China Aiming Smart Missiles At US Ships

China's DF-21 and DF-15 ballistic missiles use inertia plus gyroscope guidance at the middle course, and as a result the flight trajectories are quite inflexible. Even if new optical and radar image guidance technologies are applied at the terminal course, it is still extremely difficult to quickly adjust the direction when attacking a moving target. Suppose a DF-21M middle-range ballistic missile were to attack a U.S. aircraft carrier from a distance of 1,000 kilometers at an average speed of 7 Mach, or flying at a speed of 2,380 meters per second -- the whole course would take approximately seven minutes.