The demarcated airspace for the soft-kill test of simulated cruise missile targets was selected near the Zhongsha Sea area, which is about 600 kilometers away from Qiong Province.

That is to say, in the past two years, the equipment of the naval aviation, especially the aviation of the South China Sea Fleet, has been updated relatively rapidly, and if it had been four or five years earlier, not many planes would have been able to fly there safely and return after a low-altitude test......

As for why it was necessary to choose a place so far away......

Naturally, it was also the result of the discussion between Xu Yang and Chang Haonan before the test.

Although the range of this "soft kill self-defense countermeasure system" was only calibrated at 20-30 km when it was first designed, the situation is really different between electronic equipment and mechanical structures.

Because the influence of electromagnetic waves by environmental factors is too outrageous, even Chang Haonan cannot accurately grasp the design values as he did when designing the aircraft, leaving as little margin as possible in order not to "waste" performance.

Moreover, in his prediction, the place where this equipment will play a role should be a city in the midst of war, where the signal environment is extremely complex, and it may even face electromagnetic interference from both warring sides.

Therefore, he had to leave enough redundancy in the design.

But in this way, in a place like the area around Qiong Province where the background noise is quite clean, how far can this thing go......

No one counted.

And this thing is said to be specifically for positioning and navigation signals to interfere, but firstly, the frequency limitation is not so accurate, and secondly, the GPS signal itself has a certain width, such as the L1 frequency band at 1575.42MHz, the L2 frequency band at 1227.60MHz and so on

In order to avoid too much movement, such as affecting the work of radio equipment in a large city, it is easier to put it in a slightly farther position.

Fortunately, in the past two years, the navy has conducted more far-sea flight training than in the past few decades combined, so for Tang Yiping, who has just taken off, this is not a big deal.

Moreover, at a distance of 600 kilometers, the airborne shortwave radio station can still communicate with the Lingshui base through ionospheric reflection.

In the absence of a satellite positioning system, the aircraft can only navigate through a few methods such as gyroscope integration or wireless power triangulation, and relies heavily on flight visual search for landmarks for positioning.

After about 40 minutes of flying, Tang Yiping finally saw a half-hidden reef under the blue sea surface in the sea in his field of vision, which was roughly in the shape of a "door".

He lowered his head and compared it with a photograph in the clear pocket of his thigh to confirm that the features were identical.

"Base, No. 01 has already visually discovered the Divine Fox Dark Sand, and is about to enter the test airspace."

The quality of communication from the shortwave station was mediocre, so he then repeated it twice in a row.

Soon the slightly muffled voice of the tower commander sounded over the radio:

"Received, the target missile carrier ship is currently located southwest of Shenhu Dark Sands, about 40 nautical miles in the direction of 240, please pay attention to the search of airspace in this direction."

After confirming that his position was correct and adjusting the flight position according to the instructions of the base, Tang Yiping gently pushed the control stick and lowered the plane to an altitude of about 500 meters-

In fact, for flying above the sea surface, 500 meters is not considered high (below 1000 meters is considered low).

In addition, the purpose of his descent is to provide a milder angle of electromagnetic wave emission for the fire control radar and self-defense countermeasures, rather than a low-altitude penetration like in the previous face of the Royal Navy fleet.

There's no need to play so thrilling.

That is, at this time, the HUD in front of Tang Yi's plane has already shown that 1 target is flying towards him diagonally at high subsonic speed, at a distance of about 80 kilometers.

Of course, it can't be a target bomb.

The YJ-8A is very small in size, and it is generally cylindrical, and the radar reflection area is not large, and it is impossible to catch a target at a distance of 80 km for a radar of the technical level of the early 90s, such as 1472.

"Probably the J-7 that carried out the escort flight forensics mission......"

Tang Yiping quickly judged the nature of the target.

Sure enough, about half a minute later, the radar detected three more signals with weaker signals and slightly lower flight altitudes.

The test is divided into two parts, corresponding to mode 3 and mode 4 of the preset jamming algorithm, corresponding to the key jamming height signal and the key jamming plane position signal, respectively.

Therefore, the six target shells will be fired in two rounds.

At this time, the South China Sea Fleet did not even have a surface ship that was on standby and could launch the YJ-8A, so it had to transfer a 053H2 frigate from the East China Sea Fleet, the Yellowstone.

This model, which has not left much color in the sequence of the People's Navy, uses a rather special weapon arrangement, and all the anti-ship missiles on board can be fired at the side and forward at the same time, which is also one of the reasons for being selected to participate in the test.

After confirming that he could stably search for the target, Tang Yiping tried to adjust the radar to the tracking mode before entering the jamming distance.

It wasn't part of the test, he just wanted to see if he could lock onto a target the size of a cruise missile at this distance.

The result was unexpected, a failure.

It could only track the huge target J-7, but until the distance of about 35 kilometers, it was still powerless against the other three small targets.

In order to prevent the two pilots of the J-7 from listening to the radar warning sound for too long, Tang Yiping quickly turned off the tracking mode, and then pressed the button marked "SKSPCS (ON)" in the multi-function display, and then silently waited for the results to appear.

This is the charm of electronic warfare, which cannot be seen or touched, but it can ward off the enemy invisibly.

On the other side, the two J-7 pilots had just recovered from the shrill RWR prompt.

The weapons controller in the back seat held up his camera and pointed it at the right side of the plane.

Although not much is visible to the naked eye, the zoomed-in image in the viewfinder reveals that three missiles painted in black and white latticework are flying forward at high speed with tail flames.

The YJ-8A missile still uses a solid rocket engine with a booster instead of a turbojet engine, so even in the middle of the flight, it will have a more obvious tail flame effect.

This is of little significance for radar-guided weapons, but it will be easily detected by infrared means.

"This Deputy Commander Tang can't be mistaken, right...... Why did you still use the radar to lock on......"

He felt that his hand holding the camera was a little numb:

"And these three missiles don't look like they have any reaction, can they do it......"

The flight altitude of this J-7 was much lower than Tang Yiping's No. 01, so the pilot focused almost all his attention on the sea surface and did not respond to the complaints of the ballast counterweight behind.

The weapons controller wanted to say something more, but at this moment, the three missiles in the distance suddenly began to drop altitude almost synchronously.

"I'll ...... It seems to have an effect......"

He quickly pressed the shutter continuously to capture this most critical stage.

Normal anti-ship missiles search for targets in the seeker and drop altitude when they enter the end of the attack, but these three target missiles do not have this function.

In fact, they were even dismantled with guidance radars and radio altimeters.

It is set to continue to fly for approximately 100-150 meters until it is disturbed, or the fuel and speed are completely depleted.

Now their rocket engines have not even completely stopped working, and it is clear that this cannot be the latter case.

The flight attitude of the target missile does not look like a dive, but more like a fine-tuning of the flight attitude after discovering that it is not at the preset flight altitude.

It also conforms to the working logic of interference mode 3.

Eventually, after about 40 seconds, the three targets crashed into the sea one after another, and were instantly shattered by the huge impact of the water's surface, setting off a small splash on the calm sea.

The weapon controller's camera captured the moment with precision.

"Alright, ready for the second round of testing."

He was finally able to lower his arms and take a break while he reported on the radio.

……

However, at the same time.

The three targets are not the only ones affected by the satellite positioning system interference.

About 15 nautical miles further from the Yellowstone, the Annam Navy's HQ-15 Van O Lao frigate is heading southeast.

This ship is actually a Bejia class of the former Red Navy, with a displacement of only 950 tons, and has been in service for almost 40 years.

However, after the détente with the United States at the end of the 80s, limited improvements were made to the old ship, which allowed it to remain in service.

It was here by complete coincidence, and had nothing to do with the tests on the Huaxia side, just a routine delivery of supplies and rotational personnel to about a platoon stationed in a bunker on the South China Reef.

Inside the bridge, Captain Nguyen Anh Thuan is holding a telescope and looking at the sea in the distance.

Of course, not for the purpose of searching for any target.

It's already the end of the 90s, and if you wait until you see the target with a telescope, you will be sunk long ago.

Besides, even in the naval battles that took place within visual range in the early years, the Annam Navy has never won.

In fact, since China has been completely unable to effectively control the southern seas for a long time, such transportation tasks in the southern seas are generally considered to be risk-free.

Just because there was an Annam TV reporter who was accompanying the ship for an interview, it was necessary to take a series of photos showing the image of the captain.

"Captain Ruan, it's already been filmed."

The reporter put down the camera in his hand:

"Could you please tell us how we can be determined in such a vast sea with no reference?"

Ruan Yingjun put the telescope aside, turned his head and explained:

"In the past, a sextant was used to measure the angle between the celestial body and the horizon to determine the latitude and longitude of the celestial body, but the accuracy was relatively poor, and many times radio or landmarks were needed to assist ......"

"But now you can use the satellite positioning system directly, and here, now almost every ship we have ......"

He took the reporter to the satellite navigation terminal and pressed a few buttons to calculate the current position.

But halfway through the words, he got stuck in his throat.

The terminal showed that the altitude of their ship, which was traveling at sea level, was ......

350 meters?

(End of chapter)