Japan to develop 3,000-km long-range missiles; deploy them in 2030s: report

Arms Race first policy by LDP government only exhaust Japanese society and general public more and more.

Japanese society where poverty and inequality expand, Poverty people decrease food, avoid to even use heater even if tough coldness to save cost, give up getting medical services, give up high education, give up marriage, give up having child, and abandon the future.

It's natural that birthrate is decreasing year by year, it cause to more decrease social security, expand unrest of future more and more.

But LDP government are crazy for arms race only.

Against the constitution, imprison those who sign these deals.

Weapons themselves are not against Article 9 of the constitution. Starting a war is.

People need to actially read it before making comments.

Japan finds itself decades behind North Korea and China on missile technology. Both North Korea and China already possess missiles with 2,000km and 3,000km range. Playing catch up is never fun. It used to be China in that particular boat but now it is Japan. It is about time that Japan caught up.

China will developing March 10 hypersonic missiles and four engines stealth bomber in response! It's time to solve the long duel!

In 2030s, the 096 SSBN will be in service with JL3 SLAMs, MIRV.

Perhaps the Chinese navy need to plan for global patrols because some targets was too close that need the missiles to be launch from a far away Ocean!

"Japan finds itself decades behind North Korea and China on missile technology"

I beg to differ.

A country capable of sending a probe all the way to Ryugu, collecting samples, and returning it to Earth, is most DEFINITELY capable of landing a missile (or two) anywhere inside this Planet!

China will developing March 10 hypersonic missiles and four engines stealth bomber in response! It's time to solve the long duel!

Perhaps they should consider what it will be like for Peking to go up in flames before trying to solve any duels.

A prime minister is always the leader of the winning party in a general election.

@OssanJapan

Weapons themselves are not against Article 9 of the constitution. Starting a war is.

Preemptive strike as advocated by LDP means starting a war.

@Peeping_Tom

I beg to differ.

What Peter14 says is true in certain respect.

1) Re-entry braking and target tracking : The whole anti-ship ballistic missile works only if the warhead is able to track target and change course during re-entry, when radars don't work and target seeking must be done by an optical sensor. Chinese supposedly are able to slow-down re-entry half-way, lock-on the target, then continue the dive. This is a very sophisticated maneuver that not even US missiles are able to perform currently, and only the ROK is attempting to duplicate this with their anti-ship ballistic missiles(Yes, ROK has a secret anti-ship ballistic missile program) among major powers.

2) High CEP : While neither China nor North Korea has the crazy 1.5m CEP like the ROK ballistic missiles have, their CEP is much much higher than Japanese missiles. Japanese are decades behind in high CEP ballistic missiles.

3) Evasive maneuver : Chinese, ROK, and NK ballistic missiles can perform evasive maneuvers, and Japan has nothing comparable. Japan's Epsilon rocket, long suspected to be a secret ballistic missile program, has no such capability.

4) Sub-launched ballistic missiles : Chinese, ROK, and NK all have sub-launched ballistic missiles in service, Japan has yet to start such a program and are a decade behind everyone.

5) Hypersonic propulsion : Both China and ROK are test flying their hypersonic cruise missiles right now. Japan is behind at least a decade as both Chinese and ROK hypersonic cruise missiles will enter service this decade.

Weapons themselves are not against Article 9 of the constitution. Starting a war is.

The only reason they would have 3000km range missles would be to preemptively strike first. If they are struck first, then they are done for. Get it?

@tora

The only reason they would have 3000km range missles would be to preemptively strike first.

Not at all. A 3,000 km range doesn't make it a first-strike weapon. The LDP decision to attack first under the name of "pre-emptive defensive strike" does.

Imagine the results of Japan (JAXA) signing deals with North Korea to develop interplanetary missions for the benefit of the two countries?

Instant peace and reconciliation and the betterment of mankind-a great deal!

One of the lessons from Putin's insane war against Ukraine is that the free countries of the world have to be able to defend themselves.

The only reason they would have 3000km range missles would be to preemptively strike first.

No, it is because they may be hit from such a distance.

If they are struck first, then they are done for. Get it?

Ukraine were hit first, and consecutively for ten months and guess what, they are still there. If Japan is hit first, they too will still be there and will have the means to hit back. Hence the deterrence value. Got it?!

Weapons that start wars are unconstitutional.

WWI was started buy a man with a pistol. Japan can already start a war if it wants one. It does not. Getting long range missiles will not alter that peace loving nature. But you cant convince those who believe otherwise. They object to any defensive moves Japan makes.

The only reason they would have 3000km range missles would be to preemptively strike first.

Total rubbish.

Peter14,China missile are less 600 miles range from all of Japan

Perhaps the Chinese navy need to plan for global patrols because some targets was too close that need the missiles to be launch from a far away Ocean!

SSBNs are supposed to be the undetectable second strike capability in the event an enemy launches a nuclear attack and takes out the bulk of their land based nuclear missiles and bomber force or their airfields. Having SSBNs in the ocean supposedly ensures a nuclear power cannot lose all its weapons to an enemy attack. That is supposed to deter an enemy from trying as they would face re-attack by those SSBNs.

The reality might be different because at least during the Cold War every Soviet SSBN was tailed by a western SSN and they would have been the first targets NATO navies attacked in the event of a war with the USSR and Warsaw Pact. I have to assume the US and other allied navies track Russian and Chinese SSBNs today. There are fewer to tail than during the Cold War.

The only reason they would have 3000km range missles would be to preemptively strike first.

Ummmmm, no. If a nation is attacked by a larger power it is useful to have weapons that allow you to strike deep into your enemies territory to hit airfields, troop staging areas, ammunition supply points and logistics hubs. Look at the situation in Ukraine. Ukraine needs exactly such weapons that can be stored and fired from relatively safe havens in their west at targets deep inside Russia. That isn't "pre-emptive strike" or "first strike" by any stretch of the vocabulary. For Japan to possess such weapons Chinese war planners would have to consider that were they to attack Japan the Japanese could hold vital military targets deep inside China at risk and disrupt the logistics of an attack on Japan. That is a deterrent to war.

1) Re-entry braking and target tracking : The whole anti-ship ballistic missile works only if the warhead is able to track target and change course during re-entry, when radars don't work and target seeking must be done by an optical sensor. Chinese supposedly are able to slow-down re-entry half-way, lock-on the target, then continue the dive. This is a very sophisticated maneuver that not even US missiles are able to perform 

Let's unpack this. First off, BMD systems like SM-3 and especially SM-3 block 2 engage the enemy missile in space long before the warhead and any decoys separate. Radars like An/SPY-1 and its successors AN-SPY-6 and AN/SPY-7 all work very well tracking objects in space including objects re-entering the atmosphere from space. The land based AN/TPY-2 radar likewise excels in tracking re-entering missiles. Russian and Chinese ground based radars can likewise track ballistic missiles in space and on re-entry.

While the incoming missile is indeed tracked by radar from the surface from launch to impact or destruction, in space the BMD kill vehicle on THAAD and SM-3 uses an imaging infrared (IIR) sensor to find the enemy missile. In space those work more effectively than the kind of active radar seeker used by the short range point defense Patriot PAC-3 interceptors that conduct their intercepts in the atmosphere where dust, haze and clouds degrade IIR seeker performance.

Number two, the maneuver you describe was developed in the late 1970s for Pershing II. Pershing II had a terrain correlation radar to improve accuracy against fixed targets Pershing II was also maneuverable, at Mach 8+ no less. After separation from the bus and re-entry into the atmosphere using a nose down attitude to minimize its radar cross section, At a predetermined altitude above the target, the terminal phase would begin. A velocity control maneuver (pull up, pull down) was executed under inertial guidance control to slow down the Re-entry Vehicle (RV) and achieve the proper impact velocity. The radar correlator system was activated and the radar scanned the target area. Radar return data was compared to pre-stored reference data and the resulting position fix information was used to update the inertial guidance system and generate RV steering commands. The RV was then maneuvered to the target by the RV vane control system. This is 1970s US tech. They were first deployed in 1979 in Europe. Now please tell us about how US missiles can't do these things.

Japanese are decades behind in high CEP ballistic missiles.

Waving the bs flag. CEPs are classified. You have no way of knowing the CEP of Japanese missiles.

 Both China and ROK are test flying their hypersonic cruise missiles right now. 

Everyone's ballistic missiles are hypersonic. So what? China has some prototype Hypersonic Glide Vehicles (HGVs) that are unpowered and lifted into space by a very conventional ballistic missile. The US Army will field a similar system this year with the Navy to follow next year. Subs and the three Zumwalt class DDGs will carry ballistic missiles that can deploy HGVs. DPRK doesn't have an HGV. What they have is a MARV, MAneuverable Re-entry Vehicle like Pershing II. Not so hard when all the tech behind Pershing II was declassified after the IMF treaty that made Pershing II and SS-24 illegal was signed. The Russians have a Pershing II in a museum in Moscow and the US has one hanging next to an SS-24 at the Smithsonian.

What Russia calls their "hypersonic cruise missile" is an Iskander ground based battlefield missile hung from the belly of a MiG-31. It would be like the US hanging the US Army's ATACMS missile from a jet and calling that a "hypersonic cruise missile". It isn't. The USAF is pursuing something along those lines but the goal is to use rocket power hit Mach 10. Nobody has ever fired anything from an airplane that goes Mach 10. NASA and the Air Force hit Mach 9.6 with the air breathing scramjet powered X-43 "Hyper-X" experimental aircraft dropped from a B-52 back in November 2004.

Russia is working on fielding an air breathing hypersonic scramjet powered cruise missile. The US and Australia have also successfully flown hypersonic air breathing scramjet cruise missile prototypes and the USAF will have one operational soon in a program called HAWC. Successful test program going into Engineering and Manufacturing Development.

Japan has a hypersonic scramjet in development. It successfully completed a combustion test on a sounding rocket last July.

What none of the fanbois understand is that going fast is only part of the problem to overcome. Now you have to make your missile controllable, be able to communicate with it, find a target and maneuver to hit it. At those speeds the airframe heat is staggering. Control forces necessary to maneuver are huge. Hot control surfaces can bend easily under the aerodynamic loads imposed on them. Lots of very special and very expensive alloys are involved. Control actuators have to be super powerful. And all that heat is basically melting or baking everything inside as it flies. Finding materials for radar apertures and antennas that work at those temperatures is hard material science.

YrralToday 12:35 am JST

China missile are less 600 miles range from all of Japan

So? Is there a point to that statement? Are they going to attack Japan? If so Japan should increase defense spending and air defense capabilities, right? Is that your point?

Thank you @DT for the in depth analysis and insightful posts. Your subject knowledge is always enlightening and on point.

Awa no GaijinJan. 2 11:39 pm JST

Japan can already start a war if it wants one. It does not.

Apparently you have yet to realize that technically Japan is still at war !

Everyone knows Russia is "technically" still at war with Japan but they have been for over 70 years with no shots fired. Is there someone else Japan remains at war with? Do tell us who that is.

Do you really think Japan will use new long range missiles against a nuclear armed nation? Or is there someone else people think Japan will start a war against?

Awa no GaijinJan. 2  05:47 pm JST

Preemptive strike as advocated by LDP means starting a war.

Exactly !

Weapons that start wars are unconstitutional.

Any weapon can start a war if that is the intent.

Try reading the actual clause before typing your unlettered comments.

"Article 9. Aspiring sincerely to an international peace based on justice and order, the Japanese people forever renounce war as a sovereign right of the nation and the threat or use of force as means of settling international disputes.

In order to accomplish the aim of the preceding paragraph, land, sea, and air forces, as well as other war potential, will never be maintained. The right of belligerency of the state will not be recognized."

https://japan.kantei.go.jp/constitution_and_government_of_japan/constitution_e.html

The distance from Matsue, Shimane Prefecture to the eastern coastal areas of North Korea is about 800 km; from northern Kyushu to Beijing about 1400 km.

So, by the early 2030s all North Korea and the bulk of mainland China will be within the range of Japan's newly　developed missile systems. Shanghai is a stone throw from JSDF Yonaguni camp and the newly installed Ishigaki missile base.

So, by the early 2030s all North Korea and the bulk of mainland China will be within the range of Japan's newly　developed missile systems.

Earlier than that, circa 2028, if Japan buys Tomahawks.