Since the founding of New China, the situation in the surrounding waters has been unstable. With the strength of China's navy, China should be ready to attack American ships at any time. In April 2023, our Guiyang and Qiqihar ships gathered in the Yellow Sea to conduct naval exercises.

Close combat in modern naval warfare

However, the most surprising thing about the exercise was the battle between two 052D ships. As a shield ship, 052D is a suitable advanced warship. According to the standard of modern naval warfare, this warship should throw anti-ship missiles at each other from a long distance, but in the exercise, Guiyang and Qiqihar ships attacked each other at close range with the main guns and auxiliary guns. In fact, the exercises between Guiyang and Qiqihar ships greatly enhanced the naval capabilities of China naval officers and soldiers under some special circumstances.

Although the distance of modern naval warfare is getting farther and farther, the role of warship main guns is getting smaller and smaller, but in some special cases, warship main guns still have the power of World War I, just like air combat between fighters. Although the existence of air-to-air missiles greatly reduces the possibility of dog fighting between fighters, we can't guarantee that in some extreme cases, there will be no dog fighting scenes in the air force, so modern fighter designs retain machine guns.

The same is true for warships. Compared with the missiles used by fighter planes, the anti-ship missiles used by warships have one feature, that is, the safe use distance. Modern naval warfare is a fleet of ships, and such a fleet will be tens of kilometers deep, so there is a very dangerous thing, that is, when a warship in the fleet launches an anti-ship missile, it is difficult for the missile to identify the enemy and the enemy.

Although modern missiles have IFF system, the speed of modern missiles is at most Mach 0.8~0.9, not to mention China Eagle Strike -2 1 a hypersonic missile with a speed above Mach 5. When the anti-ship missile is launched, it will pass through the entire fleet formation in a few seconds, and the friend-or-foe identification system on the missile cannot identify which warship is one of its own in such a short time.

In order to ensure that there is no "friendly attack", modern missiles have set a safe distance. After the missile is launched, it will not hit the target several nautical miles or even dozens of nautical miles away from the launching position. Therefore, when the distance between enemy ships and warships is only tens or even several kilometers, neither of the two anti-ship missiles can be used.

Therefore, in modern naval warfare, the main guns and auxiliary guns will not disappear completely, just like dog fights will still occur in some extreme cases in air combat, so close combat may occur between warships of the two armies in modern naval warfare, and from a tactical point of view, it is very possible to fight close between warships.

Is it possible for warships to meet the enemy at close range?

One is that the ocean itself has a shielding effect on warships, and the electromagnetic waves emitted by radar will reflect wildly on the sea surface, producing heavy noise. Therefore, under the same technology and power, the detection distance of ship-borne radar carried by warships is much shorter than that of airborne radar. The other is that modern warships are more or less invisible, especially those made after 2 1 century like zumwalt and 055 Drive.

When these warships are on the mast, we can see that their deployment surface area is very small, and they don't have "hangers" like the Alibek class. Moreover, because the size of these warships is smaller than that of aircraft carriers, the "stealth" will be further improved without aircraft carriers in the fleet composed of these warships. Third, there is a tactic in modern naval warfare called silent navigation. Any electronic equipment will generate electromagnetic waves when it is running, and the power system and living facilities on warships will also generate heat.

So there is the tactic of silent navigation, which is simply to "hold back" and let most warships shut down and run at low power, which can greatly reduce the probability of enemy ships finding themselves. The fourth is strict and accurate navigation planning. In addition to the radar on warships, remote sensing satellites are also a major means to find enemy ships. For satellite powers like China and the United States, a large number of remote sensing satellites can greatly improve the probability of finding enemy ships.

However, satellites also have natural enemies, and that is clouds. By predicting the changes of clouds, a voyage that has been hiding under clouds can also avoid being discovered by the enemy. From the above means, it is not difficult to see that there are actually many means for warships to meet the enemy at close range, so the training subjects like Guiyang Ship and Qiqihar Ship are not aimless, and China's future opponent at sea is not just the United States. In the absence of an aircraft carrier in the enemy fleet, it is not a small probability event that the destroyers of both sides approach and the main guns engage.

The strength of China's navy?

Of course, it is not our navy's strong point for warships to meet the enemy at close range. When China's navy needs to meet the enemy at close range, the biggest advantage of our navy-hypersonic missile is directly gone. China's Eagle Strike -2 1 is the longest and fastest ship-borne anti-ship missile in active service, and it is also the only hypersonic ship-borne anti-ship missile in the world.

The average anti-ship missile has a range of less than 300 kilometers, while the harpoon missile that the United States relies most on has a range of only 100 kilometers. The range of carrier-based aircraft is only about 300 kilometers, while the range of Eagle Strike -2 1, 000 ~ 1, 500 kilometers, which directly hangs all the ship-based anti-ship missiles on the market. So, when I was in the market,

When our warships need to bombard each other with the enemy's main guns at close range, it also means that the possibility of our warships being damaged or even sunk is greatly improved. In order to ensure the superiority of our army, the depth of the battlefield in naval warfare is naturally the greater the better. In order to achieve this goal, China has also made a lot of efforts, first of all, it is the only heavy multi-purpose carrier aircraft J-15 in the world.

Heavy carrier-based aircraft means that it has a longer range, which can also expand the range of activities of carrier-based aircraft in China to a greater extent and greatly improve the speed of our army in finding enemy ships. Secondly, China's shipborne early warning aircraft, only the United States has active fixed-wing early warning aircraft, but the service of Air Police -600 will be put on the agenda after the Fujian ship of China completes its service. By then, the air police -600 can support a "reconnaissance" with a radius of 1000 km.