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reuters reported on september 17 that due to the conflict between russia and ukraine, the u.s. strategic concept of containing china in the "indo-pacific region" has changed. the united states is stockpiling a large number of low-cost anti-ship weapons to strengthen the u.s. military's power in the "indo-pacific region" and deter china.

according to an anonymous missile company ceo, the ukrainian crisis has prompted the united states to pay more attention to cost-effectiveness in its military strategy. the industry insider called this concept "affordable mass", which means stockpiling a large number of relatively cheap and easy-to-manufacture weapons to deal with "threats".

the report said that the united states has stepped up testing of its "quick sink" weapon, a cheap, mass-produced guided bomb equipped with a low-cost global positioning system (gps) guidance package and a seeker that can track moving objects. last month, the u.s. air force tested the bomb using a b-2 stealth bomber in the gulf of mexico, sinking a decommissioned cargo ship.

gbu-31 joint direct attack munitions mounted on a u.s. fighter jet. u.s. air force

this guided bomb is manufactured by boeing of the united states, and the seeker comes from the british aerospace systems (bae), which is reportedly still under development. according to reuters, "fast sink" can be used with thousands of joint direct attack munition tail kits, a system that can be dropped by us or allied fighters, turning 900 kg "dumb bombs" into guided weapons at a low price.

the report quoted experts as saying that although china still has a great advantage in the number of anti-ship missiles and can deploy them locally in the "indo-pacific region", the united states will narrow the gap if it increases the production of "quick sinking" missiles.

an industry executive who declined to be named said that the u.s. indo-pacific command has been planning to stockpile thousands of "quickly sinking" weapons for many years. the executive claimed that as long as there are enough "affordable large-scale" weapons aimed at chinese warships, china's ship defense system will be hit hard.

the report said that according to the plan, the us military would use long-range anti-ship missiles or "standard-6" (sm-6) ship-borne air defense missiles to attack chinese warships and radars, and then bomb them with cheap weapons such as "quick sinking".

the pentagon and china's defense ministry did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

it is worth mentioning that the u.s. military also took the "sinking" exercise as the highlight of the "rimpac 2024" exercise that ended on august 2. cnn said at the time that the powerful anti-ship attack capability demonstrated by the u.s. military in this exercise was an obvious signal to china.

however, a chinese expert told the global times that the us military's much-vaunted "quick sinking" tactic is actually a modification of the traditional satellite-guided bomb. it has no power plant and can only glide. it not only has limited maneuverability, but also has no stealth capability, making it easy to be discovered and intercepted by modern fleet air defense systems. in terms of performance, the penetration capability of this modified version of the guided bomb is far inferior to that of modern anti-ship missiles. the only advantage worth mentioning is that it is cheap.

previously, the u.s. air force had planned to use b-1b bombers carrying agm-158c long-range anti-ship missiles to attack enemy fleets, but the pentagon later discovered that the number of long-range anti-ship missiles in the u.s. military inventory was far from enough to support such a large-scale attack. therefore, using the b-2 to drop modified gbu-31 guided bombs can only be regarded as a scaled-down version of the above plan, and is an emergency measure taken by the u.s. military in the case of insufficient production capacity of advanced anti-ship missiles.

comesource | observer.com