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Hong Kong (CNN) - While China exhibited some of its most powerful weapons during the celebrations that commemorated the 70th anniversary of the communist state on Tuesday, the U.S. Navy tested its new firepower in the Pacific.
In the waters of Guam, the USS Gabrielle Giffords fired a naval attack missile (NSM), a cruise missile that is difficult to detect on the radar and can maneuver to avoid enemy defenses.
The NSM, along with a variety of other weapons, were fired at a US Navy surplus frigate. UU., The former USS Ford, which was towed to the Pacific to act as an objective in an exercise called SINKEX.
USS Ford
The Giffords is the first US Navy ship to be deployed with the Naval Strike Missile, and analysts say it helps the equation in the Pacific, where China has been increasing its missile arsenal in terms of quality and quantity.
China now enjoys a 3-to-1 advantage in cruise missiles over the United States, but the naval attack missile can eventually "change the game," said Carl Schuster, former U.S. Navy captain and now an instructor at the University of Hawaii Pacific
"The Pentagon is building a military force that can operate more sustainably and has a better chance of fighting and surviving within the denial of the EPL's anti-access access area envelope," said Timothy Heath, senior defense analyst at Rand Corp., referring to the mixture of ships, planes and missiles accumulated by the People's Liberation Army (EPL) of China to control parts of the Pacific.
The EPL was showing much of that new arsenal on Tuesday in Beijing, from intercontinental ballistic missiles to new underwater drones.
“It's about showing how much progress you have made and how much more advanced you are compared to previous years. Now, China has a better ability to defend itself. It deserves equal and fair treatment from other powers, ”Tong Zhao, a military analyst and professor at the Carnegie Tsinghua Center, told CNN.
Much of the tension between the United States and China has focused on the South China Sea, one of the most disputed areas in the world. Multiple countries claim parts of the highly commercial region, but Beijing's claim is by far the most expansive, covering most of the sea.
The elegant and stealthy Giffords is a coastal combat ship (LCS) designed for shallow water operations around the coasts and islands.
Most of the ships in the growing US Navy LCS fleet, which will eventually add more than 30, are armed with the naval attack missile, Navy officials told a Senate armed services subcommittee earlier this year.
The key to the naval attack missile is its range of more than 160 kilometers, 30% farther than the Harpoon missiles that the Navy has been using in this anti-ship capacity.
The ability to work with a helicopter-type drone allows the ship to aim outside of what its own surface radars can see.
Tuesday's SINKEX real-fire exercise in the Pacific also saw missiles launched from other US Navy planes, bombs dropped from US Air Force B-52 bombers and Harpoon missiles launched by two steamed frigates of the Singapore Navy .
"This exercise provided important opportunities for realistic training at sea with real ammunition, conditions that cannot be duplicated otherwise," the US Navy captain said in a statement. UU. Matthew Jerbi, co-commander of the exercise. "Training with our Singapore partners in a complex exercise like this is invaluable."
Singapore Colonel Lim Yu Chuan said the exercise was "a valuable platform for the two marinas to strengthen our mutual cooperation and interoperability."
"With the vast training space available in the waters of Guam, the exercise also gives the RSN (Singapore Navy) the opportunity to perform exercises of high range of substantial scope and complexity," said Lim.
Missiles
