Japan’s efforts to build a long-range capability to strike Chinese warships reached a milestone last week as flight testing began for the air-launched variant of its upgraded Type 12 anti-ship missile, a weapon with a reported range of about 1,000km (620 miles).
Photographs taken by aviation enthusiasts on July 30 at Gifu airbase in central Japan show a Mitsubishi F-2B fighter carrying two inert examples of the missile beneath its wings, marking the first public confirmation of a flight test.
The trial – which is designed to verify aerodynamic characteristics and structural loads ahead of separation and live-fire testing – brings Tokyo a step closer to fielding an indigenous family of long-range stand-off missiles that could be deployed from the land, sea and air.
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The missile is part of Japan’s broader effort to have locally developed, multi-domain counterstrike capabilities.
The ground-launched variant entered service in March as the Type 25, extending the range of Japan’s indigenous anti-ship missile force from about 200km to about 1,000km. Ship- and air-launched variants are expected to enter service around the next financial year. A submarine-launched version is in development.
Defence expert Yoshihiro Inaba, the Japan correspondent for the Naval News website, said the air-launched variant offered platform flexibility, making it considerably more difficult for Chinese forces to predict where strikes could come from.
“The introduction of this upgraded Type 12 fundamentally changes this equation by allowing strikes to be launched from the airspace over Kyushu, and even Honshu,” Inaba said.
