Chinese Laser Guided Bombs
A picture taken in 1982 of a bomb-guided laser-guided bomb appeared on the Internet. Mounting an American-style guided bomb on a Soviet bomber gave a very strange feeling, and some people doubted whether the picture was true. of. The author believes that this picture may be a picture of the domestic 7712 laser-guided bomb test. This picture reveals the tip of the iceberg of the early development of laser-guided bombs in China.
At present, China's laser-guided bombs have been equipped with troops in batches, and the technical level has reached or approached the world's advanced level. Even the use of laser-guided composite guided bombs has been developed, which has effectively improved the ground strike capability of our military aviation.
In the eyes of ordinary people, it is very simple to throw a bomb to attack a ground target. It is almost a plane that can do it. In fact, the situation is quite the opposite of what we have seen. This process is very complicated, and we see it simple. It's just a simplification of complicated things. The author gives an example. The bomb will be affected by various factors during the launching process, such as the state of the carrier, the state of the bomb, the influence of the airflow and the wind during the flight, etc. The more complicated one is the influence of the wind. We know the wind. The changes are very complicated. The wind speed and wind direction will change with time, place and altitude. Especially at the low ground level, it is also affected by terrain and obstacles. It is more difficult to master the wind speed and direction.
In the design of fire control system attack ground targets, people made the following assumptions about the wind factor: the influence of vertical wind is not considered; the wind speed and wind direction are not considered; the wind speed and wind direction do not change within the range of bomb placement. Although this simplified design reduces the difficulty of the development of the fire control system, sometimes only a simple sight can be used to bomb the ground target, but the disadvantage is that the accuracy is drastically reduced, because the bomb is flying in the air, it is still affected by the wind, thus Cause changes in state and heading, reducing the accuracy of hits. This is especially true when hitting a point or line target, so there is a case where attacking a target may involve dozens or even hundreds of bombs, which leads to an increase in the number of aircraft movements and an increase in the damage rate. The United States attacked the Qinghua Bridge in the Vietnam War, dispatched thousands of aircraft, fired nearly 1,000 ordinary bombs, and failed to completely destroy it.
In this case, in order to improve the accuracy of the bomb's hit, it must be able to let the bomb know that it has deviated from the scheduled route and correct it. This is the guided bomb, and the most familiar one is the laser-guided bomb. The laser-guided bomb is a bomb with a laser-guided device that automatically guides the target. The range is long, the hit accuracy is high, the power is large, and it has strong anti-interference ability. When projecting, it uses the laser illuminator on the carrier to first illuminate the laser beam to the target. After being reflected by the target, it is received by the laser seeker mounted on the head of the bomb, and then photoelectrically converted to form an electrical signal, which is input into the bomb control cabin. Control the deflection of the bomb's rudder surface and direct the bomb to fly to the target.
Compared with ordinary bombs, the laser-guided bombs can achieve a precision of less than 10 meters. The power is high. Due to the high accuracy of the hits, the power of laser-guided bombs is different from other bombs under the same weight. Most of the ground bombs are lasers. Guided bombs are the reason; the cost is relatively low, the laser-guided bombs use semi-active laser guidance, there is no active components, so the equipment and structure are relatively simple, and the technology is relatively mature, so the price is relatively low; the cost is cheaper, due to the laser-guided bomb The probability of hitting is much higher than that of ordinary bombs, so the same goal may require dozens or even hundreds of bombs, but a laser-guided bomb can solve the problem, thus reducing the number of aircraft trips and reducing the damage rate. It is very realistic that a modern combat aircraft often needs hundreds of millions of dollars.
However, laser-guided bombs also have their own shortcomings. First of all, it requires the aircraft to illuminate the target for a long time, otherwise the bomb may be lost. This limits the maneuvering range of the aircraft and is easily attacked by the opponent. Therefore, modern combat aircraft often use high-altitude bombs and other modes of low-altitude illumination. There is also a poor anti-interference ability. Although the laser guidance system is well directional, it is easily interfered by various smokes, rains, etc. in the atmospheric transmission. Therefore, the all-weather combat capability and delivery distance of laser-guided bombs are greatly limited. This also affected the development of laser-guided bombs, so the 21st century laser-guided bombs gradually withdrew from the status of national guided bombs and gave way to guided bombs. However, the latter still does not reach the level of laser-guided bombs in terms of accuracy, so the two are still coexisting, and there is also a composite guided bomb with laser-guided guidance.
From the current domestic and international data, there is no obvious standard for laser-guided bombs. Generally, it is divided according to the development of the laser-guided bombs of the American Paveway series. The first generation is the Paveway-1, which adopts the wind-guided guide. The lead-head, relay-type gas cabin machine, and the canard-type aerodynamic layout, that is, the control rudder is behind the main main wing, the structure is relatively simple, the tactical technical index is low, the delivery distance is close, and the multi-target attack capability is not available. Based on the actual experience of Paveway-1, the United States has developed Paveway-2, which introduces a laser coding system into the laser guidance system, thereby improving the anti-jamming capability and multi-target combat capability of the guidance system. Wings, therefore, it is possible to use a larger wingspan of the wingspan, increase the lift-to-drag ratio of the full-elastic, increase the throwing distance, and use a large number of digital circuits and integrated circuits for the guidance and control system to improve the sensitivity and reliability of the seeker.
The Indian LCA fighters are currently in mass production, and recently began to test the domestic laser-guided bombs, anti-runway bombs, Russian-made R73 air-to-air missiles, and R77 medium-range air-to-air missiles. For 30 years, the Indian LCA fighters have come to this step! The Indian LCA fighters are currently in mass production, and recently began to test the domestic laser-guided bombs, anti-runway bombs, Russian-made R73 air-to-air missiles, and R77 medium-range air-to-air missiles. For 30 years, the Indian LCA fighters have come to this step.
Although the Paveway has a significant improvement over the performance of the first generation, its shortcomings are also very obvious. First of all, it can only be placed in the middle and high altitude, and can not be placed at low altitude. Therefore, the carrier is easily exposed to the scope of the other air defense system, and the security is low. Secondly, its guidance precision is not high, and it does not have the ability to attack moving targets, and the delivery distance is long. Therefore, the third generation of the Paveway-3 appeared. Its biggest feature is to replace the original weathering type seeker with the gyro-stabilized seeker, which increases the working range and working distance of the guidance system and can be placed at low altitude. The accuracy is further improved.
The fourth generation of the Paveway-4 further increased the launching distance. The actual combat experience gained by the United States in several local wars in the 1990s showed that the aircraft needed to deploy weapons at a height of 30 kilometers at a height of 10,000 meters, so the new generation of photoelectric pods The laser illumination distance is further increased, so the Paveway is equipped with a gliding wing to support a longer range, and a GPS/INS guidance system is added for use in harsh weather conditions. As for the future development of the laser guidance system, it is possible a guided bomb equipped with a laser active radar will appear, allowing the bomb to have a higher accuracy of delivery and the ability to be left unattended after delivery.
Throughout the development of China's laser-guided bombs, it can be said that it has taken a road of integrating things from the west to the east, and finally developed a space-precision guided weapon with its own characteristics. It can be said that it is the epitome of the country's development path. With the improvement of economic strength, China’s precision-guided weapons will be even stronger.
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