China Conducts 4th Successful Test of Wu-14

choi

Bill Gertz, China Conducts Fourth Test of Wu-14 Strike Vehicle; ‘Extreme maneuvers’ used in latest high-speed warhead test. Washington Free Beacon, June 11, 2015.
freebeacon.com/national-security/china-conducts-fourth-test-of-wu-14-strike-vehicle/
("China this week [June 7] carried out the fourth [successful] est of an ultra high-speed nuclear delivery vehicle [Wu-14] * * * Earlier tests took place last year on Jan 9, Aug 7, and Dec 2. * * * The Wu-14 was assessed as traveling up to 10 times the speed of sound * * * Unlike earlier tests, the latest test demonstrated what one official called “extreme maneuvers” that appeared to analysts designed for penetrating through missile defense systems. * * * [Rick Fisher remarked:] ‘There is an urgent need to increase funding to accelerate the early deployment of rail gun weapons.’
Rail guns fire shotgun-style pellets at hypersonic speeds that create pellet clouds that can be used to damage or destroy Chinese hypersonic warheads”)

My comment: “ ‘extreme maneuvers’ that appeared to analysts designed for penetrating through missile defense systems.”
(a) Pay attention to the word “designed.”  The text around it did not say if the design will succeed--and this may be the brilliant, hidden point.
(b) At first, I thought: what is the big deal?  Doesn’t China has done some 变轨?  Turns out that the Chinese term applies to satellite or space station, but not missiles (including intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM)).
(c) Except rumors about China’s DF-21D “carrier killer” missile, the first successful test of re-direct a missile mid-course was

Sam LaGrone, Video: Tomahawk Strike Missile Punches Hole Through Moving Maritime Target. USNI News, Feb 9, 2015
news.usni.org/2015/02/09/video-tomahawk-strike-missile-punches-hole-moving-maritime-target

, which I brought up recently (when Strategy Page concluded that as is, the missile is not practical, due to its slow speed.