The media has been awash with reports about China's new "super-weapon," the DF-21D anti-ship missile, according to a Russian military affairs website.
The various reports talk of the risk posed to aircraft carriers approaching China's coastline, stating that they could be attacked by the missile and would be left unable to defend themselves against it.
In the 1960s, the Soviet Union and the US both began to turn their focus to developing anti-ship missiles. In the 1970s, the Soviet Union began testing the 4K18 intermediate-range ballistic anti-ship missile, also known as the R-27K, making Russia a pioneer in the field. The tests of the 4K18 were successful and the missile was commissioned by the Soviet Army. The missile never became popular, however, for a range of reasons, and it was decommissioned in the 1980s.
In the 1970s, the short-range Pershing II missile was developed in the US and deployed to Europe in the 1980s, causing a major crisis between the Soviet Union and NATO. In the late 1980s, after a treaty limiting nuclear arms, the Pershing II was withdrawn from Europe. The US and Russia have made no further attempts to build similar missiles. In the 1990s, however, the PLA started to research this kind of missile.
In the 1980s most of China's nuclear arsenal consisted of mid and short-range missiles, which, to this day, still make up the majority of China's missiles. The DF-21 first appeared in the early 1990s and soon after came an improved version the DF-21A, which shared a similar homing system to the Pershing II. However, its accuracy was around 100-300m.
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