CY-1

The CY-1 (Chang Ying 长樱, Long Tassel, often erronesously referred as Chian Yu, 劍魚, or Swordfish) is a Chinese anti-submarine rocket carried on a variety of surface platforms, including the Luda class missile destroyers and Jiangwei class missile frigates. To date only a small number of CY-1 is known to have been produced and deployed on trial basis, despite the fact that it had first appeared on the defense exhibitions held in China in the late 1980s.

The CY-1 is believed to similar in operation to the U.S. Navy ASROC. There is little information available regarding the development history, performance, and exact status of the missile, but it is understood that a few of the missiles were deployed on the PLA Navy Type 051 (Luda class) destroyers and Type 052H2G (Jiangwei-I class) frigates. The CY-1 is basically an anti-submarine torpedo of either the ET52 or Yu-7 class, delivered by a ballistic rocket. The delivery vehicle features four small stabilising fins and four control surfaces, and is powered by a solid-fuel rocket motor. The maximum range claimed by the developer was 10 nautical miles (or 18 km).

Based on the limited information released by the manufacturers as well as the Chinese own claim, the CY-1 is not an ASW missile as it is often referred, because one of the requirement for missile is to have guidance in its flight, and this is exactly what CY-1 lacks. The missile is fired into the general direction of the target submarine as an unguided rocket, and the guidance does not kick in until after the payload, namely, the torpedo has entered water. As a result, the official Chinese term of Rocket propelled (ASW) torpedo is a much more accurate description for this weapon. When the payload is a depth charge instead of the torpedo, the weapon is referred as (long range) ASW rocket.

Though originally tested onboard Luda class missile destroyers and Jiangwei class missile frigates, the CY-1 can be carried by any surface combatant with C-801/802/803 launchers, from which the CY-1 can be launched, thus increasing the versatility and reducing the cost. In addition, a version is further modified so that it can be launched from torpedo tubes of submarines like the C-801, but there is not any confirmation that this version has entered the service. In an effort to boost possible export, the CY-1 has also been modified to carrying a various range of light torpedoes, such as that of USA, Italy, and Russian. However, there is no known export as of 2007.

The CY-1 is also known to have been tested on the Type 039 submarine.

CY-2
CY-2 (长樱-2) is a development of CY-1, and it is based on C-802 missile, sharing the same turbo jet engine. The missile is in limited service in Chinese navy after numerous tests, the last of which was the test of the air-launched version, which was successfully completed by Harbin SH-5 in 1994. The major improvement is the range of this weapon is tripled to 30 nmi, but the speed is reduced to subsonic level from the 1.5 Mach of CY-1. Just like the way CY-1 can be stored and launched from the container/launcher of C-801, CY-2 can be stored and launched from the container/launcher of C-802. The publicized data for CY-2 includes: Although a development of CY-1, CY-2 is not exactly the replacement of CY-1 and the two are used concurrently by the Chinese navy. One of the reason is that due to space limitation, most of the light surface combatants of the Chinese navy cannot accommodate the large complex sonars on board larger warships. The range of smaller sonars on these light surface combatants of in Chinese navy is less than that of CY-2, and thus the longer range of CY-2 can not be fully exploited if it is on board these smaller surface combatants. As a result, CY-1 remains on board submarine chasers where rocket propelled ASW torpedoes (or ASW rockets) are deployed, while CY-2 is often deployed on larger warships. Another reason for keep CY-1 in the inventory is that CY-1 can be put away and stored like a log without maintenance for sometime, but CY-2 requires periodically maintenance in storage.
 * Diameter: 36 cm
 * Wingspan: 118 cm
 * Weight: 610 kg
 * Speed: Mach 0.9
 * Length: 450 cm
 * Range: 55 km

Just like CY-1, CY-2 is also frequently but erroneously referred as an ASW missile, while in reality it is not, because there is not any guidance at the stage of aerial flight. Developer has claimed that CY-2 can also be armed with a depth charge instead of a lightweight torpedo, but there is no indication of such version has ever entered Chinese service. There are claims of CY-2 being test fired by Chinese submarines, but there is no confirmation that CY-2 has been deployed on Chinese submarines due to lack of information.

CY-3
The latest member of Chinese CY-series ASW weaponry is CY-3 (长樱-3), which is a development of CY-2. Like CY-2, CY-3 can be launched from a variety of platforms, including aircraft, surface ships, submarines, land vehicles, and coastal shore batteries. However, despite the successful completion of the development and receiving state certification for service, only very limited number are in service with Chinese navy, mostly for long term evaluation purposes. CY-3 is facing stiff competition from another Chinese missile CJ-1, which is also under Chinese naval evaluation, and the final selection has not been decided yet.

CY-3 is basically a CY-2 with one-way data link added, so that targeting information can be received from platforms such as aircraft and surface ships. This is considered helpful when targeting information is changed after the weapon is launched, as in the case of the targeting information being updated: Several attack plans are pre-programmed in the computer on board the torpedo carried by the weapon, and when target update occurs, the new information is passed on the weapon, so that the torpedo carried can switch to the best attack plan from the original one selected prior to the update.