- Yes
- No
Here I am making a suggestion of the Yitian 2 air defense system for the China tech tree. Currently China lacks a domestic top tier SPAA vehicle. The Tor-1 is decent but has its own issues. Moreover China has the ability to fill its top tier with entirely domestic vehicles. The Yitian 2 is one of such vehicles. It features missiles with very impressive range (20km!). Also the chassis is very mobile since it is based on the VN-1 wheeled IFV. All in all, this will be a very potent anti-air solution for China.
History
The “Yitian” (“reaching the sky” in Chinese) series of vehicles are missile based air defense systems mounted on light wheeled chassis. The earliest member in this family is the original Yitian which features 8 x TY90 missiles on WZ551 chassis.
However in recent years the range of TY90 may be too short and the WZ551 is too mediocre even for third world country customers. NORINCO thus preserve the Yitian concept and created a more powerful platform with better missiles and chassis, the Yitian 2 (倚天II型防空导弹武器系统). It is also called Sky Dragon 20 (天龙20) and was first revealed at the Zhuhai Airshow 2022. It features a turret with a searching radar, a tracking radar and 8 brand new TY20 surface-to-air missiles. The turret is mounted on a wheeled VN-1 chassis that is based on ZBL08 used by PLA. The TY20 missiles can be combination of two sub variants: TY20R and TY20I. TY20R has an active radar seeker while TY20I has an IR seeker.
On another note, recently it was revealed that there is a latest Yitian member that was sold to an African country. It is called “Yitian-L” and has 4 TY90 missiles mounted on a Dongfeng Menshi. I may make a suggestion for this vehicle in the future.
Specification
Weight: ~23 tones
Power: Deutz BF6M1015C diesel 11.9 liter 440 hp (330 kW)
Max Speed: 100km/h
Radar: 1 search radar, 1 tracking radar
Armament: 8 x TY20 (TY20R or TY20I)
TY20R
TY20I
Pictures
Sources
珠海航展抢先看：多种新陆战装备亮相航展现场-军工资源网——军工网 军民两用服务平台 (zgjg.org.cn)
中国兵器航展节目单揭秘，哪款是你心中的明星装备 - 知乎 (zhihu.com)
14届珠海航展——中国兵器装备集团（8号馆）海量种_中无人机(688297)聊吧_赢家聊吧【股吧】 (yjcf360.com)
中国北方工业有限公司 防空反导 (norinco.com)
[珠海航展]TY-20R/I防空导弹，双向数据链技术开始广泛应用 - 知乎 (zhihu.com)
北方工业 中国兵器 倚天II型防空导弹武器系统_哔哩哔哩_bilibili
中国“倚天Ⅱ”防空系统有多牛？军事专家揭秘！_哔哩哔哩_bilibili
