Free Republic

Pictures have emerged in China of a new submarine-launched variant of the YJ-18 supersonic anti-ship missile. The pictures show two slides from a presentation given by a retired People's Liberation Army Navy (PLAN or Chinese Navy) Rear Admiral at a Univertisty in August. Launch capsule of the YJ-18 submarine launched variant The first picture shows a launch capsule (the vehicle for the underwater part of the launch) which appears similar in shape and size to the Russian Kalibr capsule. The second image shows the missile breaking the surface during a test launch. While some open sources refer to the submarine...

Images have emerged on the Chinese internet showing what seems to be a mobile coastal variant of the YJ-18 (YingJi-18 or Eagle/Hawk-18) vertically-launched, long-range, supersonic, anti-ship missile. Two types of vehicles are shown in the recent pictures: a 12x12 chassis acting as the transporter erector launcher (TEL) vehicle and a smaller 8x8 chassis that could be the transporter/reloader vehicle (or a different missile as the canisters appear to be quite smaller than on the 12x12). The missile launched from the 12x12 vehicle seems quite large, but one has to remember that a shore based anti-ship variant of YJ-18 could be...