Satellite imagery shows China has been building at least two facilities featuring hardened shelters with retractable roofs along its heavily disputed border with India. These look to be examples of a new pattern of air defense site, with the shelters allowing for surface-to-air missiles to be fired from transporter-erector-launchers situated within. The shelters, which offer added protection against various threats and create complexities for enemy forces, reflect larger trends when it comes to hardening of military infrastructure in China and elsewhere globally.
Geospatial intelligence firm AllSource Analysis was the first to call attention to the two sites in western China, which it assessed using satellite images from Planet Labs taken between August and September. Additional satellite imagery captured in September from Vantor (formerly Maxar Technologies), first obtained by India Today, offers further insights.
One of the sites is situated within Gar County, while the other is near the eastern end of Pangong Lake (also known as Pangong Tso). Both are located inside China’s Tibet Autonomous Region in relatively close proximity to the so-called Line of Actual Control (LAC), which forms the current de facto border with India. Pangong Lake and other areas along the LAC have seen repeated confrontations between Chinese and Indian forces over the years that have sometimes escalated into violent skirmishes. In 2022, TWZ noted an already significant expansion of Chinese military infrastructure on that country’s side of the LAC following the conclusion of a particular serious flare-up in the border dispute that had first erupted two years earlier.
Static surface-to-air missile sites are present at bases across China, especially in border areas and along its coasts, all of which share common circular design patterns. The typical mode of operation at those facilities involves TELs moving out from garages to open positions when ordered.
The facilities in Gar County and near Pangong Lake, which are enclosed inside heavy perimeter walls, have distinctly different configurations from what is typically seen at Chinese air defense sites. Each one has four hardened shelters with retractable roofs, all with the same trapezoidal design. From what can be seen in additional satellite imagery from Vantor, the shelters look to have a reinforced concrete garage-like central section with angled additions, which may just be earthen berms, on three sides.
The Gar County facility also has what appears to be two radars in elevated positions, as well as channels linking them to the shelters and what looks to be the main command center. Communications cables could be laid in those channels.
Similar channels are visible at the facility near Pangong Lake, but there are no apparent radar positions currently. There are signs that construction is still ongoing at both locations to differing degrees.
The facilities in Gar County and along the shore of Pangong Lake also have an array of other structures that look to provide for munitions storage, vehicle maintenance, living spaces for personnel, command and control, and more. Each one also has a pair of basketball courts, a common feature at People’s Liberation Army (PLA) bases, large and small, across China.
Beyond the shelters, many of the other buildings at both locations, including the main command centers, look to have been built to extremely similar, if not identical patterns. This, in turn, points to the sites, which have different overall layouts, having the same core purpose.
As mentioned, the combination of the shelters, radar positions, and other features seen at the Gar Country site, in particular, points to an air defense mission for both facilities. AllSource Analysis assessed that the sites would be sufficient to support an HQ-9 long-range surface-to-air missile system. The HQ-9 is in widespread Chinese service today and is broadly analogous to later models of the Soviet-designed S-300P series. A typical complete HQ-9 system includes a number of 8×8 wheeled transporter-erector-launchers (TEL), each of which can be loaded with up to four interceptors at a time, and offboard search and fire control radars.
The HQ-9 TELs fire their missiles vertically, which aligns with shelters with retractable roofs. One of the Vantor satellite images of the Gar County site shows the roofs of two of the shelters retracted, revealing objects inside that are consistent with HQ-9 TELs in their deployed positions.
Other surface-to-air missile systems that launch their interceptors vertically could also potentially make use of the shelters. It is also possible that they could be used in combination with surface-to-surface missile systems, though this seems far less likely to be the intent with everything else that is visible at both sites.
First and foremost, the ability to fire anti-air interceptors from within hardened shelters offers additional protection for those assets, which could be particularly valuable for Chinese forces arrayed along the LAC with India. The facilities help extend the PLA’s anti-access and area denial bubbles deeper into Indian territory – India Today‘s report noted that there is an Indian air base on the opposite side of the LAC from where the site in Gar County is situated – but are also within range of Indian standoff strikes as a result. Their location also opens them up to the possibility of more direct and shorter-range attacks in the event of a major conflict, including ones involving armed drones or even ground raids. As mentioned, the facilities in Gar County and near Pangong Lake also have fortified perimeters.
The shelters also make it harder for enemy forces to readily determine what is inside, which could lead to opponents expanding valuable resources to destroy empty structures. They also simply provide a way to help shield assets and personnel from extremely low temperatures, harsh weather conditions, and other potentially problematic environmental factors commonly found in this part of the world.
It’s interesting to note here that this is not the first time that structures with retractable roofs that look intended, at least in part, to be used in combination with surface-to-air missile systems, and the HQ-9 specifically, have appeared at Chinese military bases.
In 2017, Reuters reported on the appearance of far less hardened structures with retractable roofs on China’s man-made island outposts in Subi, Mischief, and Fiery Cross reefs, all part of the hotly disputed Spratly Islands chain in the South China Sea. The suggestion, even then, was that those buildings were reflective of a broader trend in Chinese air defense sites.
“It is not like the Chinese to build anything in the South China Sea just to build it, and these structures resemble others that house SAM batteries, so the logical conclusion is that’s what they are for,” an unnamed U.S. intelligence official said, according to Reuters‘ story at the time.
Satellite imagery, as well as pictures taken closer to ground level, have since shown additional structures with retractable roofs on other Chinese island outposts in the South China Sea. A satellite image taken in April 2022 captured the roofs retracted on a pair of structures on Woody Island, a major forward operating location for the PLA in the Paracel Islands chain, which also showed objects within that were consistent with HQ-9 TELs in their deployed positions.
There is broader precedent for protected surface-to-air missile sites globally, as well. For example, Israel has sites where Arrow-series anti-ballistic missile interceptors can be fired from within hardened structures. During the Cold War, the U.S. military also fielded Nike-series and Bomarc surface-to-air missiles at fixed sites with protected launcher arrangements.
The shelters with retractable roofs at the sites in Gar County and near Pangong Lake also highlight a larger trend when it comes to physical hardening, or at least ‘enclosing,’ that has been observed at Chinese military facilities in recent years. There has been a particularly visible surge in the construction of new hardened aircraft shelters, as well as unhardened, but fully enclosed hangars, at air bases across China, including ones situated on the Tibetan Plateau.
Vast fields of new silos for intercontinental ballistic missiles have also been built in the western end of China over the past few years. This is all on top of the PLA’s existing array of hardened infrastructure, which includes deeply buried air and naval bases.
Chinese construction of new hardened and unhardened aircraft shelters, in particular, is reflective of larger global trends, including in Russia, North Korea, and Iran, as well. It has also stood in notable contrast to the lack of such developments in the United States, something that has become a topic of heated debate, which TWZ has been tracking very closely.
Growing threats posed by long-range, one-way attack drones, which offer a relatively low-cost way to launch large volume strikes, especially against fixed targets like air bases and air defense sites, have become a particularly significant factor in the hardening debate. Ukraine’s Operation Spiderweb also underscored the threats that smaller, shorter-range drones can pose to aircraft and other assets out in the open, and in areas far away from active combat zones. Drones could also be layered in with the many other methods of attack that would be used against the same array of targets.
The new sites in Gar County and near Pangong Lake point to a still-evolving approach to static air defenses in China that builds on work that has already been done to expand defenses on outposts in the South China Sea. The fact that two facilities share a clear common pattern is also a sign of standardization that could well appear elsewhere in the country in the future.
Altogether, the hardened sites near the border with India, with their shelters with retractable roofs and other structures with common designs, look to be a sign of larger things to come.
Contact the author: [email protected]