaging or anti-synthetic aperture imaging mode to carry out surveying and mapping monitoring of land targets located in depth, according to US Navy tests The data believes that under fine weather and desert hilly terrain conditions, this radar can detect targets 300 kilometers away from the aircraft.

Therefore, the P-8A anti-submarine patrol aircraft can not only undertake anti-submarine tasks, but also undertake a certain degree of battlefield surveillance and target indication tasks. In fact, after the Indian army suffered a big loss in the Kalevan Valley in June this year, it has already done so.

▲Indian Navy P-8I

Finally, the ocean anti-submarine mission. When undertaking such tasks, the anti-submarine patrol aircraft is mainly responsible for the outer submarine search and submarine attack tasks for the aircraft carrier strike group deployed on the ocean. In terms of deployment and force deployment, the anti-submarine patrol aircraft generally needs to take off from the forward base, and then establish an anti-submarine cordon within the range of 200 to 300 nautical miles from the main threat direction of the aircraft carrier strike group. Helicopters, attack nuclear submarines located in the carrier strike group and even surface ships work closely together to drive the opponent’s attack nuclear submarine away from the deployment range of the carrier strike group as much as possible.

Of course, because ocean anti-submarine missions may need to be far away from the coast, the deployment and use of shore-based fixed-wing anti-submarine aircraft is relatively limited. Only when the aircraft carrier is relatively close to the coast of the intended combat area can it be supported by shore-based anti-submarine aircraft. There is no way. After the end of the Cold War and the difficulty of encountering the threat of Soviet attack nuclear submarines in the ocean, the US Navy eliminated the S-3B "pirate" carrier-based fixed-wing anti-submarine aircraft. Now it can only rely on it. "Poseidon" is anti-submarine.

Airdiving-200 mission

Then, after clarifying the opening method of the shore-based large fixed-wing anti-submarine patrol aircraft, the Chinese naval air force has used anti-submarine aircraft forces to the periphery of Taiwan's main island during this period, especially in the southwest airspace. Of course, its operational tactical considerations are obvious. .

Ocean anti-submarine and sea area anti-submarine are definitely not in touch for the time being, although in my opinion, when the Chinese Navy deploys to the sea between the first island chain and the second island chain in the future, the aircraft carrier strike group must also obtain shore-based fixed-wing anti-submarine aircraft. The offshore areas from the north and south sides of the Taiwan Strait to the Miyako Strait, the Bashi Strait and even the Mindoro Strait are actually areas where Chinese anti-submarine aircraft need to closely monitor and even establish anti-submarine cordon. But since it is a time of peace, whether it is offshore anti-submarine or ocean anti-submarine, it is a little too far away.

The only thing that can be said is that it seems to be the battlefield intelligence collection and reconnaissance and surveillance missions. In fact, another model dispatched by the Chinese navy during this period can be regarded as part of this point: in addition to the large-scale use of the Yun-8Q, the navy also handles the transportation. The -8 high-tech aircraft electronic warfare type has been pulled out, and even electronic warfare aircraft and fixed-wing anti-submarine patrol aircraft have cooperated. All this has undoubtedly demonstrated that not only the US military has been swaying back and forth in the East China Sea for this period of time, using various models to perform ISR/ELINT (intelligence-surveillance-reconnaissance/electronic intelligence) missions, and we have not been idle.

This kind of daily information gathering task is completely normal for the military of any country.