C-601

The C-601 belongs to China's early anti-ship missile development path, connected to the YJ-6 and the larger HY-2/C-201 family. It was created to give aircraft an anti-ship strike option using a missile derived from earlier land- and ship-launched designs. The missile illustrates the step from coastal-defense weapons toward air-launched maritime strike.

Compared with later compact sea-skimming missiles, the C-601 was large and reflected older missile technology. Removing ground-launch booster requirements made aircraft carriage possible, but the missile remained bulky and best suited to bomber-sized launch platforms. Its design priority was delivering a significant anti-ship warhead rather than stealth or compact multi-platform integration.

In service analysis, the C-601 is most important as a developmental and export-era marker. It helped expand China's anti-ship missile concepts into the air-launched domain, but later systems such as the YJ-8/C-801 family offered more compact and modern approaches. The page should therefore frame the C-601 as an older but meaningful stage in Chinese sea-denial development.