YJ-9 Chinese Anti-Ship Air-to-Surface Missile

In 2013, the existence of a light weight Chinese AShM was revealed to the public via internet, which is designated as YJ-9, with YJ as the abbreviation of Ying Ji, meaning Eagle Strike in Chinese (鹰击). It is reported that YJ-9 is capable of target prioritization like the latest version of Swedish RBS-15, but unlike RBS-15, this is not achieved via the processing capability of the missile itself as in the case of RBS-15, but instead, it is achieved via airborne radar of the launching platform, such as fixed and rotary wing aircraft. The reason is that equipping AShM with target prioritization capability is too costly, driving up the unit price of the missile. Since the maximum range of the YJ-9 is within the visual range, developer took French approach like that of AS 15 TT by adding the capability to radar: target prioritization capability is incorporated into the radar, and the missile itself is equipped with data link, so that when there is a need to switch targets after launch, the updated information would be passed to missile from launching platform. There is also a suffix XF, rumored to be the abbreviation of Xiao Fan (小反), which in turn, is the abbreviation of Xiao-Xing Fan-Jian-Dao-Dan (小型反舰导弹)， meaning small AShM. However, such claims have yet to be verified by official governmental sources of China, or other independent sources outside China. YJ-9 AShM is carried by Harbin Z-9 helicopter and other aircraft.[2] YJ-9 is frequently but erroneously identified as a derivative of another light AShM TL-10 with similar size and performance, but the photo of People's Liberation Army Navy Z-9 helicopter carrying YJ-9 shows other wise due to the different layout of the two missiles: the forward fins of TL-10 is located near the midpoint of the body, while that of C-701 is closer to the tail, at a point approximately one-third to the end of body and two-thirds to the nose tip, and UYJ-9 is clearly in the layout of C-701 instead of TL-10.