Anti-ship missile

Anti-ship missiles are guided missiles that are designed for use against ships and large boats. Most anti-ship missiles are of the sea skimming variety, and many use a combination of inertial guidance and active radar homing. A good number of other anti-ship missiles use infrared homing to follow the heat that is emitted by a ship; it is also possible for anti-ship missiles to be guided by radio command all the way.

The first anti-ship missiles, which were developed and built by Nazi Germany, used radio command guidance. These saw some success in the Mediterranean Theater in 1943–44, sinking or heavily damaging at least 31 ships with the Henschel Hs 293 and more than seven with the Fritz X, such as the Italian battleship Roma or the cruiser USS Savannah. A variant of the HS 293 had a TV transmitter on board. The bomber carrying it could then fly outside the range of naval AA guns and use TV guidance to lead the missile to its target by radio control.

Many anti-ship missiles can be launched from a variety of weapons systems including surface warships (they can then be referred to as ship-to-ship missiles), submarines, bombers, fighter planes, patrol planes, helicopters, shore batteries, land vehicles, and conceivably, even by infantrymen firing shoulder-launched missiles. The term surface-to-surface missile (SSM) is used when appropriate.

C-801 anti-ship missile

C-801 is a subsonic Chinese anti-ship missile (AShM) developed in the 1980s, receiving NATO reporting name CSS-N-4 Sardine. Designated as YJ-8 (YJ is the abbreviation of Yingji, or 鹰击 in Chinese, meaning Eagle Strike), this originally surface platform based missile would become the foundation based on which several other missiles developed, such as YJ-1, the submarine-launched version, and YJ-81, the air-launched version. More advanced missiles such as C-802 and C-803, as well as land strike and anti-radiation versions were also subsequently developed.

C-801 is a huge diversion from earlier Chinese anti-ship missiles such as HY/SY/FL AShMs in that its size has drastically reduced, and the layout was similar to that of contemporary western AShMs: the dimension of C-801 is extremely close to that of French Exocet, while the triple control surfaces of C-801 are almost identical to those found on the American Harpoon, and C-801 is sometimes referred by some as the Chinese Exocet. The compact size of C-801 provides it with distinct advantage over earlier HY/FL/SY missiles in that C-801 can be carried various platforms such as fighters and helicopter that previously could not carry large-sized missiles of earlier FL/HY/SY series, and shore-based batteries can carry more missiles in a single vehicle in comparison to earlier AShMs.