And this as well...China Upgrading Surface-to-Air Missile System
5:58 am PST, 17 January 2001
China is upgrading its KS-1 surface-to-air missile system – a low- to high-altitude weapon – to its enhanced KS-1A configuration, Jane’s Defense reported Monday.
The original KS-1 configuration entered service with the People’s Liberation Army in 1967, to augment and then replace older HY-2 SAM systems. The HY-2 was based significantly on an old Soviet system, the SA-2 – effective against U.S. air forces during the Vietnam war.
However, the newer KS-1 configuration, sources told Jane’s, likely entered service with the PLA around 1996 and has been offered for export on the international weapons market.
The PLA currently deploys two versions of the KS-1 – one static and one semi-mobile version. The mobile version is mounted on a 6x6 truck and features a turntable with a pair of KS-1 missiles in the "ready-to-launch" position.
"A typical battery would consist of one radar and guidance station and four launchers with eight missiles ready to fire and 18 in reserve," Jane’s said.
The original KS-1 weighed 900 kg (1,985 pounds) and had a maximum speed of 1,200 meters/second (0.7 mile/second), with a minimum range of 7,000 meters (4.3 miles) and a maximum range of 42,000 meters (26.5 miles). The system is capable of engaging targets traveling at maximum speed of 750 meters/second (2,460 ft./second).
The upgraded version, Jane’s said, features a trailer-mounted phased-array radar similar to "one used by the US Raytheon Systems AM/MPQ-53 Patriot SAM system."
Analysts believe China was able to obtain the technology for the radar and associated missile systems from abroad – perhaps Israel, with whom China has had a number of "undisclosed programs."
Other analysts said, however, that the new radar system for the KS-1A may be a combination of the U.S. system and one employed by Russia for its S-300 (SA-10D) surface-to-air systems, which China has recently acquired.
Jane’s said sources believe the new upgraded version is has a greater range and higher ceiling of operation, but "it is not known whether the high-explosive fragmentation warhead of the missile with its radio-frequency proximity fuze has been improved."
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