Chinese Air-Launched Land-Attack Cruise Missiles (Report Preview)

Note: The following text is part of a forthcoming SPAS Consulting Report examining the strengths and limitations of China's long-range conventional strike capabilities.

KD-63 Land-Attack Cruise Missile

The KD-63 air-launched land-attack cruise missile was the first standoff land-attack munition available for use with the PLAAF’s fleet of H-6 bomber aircraft. Although it is built in China and reflects Chinese research and development efforts, the KD-63 air-launched land-attack cruise missile is part of a family of Chinese anti-ship and land-attack cruise missiles derived from the Soviet P-15, an early anti-ship cruise missile that was developed in the 1950s and fielded in the early 1960s. 

The Soviet P-15 is a very large and heavy anti-ship cruise missile design that weighs over 2500 kg. This reflects not only the state of early Cold War Soviet technology but also the large supply of onboard fuel and oxidizer required by the liquid-fuelled rocket engine that powers the P-15. The Soviet Union transferred the design and technology of the P-15 to China prior to the Sino-Soviet Split. Over the following decades, the Chinese versions of the Soviet P-15 underwent a series of evolutions in the form of the Chinese SY and HY series of anti-ship cruise missiles, which are best known internationally as the Silkworm. The most significant change that Chinese designers would make to the underlying Soviet P-15 design in later decades was to replace the liquid-fuelled rocket engine with an air-breathing turbojet engine in the HY-4 surface-launched anti-ship cruise missile. Introduced in the early 2000s, the KD-63 is, in effect, an air-launched land-attack cruise missile derived from the turbojet-powered HY-4. 

The KD-63 air-launched land-attack cruise missile, which was deployed by the early 2000s, was developed for use with the then-new turbojet-powered H-6H bomber, which first flew in 1998. As a turbojet-powered derivative of the Soviet P-15, the KD-63 amounted to a significant upgrade over the ~100 km range liquid-fuelled rocket-powered subsonic YJ-6 air-launched anti-ship cruise missile. The YJ-6, another Chinese derivative of the Soviet P-15 anti-ship cruise missile that relied on an active radar homing seeker, was carried by the much smaller fleet of turbojet-powered H-6D bombers operated by the PLANAF from the 1980s onward. Whereas the YJ-6 was a fire-and-forget air-launched anti-ship cruise missile equipped with an active radar homing seeker that was only suitable for use against surface ships, the PLAAF’s original KD-63 was equipped with an electro-optical seeker and functioned as a human-in-the-loop land-attack cruise missile that could, in practice, also be used against surface ships.

The air-launched KD-63 land-attack cruise missile reportedly weighs around 2000 kg and has a reported nominal maximum range of around 200 km. The maximum practical range of the KD-63 is affected by its flight profile and the requirement for the launch aircraft to remain within line-of-sight of the missile in the terminal phase of flight. All else being equal, range can be maximized with a higher-altitude flight profile that minimizes the time-distance spent at lower altitudes. As with any air-launched munition, the maximum practical range of the KD-63 is affected by the speed and altitude of the host aircraft at the time the munition separates from the host aircraft. 

Little information is available about the design of the KD-63’s reported 500 kg warhead. The KD-63 may be equipped with a basic blast-fragmentation warhead – analogous to a general purpose aerial bomb – without advanced fusing options. Variants may exist with other warheads, such as a penetrator warhead capable of damaging and destroying hardened structures. There is no indication of a submunitions variant that will likely have externally distinguishable features for submunition ejection. 

It is not clear whether the original KD-63 design can be employed as an autonomous fire-and-forget standoff air-launched cruise missile. Publicly available imagery of KD-63 specimens feature a small nose-mounted sensor that, when coupled with a two-way radio data link, allows the KD-63 to attack targets identified and selected by the weapons system operator in the H-6 bomber that launched the missile. While this human-in-the-loop mode of operation is useful in a land-attack cruise missile design with a reported nominal maximum range of no more than 200 kilometers, it is more likely to reflect on the inadequacy of the inertial navigation system – uncorrected by terrain contour matching system, a digital scene matching area correlator, or a GNSS array – that the original KD-63 would otherwise be reliant upon. It is important to note that the widely reported nominal maximum range of the KD-63 may be misleading. Not only is the maximum range of the KD-63 determined by the altitude at which it is launched from an H-6 bomber, but the reported maximum range of 180 kilometers may reflect the practical limits of its human-in-the-loop mode of operation rather than the maximum distance that can be covered with the onboard fuel supply from a given launch altitude.

Originally equipped with a nose-mounted electro-optical seeker, KD-63 specimens observed since the early 2010s, which may have the designation KD-63B, appear to instead feature an imaging infrared seeker. The KD-63B also appears to incorporate a conformal antenna, something not observed in the original KD-63 design introduced in the early 2000s. The production history of the KD-63 over the 2010s is not public knowledge, and observed KD-63B specimens may reflect new-build missiles, upgrades to existing missiles, or some combination thereof.

Assuming the availability of reliable and accurate positioning data in the face of adversary efforts toward jamming and/or spoofing GNSS signals, the incorporation of a GNSS antenna has likely had the effect of turning the KD-63B into a fire-and-forget standoff air-launched cruise missile. That said, it is not known whether the apparent nose-mounted imaging infrared sensor found on the KD-63B simply substitutes for the electro-optical sensor in a primarily human-in-the-loop mode of operation or, alternatively, if the imaging infrared sensor can be used in an autonomous fire-and-forget mode of operation (the imaging infrared sensor likely requires coolant and the onboard supply of coolant will determine the maximum possible minutes of autonomous operation). In any event, the incorporation of both a GNSS antenna and an imaging infrared sensor in the KD-63B has likely turned the KD-63 into an all-weather design, which is an important consideration given the regular cloud cover and fog found along China’s maritime frontier. Should the KD-63B amount to an autonomous fire-and-forget land-attack cruise missile, i.e., one that is not tethered to the H-6 bomber that launched it by way of a line-of-sight radio data link, it may have a greater practical maximum range than the original KD-63. It bears emphasis that this has not been confirmed.

At the time of its introduction in the early 2000s, the KD-63 offered the PLAAF a major boost in terms of its long-range strike capabilities. While the PLAAF operated a steadily growing number of Russian-built Su-27 and Su-30 fighter aircraft and, in time, Chinese-built J-10 fighters and Chinese-assembled J-11 fighters, as well as the Chinese-built JH-7A strike aircraft, even the aggregation of the PLAAF’s modernized units remained inferior to Taiwan’s air force well into the 2000s. The KD-63 air-launched land-attack cruise missile amounted to an expedient way for the PLAAF to target Taiwan without requiring PLAAF aircraft to fly near the Taiwanese coastline, let alone over the island of Taiwan itself. A quarter century later, however, the KD-63 design family, including the KD-63B, amounts to an outdated and cumbersome design that incorporates negligible measures toward signature reduction. The KD-63 is, therefore, likely to be subject to very high rates of interception by Taiwan’s air defences and fighter aircraft in wartime. 

While observers may be tempted to view the KD-63 as an unimportant relic from the PLAAF’s not so distant past, it bears emphasis that the size of the PLAAF’s arsenal of KD-63 cruise missiles is not public knowledge and this cumbersome old design appears to be integrated with even the latest turbofan-powered version of the H-6 bomber family, the reportedly nuclear-capable H-6N. It is possible that the KD-63 constitutes a significant portion of the standoff munitions arsenal available for use with the PLAAF’s fleet of turbofan-powered H-6K/H-6J/H-6N bombers. Depending on the size of the KD-63 arsenal, KD-63 cruise missiles may be expended early in a conflict with the aim of inducing the depletion of Taiwan’s finite supply of surface-to-air and air-to-air missiles. Given its large warhead and high signature, the KD-63 may instead be held in reserve for use once the PLA neutralizes the bulk of Taiwan’s ground-based air defence capabilities and the bulk of the Taiwanese air force. The increasingly outdated KD-63 may, as such, remain an important part of the PLAAF’s arsenal of long-range conventional strike munitions in 2025, not least in a context in which the PLAAF does not appear to have a large number of guided glide bombs in its arsenal.

Unlike the original liquid-fuelled rocket-powered Soviet P-15 design, which could, in effect, be stored indefinitely in an unfueled state, the solid propellant contained in the KD-63 has an expiration date, and at some point, the PLAAF may decide that further life extension efforts are not worthwhile. This may or may not lead to the scrapping of expired KD-63 cruise missiles – the PLAAF may place these missiles in deep storage for emergency use. That said, expired air-launched munitions constitute a major hazard to the launch aircraft and aircrew. There are, moreover, other lower-cost ways of inducing the expenditure of Taiwan’s finite stocks of surface-to-air and air-to-air missiles.

The KD-63 air-launched land-attack cruise missile is exclusively carried by PLAAF bomber aircraft and cannot be employed by any part of the combined fleet of ~2200 non-bomber crewed fixed-wing combat aircraft reportedly deployed by the PLAAF and PLANAF in early 2025. The integration of the KD-63 has been confirmed with the PLAAF’s turbojet-powered H-6M, turbofan-powered H-6K, and turbofan-powered, reportedly nuclear-capable H-6N bombers.

KD-88 Land-Attack Cruise Missile

The KD-63 constituted the PLAAF bomber fleet’s first operational standoff guided land-attack munition. The KD-63 was, however, far too large and heavy to be operated by the PLAAF’s non-bomber aircraft, not least the low- to medium-weight Chinese derivatives of early Cold War Soviet fighter designs that constituted the vast majority of PLAAF – and PLANAF – fixed–wing combat aircraft fleet well into the 2000s. Although the PLAAF had laser-guided bombs in its arsenal, these employ a semi-active laser homing guidance system and require the launch aircraft or an external source to illuminate the intended target until the moment of impact. Laser-guided glide bombs, including solid-fuelled rocket-boosted glide bombs with extended range, were an option for the PLAAF but are impractical and solid-fuelled rocket-powered guided air-to-surface missiles like the American AGM-65 Maverick, Soviet Kh-29, and French AS-30 – which existed in versions equipped with semi-active laser homing guidance – have a very limited nominal maximum range even when launched from high altitudes. These were, therefore, also impractical as a standoff munition for the PLAAF’s non-bomber combat aircraft. While the American GPS system was available in the 1990s and made fire-and-forget munitions wholly reliant on INS and GNSS guidance a possibility, the PLA, which had was engaged in the 1995-1996 Third Taiwan Strait Crisis, did not want to be subject to possible restrictions on GPS coverage by the United States in areas that the PLA was operating – the U.S. only formally ended GPS Selective Availability in 2000. What the PLAAF wanted was a standoff land-attack missile for its non-bomber combat aircraft, and China's military industry developed the KD-88 in response.

Deployed in the early 2000s, the KD-88 air-launched land-attack cruise missile is a derivative of the then-new Chinese YJ-83 anti-ship cruise missile, specifically the air-launched YJ-83K. The air-breathing turbojet-powered YJ-83 itself amounted to the culmination of over two decades of sustained research and development efforts toward catching up with international developments in anti-ship cruise missile technology. China’s military industry replaced the active radiation homing seeker on the YJ-83K anti-ship cruise missile with an electro-optical seeker and, among other things, installed a radio data link to adapt the fire-and-forget YJ-83K into the human-in-the-loop KD-88. It bears emphasis that the original KD-88 was not a fire-and-forget missile – the launch aircraft had to be equipped with a data link pod and had to remain within line-of-sight of the missile in the terminal phase of its flight.

The air-launched KD-88 land-attack cruise missile has a decidedly conventional turbojet-powered subsonic design that draws heavily from the earlier French Exocet and American Harpoon anti-ship cruise missile design families, among other comparable designs. The KD-88 reportedly weighs around 600 kg and has a reported nominal maximum range of around 200 km. The maximum practical range of the KD-88 is affected by its flight profile and the requirement for the launch aircraft to remain within line-of-sight of the missile in the terminal phase of flight. All else equal, range can be maximized with a higher altitude flight profile that minimizes the time-distance spent at lower altitudes. As with any air-launched munition, the maximum practical range of the KD-88 is affected by the speed and altitude of the host aircraft at the time the munition separates from the host aircraft.

The KD-88 is reportedly equipped with a 165 kg warhead of unknown configuration. The related YJ-83K anti-ship cruise missile is reportedly equipped with a 165 kg penetrating blast-fragmentation warhead that features multiple explosively formed penetrators distributed around the warhead. Specialized anti-ship warheads of this type are typically equipped with a time delay impact fuse and are optimized for attacks on dense targets such as warships, not most types of terrestrial targets. While the KD-88 is likely to be equipped with a general-purpose blast-fragmentation warhead and an impact fuse, a penetrating blast-fragmentation warhead with a thicker steel or perhaps a titanium casing with appropriate fusing is also a possibility and would facilitate the employment of the KD-88 against certain types of hardened targets.

Although the PLA is not known to have deployed a version of the human-in-the-loop KD-63 land-attack cruise missile equipped with an active radar homing seeker, which is to say a fire-and-forget KD-63 derived anti-ship cruise missile, the process of adapting the fire-and-forget YJ-83K into the human-in-the-loop KD-88 parallels the development of the KD-63 and is indicative of the state of Chinese military technology as of the late 1990s. The PLAAF simply had to make do with what was available, and that meant an adaptation of an existing anti-ship cruise missile into a land-attack cruise missile pending the availability of a more capable clean-sheet air-launched land-attack cruise missile design. This approach to research and development is, however, not novel or limited to China, and it is therefore instructive to briefly examine an analogous American air-launched cruise missile design to appreciate the strengths and limitations of the Chinese KD-88.

In the 1980s, the U.S. Navy was interested in an air-launched land-attack cruise missile for use with its large fleet of carrier-borne fighter aircraft. It pursued the adaptation of the air-launched version of the existing active radar homing Harpoon family of fire-and-forget anti-ship cruise missiles – of which the Chinese YJ-83 is a close analogue – into the human-in-the-loop AGM-84E SLAM air-launched land-attack cruise missile. The AGM-84E SLAM employed an imaging infrared seeker adapted from the existing solid-fuelled rocket-powered AGM-65D Maverick air-to-surface missile and a data link from the existing AGM-62 Walleye electro-optically guided glide bomb. An inertial navigation system allowed the human-in-the-loop AGM-84E SLAM to follow a pre-programmed flight path with the onboard imaging infrared seeker and associated data link only operating in the final minutes of flight. While the AGM-84E SLAM was not fully automated in the manner of, for example, the fully autonomous American Tomahawk land-attack cruise missile, the remote human operator – the pilot or the weapons systems operator in a two-seat aircraft – did not remotely pilot – fly – the AGM-84E SLAM and did not have full control authority – thrust, pitch, roll, and yaw – over the missile.

The AGM-84E SLAM was not equipped with the fairly large, fairly heavy, complex, and expensive navigation and guidance systems required to autonomously – without any human supervision or control input – undertake low-altitude flights in complex terrain in the manner of the U.S. Navy’s Tomahawk land-attack cruise missile and was, as such, primarily launched from a medium or high altitude and programmed to fly directly toward the intended target. Being a moderately automated human-in-the-loop land-attack cruise missile, the launch aircraft equipped with the data link pod had to remain within line-of-sight of the AGM-84E SLAM as it approached the intended target. Over time, the AGM-84E SLAM design evolved to take advantage of the availability of GPS, and the U.S. Navy deployed the much-evolved AGM-84H/K SLAM-ER in 2000, a distinct longer-range design equipped with folding wings for enhanced glide performance.

Although the Chinese designers of the KD-88 are likely to have emulated the development of the American AGM-84E SLAM air-launched cruise missile, it bears emphasis that these designs reflect important differences. Above all, the KD-88 was first deployed in a version equipped with an electro-optical and not an imaging infrared seeker. As a result, the original KD-88 was and remains in practice limited to use in daytime and in high-visibility atmospheric conditions. Although the PLAAF may have preferred a lower-cost version of the KD-88 equipped with an electro-optical seeker for use alongside a more expensive version equipped with an imaging infrared seeker, the installation of an electro-optical seeker in a fairly expensive turbojet-powered air-launched cruise missile developed in the late 1990s is more likely to be indicative of the unavailability of a suitable Chinese imaging infrared seeker than anything else. The original KD-88 is also likely to have been less automated than the American AGM-84E SLAM, not least because the PLAAF is unlikely to have wanted to be reliant on the availability of the American medium earth orbit GPS satellite constellation. China only launched the first satellite of its three-satellite experimental geostationary orbit BeiDou-1 regional GNSS system in 2000 and would not complete the thirty-satellite medium-earth orbit Beidou-3 constellation, which offers global coverage, until 2020. 

All else equal, the less that the original KD-88 could rely on its (presumably non-GNSS-corrected) INS for midcourse navigation toward the intended target, the greater the involvement of the remote human operator seated in a PLAAF aircraft over the course of the flight – over 11 minutes to the nominal maximum range of 200 km when the KD-88 cruised at a speed of Mach 0.85. As a human-in-the-loop cruise missile design, the subsonic KD-88 must, at minimum, remain within line-of-sight of the launch aircraft equipped with a data link pod in the terminal phase of flight. Flight altitude, not distance per se, is what determines the likelihood of the launch aircraft being detected with radar and engaged by surface-to-air or air-to-air missiles while the human-in-the-loop KD-88 cruises toward the intended target at a high subsonic speed. If the KD-88 was a fire-and-forget land-attack cruise missile capable of autonomously navigating toward the intended target without any further human input, then the PLAAF launch aircraft could turn around and/or undertake a rapid descent to fly below the radar horizon of adversary ground-based radar and surface-to-air missile systems. This was not, however, possible with the original KD-88 and similar human-in-the-loop cruise missile designs. 

Given the threat faced by the launch aircraft over a flight time of more than 11 minutes to the reported nominal maximum range, this Chinese air-launched cruise missile was and remains best employed against an adversary that operates medium- and short-range surface-to-air missile systems and not long-range surface-to-air missile systems. While the original KD-88 had many limitations, the very existence of a fairly expensive turbojet-powered air-launched cruise missile attested to the scope of the PLAAF’s medium- and long-term ambitions for its strike capabilities. The PLAAF could have selected a less expensive and shorter-range solid-fuelled rocket-powered analogue to the KD-88 but instead deployed a much more expensive turbojet-powered design in order to increase the standoff range at which the PLAAF’s non-bomber combat aircraft could undertake high-accuracy strikes on terrestrial targets. 

The above text primarily refers to the original KD-88, which was equipped with an electro-optical seeker. The KD-88 design has, however, evolved over the past two decades or so. The improved KD-88A replaces the electro-optical seeker with an imaging infrared seeker. The KD-88A can, as such, be effectively employed at night and in low-visibility atmospheric conditions. A further upgraded KD-88B is also known to have been developed and perhaps deployed by the late 2010s. While the scope of changes relative to the KD-88A cannot be discerned with publicly available information, one possibility is that the KD-88B is equipped with a beyond-line-of-sight satellite communications data link, a design change that would eliminate the need for the launch aircraft to remain within line-of-sight of the missile as it cruises toward the intended target. It is unclear if the KD-88A and/or KD-88B amount to new-build missiles and/or upgrades of existing KD-88 missiles. The KD-88 design is likely to have also been improved – in both new-build and upgrades of existing missiles – in tandem with the progression of the Chinese BeiDou GNSS constellation and advances in Chinese INS technology. It is, therefore, possible that the KD-88A and/or the KD-88B  amount to fire-and-forget air-launched land-attack cruise missiles in which the human-in-the-loop mode is essentially optional. 

While it is unclear if a possible fire-and-forget mode for the KD-88A and/or KD-88B entails the use of the nose-mounted imaging infrared seeker, it is notable that China is not known to have developed an exclusively fire-and-forget version of the KD-88 design that is wholly reliant on INS and GNSS guidance. Publicly available information is insufficient to establish whether the KD-88A and/or KD-88B are designed to target surface ships or if these missiles are employed in that role by the PLAAF. 

It also bears mentioning that the KD-88 design family appears to have undergone a further evolution that parallels the evolution of the American AGM-84E SLAM into the extended-range AGM-84H/K SLAM-ER. The Chinese analogue to the AGM-84H/K SLAM-ER appears to be the KF-088C, the export designation of which may be the TL-30. Although the PLAAF formally unveiled the KF-088C at the 2022 Zhuhai Airshow, observers are currently limited to the specifications for the seemingly closely related TL-30, which is notably marketed to international customers as a loitering anti-radiation missile and is therefore examined in a different section of this SPAS Consulting report. While unconfirmed, it is possible that the PLAAF operates a land-attack version of the extended-range KF-088C that amounts to a close analogue to the AGM-84H/K SLAM-ER for use against terrestrial targets.

Its limitations notwithstanding, publicly available information suggests that the KD-88 remains the primary standoff land-attack munition available for use by most of the combined total of ~2200 PLAAF and PLANAF non-bomber fixed-wing crewed combat aircraft reportedly deployed in early 2025. Around a quarter century after its development and introduction, this first-generation Chinese air-launched land-attack cruise missile appears to remain widely deployed and, in purely quantitative terms, may amount to the single most important standoff strike munition in the PLAAF arsenal in a conflict centered on Taiwan. Although the design of the KD-88 family has evolved considerably, the fundamental shortcoming of the KD-88/KD-88A/KD-88B design is its maximum range in both absolute and relative terms. 

A reported nominal maximum range of around 200 km is adequate to undertake standoff attacks against targets in Taiwan but is far less practical for use against more distant targets in Japan’s Ryukyu Islands, let alone even more distant targets elsewhere. When employed as a human-in-the-loop air-launched land-attack cruise missile, the subsonic KD-88 design family has a flight time of over 11 minutes, which results in the launch aircraft and aircrew being exposed to a far more elevated threat than would be the case if the KD-88 was substituted with a longer-range fire-and-forget land-attack cruise missile. In addition to having a fairly long time-to-target when launched to its maximum range, the KD-88 design family does not have a low radar signature airframe, and the turbojet engine contributes to a significant infrared signature. A human-in-the-loop operating mode also entails the use of a radio frequency data link that increases the electromagnetic signature of the KD-88 as well as the launch aircraft. The KD-88A and KD-88B do not reflect changes intended to significantly reduce the signatures of this nearly three-decade-old design, and the PLAAF is likely to be better off pursuing a new clean-sheet air-launched land-attack cruise missile design going forward. 

Observers should not only consider the nominal maximum range of a munition in absolute terms. When the KD-88 was being developed in the late 1990s, a standoff range of around 200 kilometers was sufficient for the launch aircraft to remain beyond the reach of essentially all then-existing surface-to-air missile systems that PLAAF aircraft were likely to encounter and the air-to-air missiles that could be launched by adversary combat aircraft flying over adversary territory. Much has changed over the past thirty or so years when it comes to air combat dynamics worldwide and, more to the point, air combat dynamics in and around the Taiwan Strait in particular. In 2025, a standoff range of around 200 kilometers places the launch aircraft within range of long-range surface-to-air missiles and long-range air-to-air missiles. The floor to what amounts to a practical maximum range for an air-launched cruise missile has increased, and human-in-the-loop air-launched cruise missiles that do not have a fire-and-forget mode, which must remain within line-of-sight of the launch aircraft as the missile approaches the target, are increasingly impractical unless the missile and launch aircraft are equipped with a beyond-line-of-sight satellite communications data link. In other words, the KD-88 family amounted to a practical design in a world in which Taiwan, for example, operated large numbers of medium-range I-Hawk surface-to-air missile systems and medium-range AIM-7 Sparrow air-to-air missiles – both of which are not unimportantly semi-active radar homing anti-aircraft missile designs – and not in a world in which Taiwan operates large numbers of long-range Patriot and Tien Kung-III surface-to-air missile systems as well as long-range AIM-120C and Tien Chien-II air-to-air missiles – all four of which are not unimportantly active radar homing anti-aircraft missile designs.

The KD-88 air-launched land-attack cruise missile can be employed by 39.37% of the combined fleet of ~2200 non-bomber crewed fixed-wing combat aircraft reportedly deployed by the PLAAF and PLANAF in early 2025. The integration of the KD-88 has been confirmed with the JH-7A strike aircraft (x4), J-10C multirole fighter (x2), J-15 STOBAR carrier-borne multirole fighter (x2), J-15T CATOBAR carrier-borne multirole fighter (x4), and the J-16 multirole fighter (x4). It is important to note that the KD-88 has, to date, been primarily associated with two-seat PLAAF aircraft in which the weapons systems operator in the rear seat can oversee the employment of the human-in-the-loop KD-88. It is unclear if the KD-88 is regularly carried by the PLAAF’s single-seat J-10C fighter fleet or the PLANAF’s J-15 and J-15T carrier-borne fighters.

KD-20 Land-Attack Cruise Missile

While the deployment of the air-launched KD-88 land-attack cruise missile allowed the PLAAF’s non-bomber aircraft to undertake fairly long-range standoff strikes against terrestrial targets, the original KD-88 had the same human-in-the-loop mode of operation as the air-launched KD-63 land-attack cruise missile and did not offer a major increase in terms of maximum range. The larger KD-63 was, moreover, reportedly equipped with a fairly substantial 500 kg class warhead that essentially dwarfed the 165 kg warhead reportedly installed in the KD-88. While the PLANAF integrated the related YJ-83K air-launched anti-ship cruise missile on its turbojet-powered H-6G bombers, the PLAAF did not integrate the KD-88 onto its heterogeneous fleet of turbojet-powered H-6 bombers and the PLAAF bomber fleet was therefore restricted to employing either the KD-63 lor unguided bombs pending the introduction of a new air-launched land-attack cruise missile design. 

China is understood to have initiated the development of a new long-range air-launched land-attack cruise missile alongside a new and likely related long-range surface-launched land-attack cruise missile, the SAC-turned-PLARF CJ-10/DH-10, as well as new versions of the H-6 bomber in the 1990s. Over ca. 2005-2010, observers with access to publicly available information learned that the successor to the KD-63 was a new air-launched land-attack cruise missile design that eventually came to be known as the KD-20. The development of the KD-20 is intertwined with the PLAAF’s development of the turbojet-powered H-6M and the turbofan-powered H-6K, two new – and new-build – versions of the 1950s origin H-6 bomber that were first deployed over ca. 2005-2010. The turbofan-powered H-6K forms the basis for the now ex-PLANAF H-6J maritime strike bomber fleet as well as the PLAAF’s reportedly nuclear-armed H-6N bomber fleet. China’s H-6 bomber family will be examined in a separate chapter of this SPAS Consulting report. A holistic appreciation of what the KD-20 air-launched land-attack cruise missile offers the PLAAF requires a condensed history of the development of air-launched cruise missiles, an area of military technology in which China was essentially a spectator for decades until it deployed the KD-20 in ca. 2010.

The early Cold War was a period of great uncertainty when it came to the future of crewed bomber aircraft. This affected China and the PLAAF, which deployed a very modest long-range bomber fleet following the transfer of Soviet-built turbojet-powered Tu-16 bombers by the Soviet Union in the 1950s, as well as an earlier transfer of small numbers of Soviet-built propeller-driven Tu-4 bombers, which amounted to a reverse-engineered propeller-driven Second World War American B-29 bomber. Prior to the Sino-Soviet Split, the Soviet Union made extensive transfers of military technology to China, including the licensed production of the then new Soviet ~80,000 kg maximum take-off weight turbojet-powered Tu-16 bomber – the H-6 – in a rather destitute and primarily agrarian country. Following the Sino-Soviet Split and China’s first nuclear test in 1964, the small PLAAF bomber fleet, which was previously only equipped with unguided aerial bombs, briefly took on a heightened importance, and a H-6 bomber was used to drop a nuclear bomb in a 1965 atmospheric nuclear weapons test at Lop Nur. The small PLAAF bomber fleet was, however, quickly eclipsed by China’s development and deployment of what was, by Cold War standards, a modest nuclear arsenal centered on a heterogeneous and gradually evolving arsenal of nuclear-armed ballistic missiles. For the rest of the Cold War, Chinese bomber aircraft development wholly stagnated, and China’s meagre efforts focused on localizing production of the Soviet Tu-16 design as the Xi’an H-6 and making modest improvements to this increasingly outdated 1950s origin Soviet turbojet-powered bomber design.

While the American and British bomber fleets had been used to devastating effect in the Second World War, measure-countermeasure dynamics had reached such a stage by the end of the war that the massed employment of bombers was not viable absent the existence of an immense qualitative and quantitative military superiority on the part of country undertaking an aerial bombing campaign. Jet-powered aircraft, radar-centric air defences, and radar-guided anti-aircraft artillery firing shells equipped with proximity fuses, among other developments, dramatically reshaped the practicality of sustained large-scale aerial bombing at a time when the advent of nuclear weapons dramatically increased the importance of bomber aircraft. Given the aforementioned measure-countermeasure dynamics, the limited number of nuclear bombs available in the early years of the Cold War, and the immense power of individual nuclear weapons, among other factors, militaries increasingly could not plan on undertaking bombing raids with hundreds of aircraft in the manner in which the United States – and to a lesser degree the United Kingdom vis-a-vis Germany – bombed German and Japanese cities in the Second World War. 

As with fighter and interceptor aircraft, bomber aircraft technology underwent a chaotic growth spurt in the early jet age in tandem with the chaotic growth spurt that turbojet engine technology underwent in the same timeframe. In the 1950s, the pursuit of sustained supersonic flight was held to constitute an evolutionary trajectory that would keep nuclear-armed bomber aircraft viable in the ongoing measure-countermeasure competition. Sustained advances in radar technology, surface-to-air missile systems, and fighter and interceptor aircraft radar and armament, however, resulted in a situation in which sustained supersonic flight would be insufficient. In response, the U.S. Air Force shifted to the low-altitude penetration of Soviet airspace and the employment of nuclear-armed stand-off munitions with bomber aircraft. This included air-launched ballistic missiles, rocket-powered cruise missiles, and turbojet-powered cruise missiles. Although many of these so-called standoff munitions had a very limited nominal maximum range by the standards of the 2020s, it bears emphasis that medium-range and short-range surface-to-air missile systems were the norm well into the 1970s when it came to targeting aircraft flying at medium and low altitudes and that fighter and interceptor aircraft equipped with look-down shoot-down radars were also not the norm until the 1970s. Measure-countermeasure dynamics did, however, eventually catch up with bomber aircraft technology, and the U.S. Air Force and the Soviet Air Force had to determine how to respond.

By the mid-1970s, both the United States and the Soviet Union had the option of stripping the nuclear delivery mission from their respective bomber fleets and concentrating all so-called “strategic” nuclear forces in the form of long-range ground-launched and submarine-launched ballistic missiles. Both countries, however, decided that nuclear-armed bomber aircraft offered considerable operational flexibility and redundancy, among other factors, and the evolution of bomber aircraft technology in response to the ongoing measure-countermeasure competition, therefore, continued. To address the mounting survivability concerns of even the latest bomber aircraft designs, the United States and Soviet Union pursued longer-range standoff munitions, namely long-range air-launched land-attacked cruise missiles that were qualitatively distinct from the – in many respects so-called – cruise missiles deployed from the early 1940s onward. In 1982, the United States deployed the nuclear-armed subsonic AGM-86 air-launched land-attack cruise missile, and in 1983, the Soviet Union followed with the nuclear-armed subsonic Kh-55 air-launched land-attack cruise missile. An air-launched version of the better-known American surface-launched Tomahawk land-attack cruise missile design, which was first deployed in 1983, has never been deployed. The same can be said of its Soviet counterpart, the surface-launched RK-55, which was developed by a different design bureau and is distinct from the air-launched Kh-55, notwithstanding the similar designations.

The new generation of nuclear-armed, air-launched land-attack cruise missiles that the United States and the Soviet Union deployed in the 1980s offered a standoff range of well over 2000 km, an important factor given the centrality of polar flight paths navigated by both American and Soviet bomber aircraft undertaking nuclear strike missions. These nuclear-armed, air-launched land-attack cruise missiles were also equipped with sophisticated guidance systems that allowed for the practical employment of what amounted to fairly low-yield nuclear warheads by the standards of the day. All else equal, a lower explosive yield equates to a smaller destructive radius and, as such, a greater need for munitions accuracy. Relative to their immense destructive power, nuclear warheads can be remarkably small and light, and the nuclear-armed air-launched land-attack cruise missiles deployed by mature nuclear powers in the late Cold War therefore had a much longer maximum range than would have been the case if the same airframes were, for example, adapted to carry a 500 kg class high explosive warhead. 

Although the American AGM-86 and Soviet Kh-55 were developed and deployed to deliver nuclear weapons, these air-launched land-attack cruise missiles demonstrated the viability of small turbofan engines and an array of guidance systems for use in a time before the widespread availability of GNSS navigation. If an air-launched AGM-86 and Kh-55 – or a surface-launched Tomahawk and RK-55 – could accurately deliver a several hundred kilogram nuclear payload over a distance of over 2000 km, then versions or derivatives of these cruise missiles could accurately deliver a several hundred kilogram high explosive payload over a similar distance. Bomber aircraft could, as such, undertake very-long range standoff strikes with nuclear weapons as well as conventional weapons. 

The United States led the way in making the most of the new technological possibilities and adapted some of its air-launched land-attack cruise missiles for use with high explosive warheads. By the late 1980s, the United States also set about developing a new generation of air-launched land-attack cruise missiles designed at the outset for use with a non-nuclear high explosive payload. This includes the unsuccessful development of the AGM-137 TASSM, which was succeeded by the successfully developed AGM-158 JASSM, a long-range air-launched land-attack cruise missile design first deployed in the early 2000s. The effectiveness and utility of long-range land-attack cruise missiles was advertised to the world by the United States military throughout the 1990s and during the Gulf War and the Yugoslav Wars in particular. 

Although China operated a small fleet of long-range bomber aircraft throughout the Cold War, China and the PLAAF were mere bystanders to the Cold War measure-countermeasure dynamics summarized in the preceding paragraphs. Although the Chinese military has been transformed in recent decades, observers should note that China’s most senior political and military leaders over the past 10-20 years likely had some of their most formative experiences in the immediate aftermath of the Cold War. During the Gulf War, China’s civilian and military leaders are likely to watched in awe while the U.S. military not only undertook a comprehensive aerial campaign involving high accurate attacks against tens of thousands of discrete targets – aimpoints – in Iraq and Kuwait – which could just as well have been Chinese military positions in Fujian – but also launched hundreds of land-attack cruise missiles against distant targets located 1000 or more kilometers away. At the time, the PLAAF – an air force operating a fleet of several thousand combat aircraft – had little hope of accurately dropping even a single bomb on Taipei – some 200 km from the Chinese mainland – in the event of a war over the status of Taiwan in which the United States intervened. 

While Chinese decision makers initiated a long-term comprehensive modernization of the PLA in the aftermath of the Gulf War and the dissolution of the Soviet Union that entailed an unprecedented emphasis on conventionally-armed ballistic missiles, the PLAAF was also allocated the resources required to emulate the long-range strike capabilities of the U.S. Air Force bomber fleet. China’s aerospace industry was in no position to undertake the development of a competitive new bomber aircraft design in the 1990s and channelled its finite if progressively increasing technical capacities toward completing development of the delayed Chinese J-10 fighter, localizing production of the newly acquired Soviet-Russian Su-27 fighter, and, not least, undertaking longer-term research and development efforts that would result in, among other things, the first flight of the Chinese J-20 fighter in 2011. Instead of a new bomber aircraft, the PLAAF bomber fleet would receive new versions of the longstanding H-6 bomber, as well as new air-launched land-attack cruise missiles.

The KD-63, which was deployed by the early 2000s, was the first land-attack cruise missile developed for the PLAAF bomber fleet alongside the new turbojet-powered H-6H bomber, which first flew in 1998. At around the same time, the PLANAF received the new H-6G bomber to launch up to four YJ-83K anti-ship cruise missiles. The H-6H and H-6G together reflected a substantial upgrade over the earlier turbojet-powered H-6D bombers operated by the PLANAF, which were used to launch outdated ~100 km range liquid-fuelled rocket-powered subsonic YJ-6 anti-ship cruise missiles. The PLAAF, however, was not interested in the modest increase in standoff range offered by the KD-63 and the KD-88, and therefore oversaw the development of a new long-range land-attack cruise missile, the KD-20, for use with two new versions of the H-6 bomber family, the turbojet-powered H-6M and the turbofan-powered H-6K, which despite being designated as bomber aircraft would primarily serve as elevated and mobile land-attack cruise missile launchers.

The Chinese subsonic KD-20 air-launched land-attack cruise missile has a conventional cylindrical design that is broadly similar to the surface-launched American Tomahawk, the air-launched Soviet Kh-55, and the surface-launched Soviet RK-55 designs. While observers can examine a fairly large number of publicly available images of the KD-20, the specifications of the KD-20 remain uncertain well over a decade following its introduction. Uncertainties notwithstanding, the KD-20 is a large land-attack cruise missile that is likely to weigh around 1500-2000 kg and have a nominal maximum range of 2000 or more kilometers while equipped with what is likely to approximate a 400-500 kg high explosive warhead. The maximum practical range of the KD-20, which is a fire-and-forget air-launched land-attack cruise missile, is affected by its flight profile. All else equal, range can be maximized with a higher altitude flight profile that minimizes the time-distance spent at lower altitudes. As with any air-launched munition, the maximum practical range of the KD-20 is affected by the speed and altitude of the host aircraft at the time the munition separates from the host aircraft.

As with the likely related SAC-turned-PLARF-operated surface-launched CJ-10 (also known as the DF-10) land-attack cruise missile, the PLAAF’s air-launched KD-20 is likely to employ a turbofan engine, but there is no reliable information on the origins of this presumed turbofan engine or its power output. With respect to the KD-20, it bears emphasis that the range figures for all aircraft equipped with air-breathing engines, whether crewed or uncrewed, are inherently nominal and reflect a range of mutable assumptions concerning not just the flight profile but also the chemical composition of the fuel combusted by the propulsion system. The United States and the Soviet Union developed rather exotic grades of jet fuel for use with their high-end, long-range land-attack cruise missiles. The American JP-10 jet fuel, the Soviet Destilin, and similar grades of jet fuel developed by other countries amount to higher specific energy and higher energy density fuels than standard and more widely employed grades of jet fuel. Recent research published by Chinese scientists, among others, highlights the use of aluminum nanoparticles to further improve on the likes of the JP-10 and Destilin jet fuel grades. It is possible, even likely, that the high-end KD-20 air-launched land-attack cruise missile employs something similar to JP-10 and Destilin such that the KD-20 may have a considerably greater nominal maximum range. 

As previously explained, the KD-20 is likely to be equipped with a 400-500 kg class warhead. All else equal, a smaller and lighter warhead translates to a greater nominal maximum range but also a smaller destructive radius and, as such, a greater need for munitions accuracy and vice versa. Given that there is no indication that a nuclear-armed version of the KD-20 exists, China is notably the first country to develop long-range – over 1000 km range – air-launched land-attack cruise missile technology solely to attack targets with conventional warheads. 

Other than the KD-20 not being equipped with a nuclear warhead, there is no public information on the design of its warhead or the possible existence of multiple warhead options. There is similarly no public information available on how the warhead or warheads installed in KD-20 land-attack cruise missiles are fused. If the KD-20 is equipped with a general-purpose blast-fragmentation warhead and an impact fuse, it will not be very effective in targeting concentrations of parked aircraft and similar relatively soft targets unless it has an optional airburst fusing mode. While a fairly simple single-stage blast-fragmentation warhead with a thick steel or even a titanium casing can be used to effectively attack certain types of hardened targets, damaging and destroying many types of hardened and complex targets requires the use of a more sophisticated one- or two-stage penetrating blast-fragmentation warhead with advanced fusing and perhaps a precursor charge (i.e., a two-stage high explosive warhead). If the KD-20 is equipped with a general-purpose blast-fragmentation warhead, it is unlikely to be effective in attacking targets like hardened aircraft shelters and bridge piers, among other target types. It bears emphasis that public sources offer no indication of the existence of a KD-20 variant designed to serve as a submunitions dispenser although this may reflect the fact that such a variant has been neither formally unveiled nor informally unveiled. Similarly, there is no indication that the KD-20 exists in a version equipped with a warhead optimized for use against surface warships, which typically amounts to a penetrating blast-fragmentation warhead equipped with a time-delay impact fuse. As with all cruise missile designs, there is scope to trade range for payload and payload for range. That is, the PLAAF may not only deploy an extended-range version of the KD-20 that is equipped with a lighter warhead but also a shorter-range version of the KD-20 that is equipped with a heavier warhead.

Given the paucity of publicly available information on something as straightforward as the weight of the warhead(s) installed in the KD-20, observers should not be surprised to learn that there is also a paucity of publicly available information on the more sensitive issue of the guidance systems installed in the KD-20. Whereas the warhead(s) installed in the Chinese air-launched land-attack cruise missile design are concealed within the airframe, observers turn to the fairly large library of publicly available images to discern the guidance systems the KD-20 relies on. As is typical with long-range land-attack cruise missiles developed in recent decades, the KD-20 likely relies on the combination of what is likely to be a high-end inertial navigation system that is assisted by a GNSS antenna array (likely a multi-band antenna array that can use not just the Chinese BeiDou constellation but also the American GPS, Russian GLONASS, and European Galileo constellations as required), an altimeter, a radio-frequency terrain contour matching (TERCOM) system, and an optical digital scene matching area correlator (DSMAC). Public sources do not indicate the existence of a version of the KD-20 that is equipped with an imaging infrared seeker. 

It bears emphasis that the KD-20 may have been produced in multiple variants and/or upgraded into multiple variants. It is uncertain whether any KD-20 land-attack cruise missiles are equipped with either a one- or two-way data link. A one-way receive-only data link can be used to transmit new/updated target location data to an airborne KD-20 cruise missile and a one-way transmit only data link can be used to transmit telemetry and/or images from the final moments of flight, which can assist in damage assessment, should the KD-20 also be equipped with a suitable sensor. A two-way data link can be used for all of the above and can also facilitate attacks on mobile targets identified and tracked through an external sensor. A two-way data link also opens the possibility of employing the KD-20 in a manner that amounts to loitering over an area pending the transmission of target location information on a previously unidentified and/or mobile target.

The KD-20 is China’s first long-range air-launched land-attack cruise missile. Given the country’s status as a laggard in this and most other areas of military technology at the end of the Cold War, the KD-20 is best compared to late Cold War American and Soviet designs rather than more sophisticated post-Cold War designs. It is important to note that the KD-20 has a fairly conventional cylindrical airframe that lacks the design features associated with significant reductions in radar signature that were pioneered in the late Cold War American AGM-129 and which are associated with more recent air-launched cruise missile designs including the American AGM-158 JASSM, the British-French Storm Shadow/SCALP, and the German-Swedish Taurus KEPD 350. China’s first disclosed low signature air-launched cruise missile design, the KF-98, was unveiled in 2022 and will be examined later in this section. It bears emphasis that the KF-98 was unveiled around fifteen years following the reported introduction of the surface-launched CJ-10 and the later introduction of the likely related air-launched KD-20. China’s military industry has undergone a profound transformation over this timeframe and is now far better positioned to develop a more sophisticated air-launched land-attack cruise missile design than the KD-20.

Given that the KD-20 is not a low signature land-attack cruise missile, its effectiveness against heavily defended targets should not be taken for granted. The long range of the KD-20 and its association with the turbofan-powered H-6K bomber suggest that the KD-20 primarily exists to facilitate long-range strikes against distant targets such as Guam, the northern parts of Honshu, as well as Hokkaido. These are areas in which high concentrations of air defence capabilities exist in peacetime, let alone in wartime. It is possible, even likely, that China will develop something that amounts to a larger and longer-range analogue to the low-signature American AGM-158B JASSM-ER. Given the range required to reach Guam from areas near China’s coastline, a future Chinese air-launched land-attack cruise missile design intended for use with the turbofan-powered versions of the H-6 bomber is likely to be significantly larger than the AGM-158B JASSM-ER. China’s reportedly forthcoming new H-20 bomber and other low signature combat aircraft with a sufficiently large internal carriage capacity, however, do not require a cruise missile that has a significantly greater maximum range than the American AGM-158B JASSM-ER in the same manner as versions of the H-6 bomber. Unless the PLAAF allocates the resources required to develop, procure, and sustain at least two new low-signature long-range air-launched land-attack cruise missile designs – and perhaps a third separate nuclear-armed long-range air-launched cruise missile for use with the reportedly forthcoming nuclear-armed H-20 bomber – the KD-20 may remain the primary long-range cruise missile employed by the PLAAF’s turbofan-powered H-6 bomber fleet for the foreseeable future despite its limitations.

The KD-20 air-launched land-attack cruise missile is exclusively carried by a subset of the PLAAF bomber fleet. The integration of the KD-20 has been confirmed with the turbojet-powered H-6M, the turbofan-powered H-6K, and the reportedly nuclear-armed turbofan-powered H-6N. The integration of the KD-20 on the rather new ex-PLANAF turbofan-powered H-6J bombers transferred to the PLAAF in 2023, which amounts to a variant of the H-6K, is likely but cannot be confirmed with publicly available information. 

A Note On The Uncertain Origins of the KD-20

The air-launched KD-20 is one of two Chinese long-range subsonic land-attack cruise missiles to have been deployed by ca. 2010. The other cruise missile design is the CJ-10, which is a surface-launched subsonic land-attack cruise missile operated by the SAC-turned-PLARF. Although the KD-20 and CJ-10 are likely to have a shared developmental history and common components, this cannot be confirmed with publicly available information. As with the CJ-10, including its apparent turbofan engine, the origins of the KD-20 are uncertain. It is possible, even likely, that China was the beneficiary of licit and/or illicit access to Soviet land-attack cruise missile technology following the dissolution of the Soviet Union. That is, China may have accessed the technology if not complete specimens of the Soviet air-launched Kh-55  and/or the surface-launched RK-55 land-attack cruise missiles. 

If nothing else, China and Iran are reported to have illicitly obtained ex-Soviet Air Force Kh-55 air-launched cruise missiles through Ukraine in the 2000-2001 timeframe. The KD-20 and the likely related CJ-10, are not, however, close copies of the Kh-55, and it is Iran, not China, that appears to have reverse-engineered the Kh-55 design. The drop-down turbofan engine installed on the air-launched Soviet Kh-55 precludes its use as a ground-launched cruise missile in an unmodified state. While the Iranian Soumar, Hoveyzeh, and the Abu Mahdi/Talaiyeh – all of which are members of a single design family – are very close copies of the Soviet Kh-55 airframe, these still feature substantial changes to facilitate launch from the ground (and the employment of an Iranian-built turbojet engine). The same cannot be said of the Chinese KD-20 and CJ-10, which have designs that cannot be mistaken for the Kh-55.

It bears emphasis that publicly available information indicates that the development of what became the surfaced-launched CJ-10 and the air-launched KD-20 appears to have been well underway by the early 2000s. The PLA formally unveiled the surfaced-launched CJ-10 at the 2009 National Day parade in Beijing and a range of U.S. government disclosures and media reports about Chinese land-attack cruise missile development and, no less importantly, the development of new versions of the H-6 bomber designed to carry air-launched land-attack cruise missiles, suggest that the development of what became the KD-20 and the CJ-10 began in the 1990s. Unless (A) China not only rapidly reverse-engineered the Kh-55 specimens including the R95 turbofan engines that it acquired through Ukraine and (B) developed the substantially different KD-20 and the CJ-10 in less than a decade, then the KD-20 and CJ-10 would appear to have earlier origins even if licitly and/or illicitly accessed Soviet technology enabled and/or expedited development. 

It is also important to note that the United States launched around 1000 Tomahawk land-attack cruise missiles in combat by the year 2000 and launched a total of around 1850 Tomahawk cruise missiles in combat by the end of 2003. The debris of Tomahawk cruise missiles that crashed or were shot down could be accessed in six countries by the end of 2003. Even if the development of the KD-20 and the likely related CJ-10 was enabled and/or expedited by licitly and/or illicitly accessed Soviet technology including Kh-55 specimens, it also bears mentioning that China also developed another large cruise missile design, the surface-launched YJ-62 anti-ship cruise missile by 2005, and there is no indication that the YJ-62 has a Soviet ancestry. China, it seems, made concerted efforts to develop two likely related – a total of three if one includes the reported 400-500 km nominal maximum range YJ-62 anti-ship cruise missile – and distinctly Chinese long-range land-attack cruise missiles that were ready for deployment in the ca. 2005-2010 timeframe. 

KF-98 Land-Attack Cruise Missile

The KD-63, KD-88, and KD-20 air-launched cruise missiles collectively constituted the PLAAF’s long-range strike capability into the early 2020s. Each of these air-launched cruise missiles has major limitations, and there is a big gap in terms of maximum range between the KD-63 and the KD-88, on the one hand, and the KD-20 on the other. The KD-20 is, moreover, exclusively employed by the PLAAF bomber fleet. PLAAF non-bomber combat aircraft were, therefore, limited to undertaking long transits only to launch the human-in-the-loop subsonic KD-88 land-attack cruise missile. While much remains uncertain, this situation appears to have changed in the early 2020s, if not earlier, following the deployment of China’s new KF-98 air-launched land-attack cruise missile. 

While the PLAAF deployed the KD-88 by the early 2000s, the original KD-88 is not a fire-and-forget air-launched cruise missile. Fire-and-forget air-launched cruise missiles suitable for launch from fighter aircraft and similar have been a priority for leading air forces, most of which do not operate any bomber aircraft, since the 1990s. When equipped with long-range fire-and-forget air-launched land-attack cruise missiles, formations of fighter aircraft and similar can independently undertake long-range strikes against targets deep inside adversary airspace in the continental European context or far across the ocean in the maritime Western Pacific context. Long-range fire-and-forget air-launched cruise missiles also amount to an effective response to the steadily increasing range and potency of long-range surface-to-air missile systems and can be used to directly attack key adversary air defence nodes, among other high-value targets. 

The KF-98, China’s first known low-signature land-attack cruise missile design, was unexpectedly unveiled at the 2022 Zhuhai Airshow as part of what is best characterized as a primarily “show, don’t tell” PLAAF static display. While the PLAAF did not disclose its specifications, the Chinese KF-98 appears to be an analogue to the original American AGM-158A JASSM (not to be confused with the extended range AGM-158B JASSM-ER), the British-French Storm Shadow/SCALP, and the German-Swedish KEPD 350. In addition to clear-cut efforts toward signature reduction in its design, the KF-98 is, like its international counterparts, likely to employ an imaging infrared seeker that amounts to a major upgrade in terms of GNSS-independent terminal guidance. While a turbofan engine is a possibility, the KF-98 is likely to rely on a lower-cost turbojet engine. The KF-98 may have made its second public appearance at the 2024 Zhuhai Airshow under the export designation CM-98. It bears emphasis, however, that the CM-98 may, in fact, be the very similar losing design in a Chinese competition for a PLAAF production contract.

According to the specification sheet released at the 2024 Zhuhai Airshow, the export-oriented CM-98 has a reported nominal maximum range of around 300 km while equipped with a 385 kg warhead. It bears emphasis that China formally restricts the range of exportable missile designs to 300 km, which is the limit established in the Missile Technology Control Regime (MTCR) of which China is not a formal member. The maximum practical range of the KF-98 is affected by its flight profile. All else being equal, range can be maximized with a higher-altitude flight profile that minimizes the time-distance spent at lower altitudes. As with any air-launched munition, the maximum practical range of the KF-98 is also affected by the speed and altitude of the host aircraft at the time the munition separates from the host aircraft. 

It is possible, even likely, that the reported nominal maximum range of 300 km for the CM-98 reflects a low-low-low flight profile that is much lower than the theoretical maximum range associated with a range-maximizing high-high-high flight profile. More generally, the PLAAF’s KF-98 may amount to a longer-range version of the CM-98. It bears emphasis that the PLAAF is unlikely to deploy such an air-launched cruise missile unless it has a nominal maximum range of at least 400-500 km, which is required to attack targets protected by adversary long-range surface-to-air and air-to-air missiles with a maximum range of 200-300 km. While a high-high-high flight profile is not practical for the higher signature KD-20 air-launched land-attack cruise missile that is exclusively carried by PLAAF bombers, the KF-98, like all low signature air-launched cruise missile designs, can undertake a higher altitude flight profile for most of its trajectory. All else being equal, low signature cruise missile designs benefit from a greater maximum practical range. 

According to the specifications sheet available at the 2024 Zhuhai Airshow, the CM-98 carries a warhead that weighs at least 385 kg. This may reflect the existence of several warhead options, the lightest of which weighs 385 kg. There is no public information as to the warhead options available for the CM-98 and KF-98. All else being equal, a version with a warhead that weighs more than 385 kg will have a lower nominal maximum range than a version with a warhead that weighs just 385 kg. It bears emphasis that the KF-98 specimens on display at the 2022 Zhuhai Airshow were labelled KF-98A. This may reflect the existence of an improved version or, alternatively, a distinct version with unknown differences.

Uncertainties notwithstanding, it is important to point out that the reported 385 kg warhead for the CM-98 is significantly lighter than the warheads associated with analogous air-launched land-attack cruise missile designs. The American AGM-158 and British-French Storm Shadow/SCALP are reportedly equipped with 450 kg-class warheads (as is the larger and longer-range surface-launched Tomahawk land-attack cruise missile), and the German-Swedish KEPD-350 is reportedly equipped with a 480 kg warhead. While the design of the warhead or warheads used on the KF-98 and CM-98 is not public knowledge, the aforementioned American, British-French, and German-Swedish air-launched land-attack cruise missile designs are equipped with penetrating blast-fragmentation warheads designed to damage or destroy hardened and underground structures. The Storm Shadow/SCALP and KEPD-350, in particular, employ a two-stage warhead that incorporates a precursor charge. As a result, an unusually low percentage of the total nominal warhead weight is composed of high explosive filling (for the larger primary warhead). If the CM-98 exists in a version equipped with a 385 kg warhead, it may be more suitable for use with a general-purpose blast-fragmentation warhead than a penetrating blast-fragmentation warhead that has a thicker and, as such, heavier casing. That said, it bears emphasis that a 385 kg warhead is a substantial improvement over the 165 kg warhead associated with the shorter-range KD-88 air-launched land-attack cruise missile.

As with all munitions and all else being equal, the terminal effects against a given target are shaped by the interplay of warhead design and fusing. There is no information available on the warhead or warheads carried by the KF-98 or the fusing options available. Should the KF-98 be available in versions equipped with (A) a blast-fragmentation warhead and an airburst fuse and (B) a penetrating blast-fragmentation warhead and a void sensing fusing, the KF-98 will offer the PLAAF’s large fleet of non-bomber combat aircraft the means to independently attack adversary airbases including parked aircraft and hardened aircraft shelters, among other potential targets. As a result, the KF-98 holds the potential of dramatically expanding the PLAAF’s long-range strike capabilities and, as a result, those of the entire PLA. 

According to the specifications sheet available at the 2024 Zhuhai Airshow, the imaging infrared-guided CM-98 cruise missile can also be used to target surface ships. While the PLAAF’s KF-98 may, as such, amount to a multirole air-launched cruise missile, it bears emphasis that this does not necessarily make the KF-98 an effective anti-ship cruise missile for use against fully crewed high-end warships (as opposed to unarmed merchant ships or stationary and minimally crewed ships in port). An effective anti-ship cruise missile design benefits from different (additional) sensors, such as a passive radiation homing seeker, a different warhead, and, above all, different fusing options than those that are suitable for use against most terrestrial targets. The PLAAF is unlikely to deploy large numbers of more lavishly equipped KF-98 specimens for land-attack roles such that a subset of these KF-98 specimens can be more effectively employed in maritime strike roles. A more plausible explanation is that the imaging infrared seeker allows the CM-98 and perhaps the KF-98 to function as a de facto anti-ship cruise missile even though it is not optimized for maritime strike roles in its baseline version. It is possible that the KF-98 has been deployed in a version that is better optimized for use in maritime strike roles.

Although the KF-98 air-launched land-attack cruise missile significantly enhances the PLAAF’s strike capabilities, it remains limited in terms of range. The PLA will, as such, have to rely on the PLARF, the PLAAF’s bomber fleet, and the PLAN’s surface warships, submarines, and aircraft carriers to attack more distant targets. It is, however, possible, even likely, that the PLAAF will eventually deploy a longer-range version of the KF-98. The best example of this dynamic is the evolution of the original American AGM-158A JASSM into the longer-range AGM-158B JASSM-ER. A lighter airframe, expanded fuel load (possibly using higher energy density/higher specific energy formulations of jet fuel), smaller and lighter guidance systems and other components, a smaller and lighter warhead (that perhaps makes use of more energetic explosives), and a more fuel-efficient turbofan engine can be used to significantly extend the nominal maximum range of the KF-98. While an extended range version of the KF-98 is unlikely to replace the KD-20 or a prospective low signature successor to the KD-20 for use with the PLAAF bomber fleet, an extended range version of the KF-98 comparable to the American AGM-158B JASSM-ER will allow the PLAAF’s large fleet of non-bomber combat aircraft to independently attack a wide range of distant targets across Japan and the Philippines.

Public sources indicate that the KF-98 can be carried by 22.75% of the combined fleet of ~2200 non-bomber crewed fixed-wing combat aircraft reportedly deployed by the PLAAF and PLANAF in early 2025. The integration of the KF-98 has been confirmed with the JH-7A strike aircraft (x4) and the J-16 multirole fighter (x4, possibly x6).