Chinese warships go ballistic with new mystery missile

Kong: China continues to astound, and steal a march on its Western counterparts, with new types of weapons and missiles.

The latest example of this occurred on April 19 when the People’s Liberation Army Navy (PLAN) released a video clip depicting a hitherto unknown missile being fired from a Type 055 guided-missile cruiser.

The new weapon is presumed by most commentators to be an anti-ship ballistic missile, which analysts refer to under the nomenclature of YJ-21.

If the initial analysis of this YJ21 is correct, then China becomes the first country in the world to operationally field such a missile from a naval vessel.

The YJ-21 was fired from the warship Wuxi, a Type 055 cruiser that had been commissioned in Qingdao just a month earlier, in March.

Its launch from an active-duty ship indicates the missile is almost certainly now in PLA service.