CJ 100 or DF 100 Cruise Missile

     DF-100 Hypersonic Cruise Missile at National Day Military Parade 2019. With a range of 2000-3000 kms that is capable of hitting land targets or large warships.

The People's Liberation Army Rocket Force, or PLARF, posted the full video on social media on Sept. 25, 2019. Sometime afterward, the original one-minute long montage was replaced with one that omitted the launch of the unknown weapon and replaced it with unrelated footage of known missiles, according to the SCMP.

There is no obvious indication about what this new missile is or what its mission may be. The video shows that it is vertically launched from a 10-wheel transporter-erector-launcher (TEL) that appears to be able to carry two of the weapons in a ready-to-fire configuration. Photos of preparations for the 70th-anniversary parade in Beijing on Oct. 1, 2019, have shown a similar, previously unseen TEL with its entire rear section tarped off.

A screenshot from the original PLARF video showing the TEL as the missile begins to blast off.

  
From Weibo


Chinese Internet
A similar-looking TEL seen during preparations for the parade in Beijing on Oct. 1.

It seems to be CJ-100 near space supersonic(Mach 3~5) cruise missile. https://t.co/ACZ82CPOFl pic.twitter.com/LSt46g4IkR

— dafeng cao (@dafengcao) September 25, 2019

The weapon itself appears to have at least two distinct parts, a main body with a very large rocket booster attached to the end. The booster would fall away at some point in the early stage of flight.

The main weapon has large strakes or fins and what appear to be a number of relatively long and thin fairings at the tail end, which some have suggested could be ramjet intakes. An air-breathing ramjet propulsion system would fit with the large booster motor, since the weapon would then need to get up to an appropriate speed and altitude before its engines could function properly. A number of existing Chinese supersonic anti-ship missiles, such as the YJ-12 series or the newer HD-1, use a similar general configuration.

Chinese Internet
China's HD-1 supersonic anti-ship cruise missile.

The PLARF already operates the ground-based subsonic CJ-10 land-attack cruise missile, which has a range of approximately 930 miles. This has led some to believe that this new weapon is a supersonic, or possibly hypersonic, land-attack cruise missile intended to replace that existing weapon.

Hypersonic speed is defined as greater than Mach 5. The wide nose and missile body, together with the strakes/fins, would seem to make it unlikely that this is indeed a hypersonic weapon.

Others have posited that it could be a new quasi-ballistic missile. However, the strakes/fins and possible ramjet propulsion would be at odds with what one would expect to see in a weapon that is supposed to fly in a ballistic flight path.

Regardless of the exact nature of its configuration, the weapon could also potentially be intended for other roles instead of or in addition to striking land targets, including engaging hostile ships at extended ranges. The PLARF has already developed significant anti-ship ballistic missile capabilities, most notably with the DF-21D medium-range ballistic missile and the DF-26 intermediate-range ballistic missile, the latter of which is seen in the video below.