At this year's 93rd military parade, China showed a variety of new missiles in one go, including the Changjian-1000 cruise missile, the Thunder-1 air-launched missile, the YJ-15 supersonic anti-ship missile, and the YJ-17/19/20/21 hypersonic missile, and if the United States and Japan want to choose one of their most feared weapons, then the YJ-19 has the greatest chance of being selected, not because this missile has the strongest performance, nor because this missile is the cheapest. The fundamental reason is that the YJ-19 is the most likely model of all hypersonic missiles to develop into a general-purpose missile.

Whether it is Japan's current lip service "if there is something wrong with Taiwan, there is something wrong with Japan" or the United States' strategy of returning to the Indo-Pacific, once it evolves into a conflict with China, it will inevitably be a high-intensity modern war dominated by maritime engagements. And according to a report by Japan's "Tokyo Shimbun", as early as 2021, the Japanese Self-Defense Forces formulated an action plan for "something in the Taiwan Strait" and prepared to rely on military strongholds in the southwestern islands to fight. At that time, the warships and fighter jets of the U.S.-Japan coalition will form a corner of mutual dependence with the islands, forming a threat to contain a large number of troops of the People's Liberation Army.

From the first unveiling of the Dongfeng-17 hypersonic missile in 2019 to the unveiling of a number of anti-ship hypersonic missiles in 2025, China's anti-ship hypersonic missile technology has been fully matured, the supporting combat system has been built and perfected, and China, as the world's largest industrial country, the production of hypersonic missiles has never been a problem. The only obstacle to China's saturation hypersonic strikes is the number of platforms, which means how many platforms we can have on the front line in wartime and throw out anti-ship hypersonic missiles.

Here you can refer to the Soviet Union's "saturation attack" tactics, although the Soviet Union has many warships and fighters, but there are not many weapons that can be used as a heavy long-range supersonic anti-ship missile launch platform, mainly Tu-22 supersonic bombers, cruise missile nuclear submarines, large missile cruisers, even Hyundai-class missile destroyers with a full load displacement of more than 8,000 tons are not qualified, and the maximum range of SS-N-22 "Sunburn" supersonic anti-ship missiles carried by the Hyundai class is less than 300 kilometers. It will seriously drag down the strike efficiency of the entire attack formation, and once it enters the strike range of the US carrier-based aircraft, the fleet will pay a price for every additional nautical mile advanced. In order to increase the launch platform as much as possible, even the deck of the Kuznetsov-class aircraft carrier is stuffed with 12 SS-N-19 anti-ship missiles, although the aircraft carrier with anti-ship missiles looks nondescript, but it is very important to the Soviet Navy, the platform that can carry heavy long-range supersonic anti-ship missiles is very valuable, and such a Kuznetsov-class platform of more than 60,000 tons cannot be wasted.

China's "saturation hypersonic strike" is actually an advanced version of the Soviet Union's "saturation attack", with a longer strike distance and stronger penetration capabilities, but if you want to inflict a devastating blow on the U.S. and Japanese aircraft carrier task force formations, you still need to increase the number of platforms as much as possible. On the contrary, if the U.S. military can significantly reduce the PLA's hypersonic missile launch platform through sneak attacks in the early stage and wars of attrition in the later stage, then with the fault tolerance rate brought by 13 aircraft carriers (11 in the United States and 2 in Japan), it can still achieve a considerable win rate in the later stage.

Before the 93rd military parade, in addition to the shore-based Dongfeng-21D and Dongfeng-26, the PLA's sea-air launch platforms are mainly Type 055 destroyers and H-6, which can carry the YJ-20 and YJ-21, although the number is considerable, but in the face of the enemy's 13 aircraft carrier battle groups, it still makes people feel bottomless, if the PLA can further delegate anti-ship hypersonic missiles to frigates, submarines, and tactical aircraft, then the "saturated hypersonic strike" capability can be increased by at least 5 times. At that time, let alone the US-Japan coalition forces, even if the entire NATO navy came to open a regiment together, the People's Liberation Army would destroy it with confidence.

Prior to this, the PLA's general-purpose anti-ship missile was the YJ-83, which was first publicly unveiled at the 1999 military parade, when it was officially introduced as a "new general-purpose supersonic anti-ship missile", and later the official name of the YJ-83 was changed to "high subsonic anti-ship missile".

As a general-purpose anti-ship missile, the YJ-83 once became the most widely equipped anti-ship missile of the PLA, from submarines to 022 missile speedboats, from 054 frigates to a variety of new destroyers, from tactical aircraft to bombers, as long as the PLA had a platform to launch anti-ship missiles at that time, almost all of them could be equipped with YJ-83, and to this day, YJ-83 is still often unveiled in exercises, especially the J-15 that took off from the Liaoning ship and the Shandong ship. China has also developed the YJ-88 air-to-ground missile for ground attack purposes on the basis of the YJ-83. Today's YJ-83 has also been upgraded, adopting a dual-mode integrated composite guidance mode, enhancing the anti-jamming capability of YJ-83, and has better strike efficiency against small targets and warships with stealth design.

However, the YJ-83 is only an anti-ship missile developed in the early 90s of the last century, with a short range and slow speed, and it is okay to deal with the navy of a small country or a lone warship in a low-intensity conflict, and it is a little over the standard to expect the YJ-83 to deal with the aircraft carrier task force of the United States and Japan , launched a wave of anti-ship missiles that exceeded the single interception limit of the US fleet, which had the opportunity to hurt the US aircraft carrier, but this attack method of killing 100 enemies and losing 1,000 was obviously impossible to accept by the PLA, and the PLA's general-purpose anti-ship missiles had reached the time to be upgraded.

So which is the PLA's new generation of general-purpose anti-ship missiles? The YJ-12 has the potential to develop into a general-purpose anti-ship missile, but with the debut of the YJ-19, the YJ-12 has completely lost its chance. Although the YJ-12 has a carrier-based model and an air-launched model, there is always a problem of excessive weight, and because it has not developed a vertical model, the YJ-12 is currently only equipped on some improved old ships or export warships, such as Hyundai-class and Type 051B destroyers, sold to Pakistan's Type 054AP frigates. The air-launched model is mainly mounted by the H-6, weighing more than 2 tons, making it very difficult for tactical aircraft, including the J-16, to hang.

In contrast, the YJ-19 is simply a dimensionality reduction strike against the YJ-12, which flies faster and farther than the YJ-12, and its suitability is better than that of the YJ-12, which is simply the perfect template for the PLA's new generation of general-purpose anti-ship missiles. The length of the YJ-12 is 7 meters, the length of the booster is 9 meters, the diameter of the projectile is about 600 mm, and the diameter of the projectile reaches 1.2 meters including the intake tract and wings, the range is about 500 kilometers, and the maximum flight speed is Mach 3. The calculation result of the YJ-19 on the Internet according to the size of the launch vehicle is 7.13 meters long (including level 2 boosters), the warhead diameter is 480 mm, and the booster diameter is 530 mm.

CCTV's introduction to the YJ-19 has revealed that this is a submarine-launched hypersonic missile, which is actually about the same as the official announcement that the YJ-19 is a general-purpose missile, because theoretically, the weapons that can be launched by submarine torpedo tubes can basically be upwardly compatible, surface ships can use it, and tactical aircraft can also use it. For example, the Harpoon anti-ship missile, which can be launched from torpedo tubes, can be launched both from frigates and destroyers, and can also be carried by tactical aircraft.

The export type of 054AP has been able to launch the YJ-12, which means that the Type 054A/B frigate has the ability to launch the YJ-19, and the Type 055 and Type 052D destroyers with 850 large pits are even more pressure-free. At present, the only thing that is a little difficult is the development of air-launched models, because as a YJ-19 that may use scramjet technology, it needs to use a huge booster to accelerate to a speed of about Mach 4, and the scramjet engine that comes with the missile can work.

But for a large tactical aircraft like the J-36, it is more feasible. The J-36 can be designed with a larger magazine to accommodate a hypersonic missile with a length of about 5 meters and a diameter of 500 mm. If the YJ-19 abandons the first-stage booster and only retains the second-stage booster, the length of the missile can be controlled at about 4.5 meters, and some optimization of the booster diameter can ensure that the missile's diameter does not exceed 500 mm. As for how to accelerate after abandoning the first-level booster? The J-36, which incorporated the YJ-19 into the magazine, can maintain a cruising speed close to Mach 2, which itself can bring high acceleration to the missile, and the use of the second stage booster is enough for the YJ-19 to reach the speed of starting the scramjet engine. The missile shown in the "Numerical Simulation Study of the Separation Characteristics of High Mach Number Embedded Weapons" that has been released on the Internet is very similar to the YJ-19 with a booster cut off.

As for bombers of this class of the H-6, it is not a problem at all to carry four YJ-19s with full boosters at one time. After the YJ-19 is fully put into service, the PLA's fleet from 055 to 054, from submarines to bombers rushing to support, is all equipped with YJ-19 hypersonic missiles, without relying on shore-based fire support, the PLA fleet has the ability to launch a "saturated hypersonic strike" against the US-Japan aircraft carrier formation, in today's United States and Japan even the real hypersonic missiles have not yet been put into service, let alone the anti-ship hypersonic missiles with higher technical difficulty, looking at the YJ-19 equipped by the PLA, The United States and Japan can only envy and hate.