China ICBM/SLBM, nuclear arms thread

[Temstar]

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This article is about the discovering and coming to light of those 300 silos. The actual discovery part I thought wasn't super illuminating. Lots of head-in-sand moments as you would expect. However I found this part about the SFA style windmill cover story interesting:

What was equally remarkable was the reaction from Chinese media. Soon after our discovery, several of the more prominent Western pro-China accounts on Twitter, through a hilarious misunderstanding of a labeled image of the area, began claiming that the silo fields ually windfarms. This was because there was indeed a windfarm nearby which Jeffrey and I had dutifully labeled as such, but the pro-China accounts, apparently having never interacted with a map beyond Google Maps, believed that this label had been placed there by some other force and that we were simply misinterpreting a map someone else had provided.

The windfarm story became, via completely organic means, the dominant Chinese cover story and was immediately picked up by the Global Times, the Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs, and basically every Chinese Embassy with a real go-getter in charge of their social media accounts. Many of these posts have since been deleted – others are still up. The denial made it all the way to Chinese Central Television, in which several distinguished guests on Chinese news shows called Jeffrey and I ignorant hacks. This cover story even gained some traction in English-language media. I was particularly blindsided by a story written by a senior China-focused imagery specialist that seriously entertained the possibility that these were simply windfarms.

For me I've always thought the windmill thing was clearly an extremely obvious tongue-in-cheek line and not a serious attempt at obfuscation, a meme if you will. I even remember people like dabao making meme CGs renderings of a windmill (the electricity generating kind) being launched out of a silo spinning blade and all. If you actually use the windmill line in any serious discussion in Chinese playing dumb people would do the wink wink elbow nudge thing and ask if the windmills are intended to capture the east wind.

So it's surprisingly that coming from the other side, there really were people who bought the idea of windmills. If the article is to be believed they're having serious problem reading between the lines of even the most superficial cover stories.

 

[tokenanalyst]

The accuracy of foreign estimates of China’s nuclear arsenal may be open to question, but I don’t think there’s a significant discrepancy in the order of magnitude. In particular, it’s impossible for there to be thousands of ICBM TELs.

That is a number that China are going to never tell. A lot are decoys, a lot medium range missiles. What I do know that China hold 30% of the production of Heavy vehicles so is not out the question that they have the capability of building thousands of ICBM TELs, they sold NK tree loggers that the NK converted in TELs.
But agree they should build more Sea based nukes and arm the conventional submarines with nuclear tipped cruise missiles.

 

[Kalec]

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This article is about the discovering and coming to light of those 300 silos. The actual discovery part I thought wasn't super illuminating. Lots of head-in-sand moments as you would expect. However I found this part about the SFA style windmill cover story interesting:



For me I've always thought the windmill thing was clearly an extremely obvious tongue-in-cheek line and not a serious attempt at obfuscation, a meme if you will. I even remember people like dabao making meme CGs renderings of a windmill (the electricity generating kind) being launched out of a silo spinning blade and all. If you actually use the windmill line in any serious discussion in Chinese playing dumb people would do the wink wink elbow nudge thing and ask if the windmills are intended to capture the east wind.

So it's surprisingly that coming from the other side, there really were people who bought the idea of windmills. If the article is to be believed they're having serious problem reading between the lines of even the most superficial cover stories.

Regrettably, the most glaring detail Decker overlooks is that his so-called 'China experts' bear a striking resemblance to UFO enthusiasts, in the meantime UFO-logists arguably possess more 'visual evidence' to substantiate their claims than do these analysts. In reality, our 'China experts' are merely 'think tankies' sitting in Virginia offices, churning out articles not to uncover the truth, but to serve the agendas of those who sign their paychecks.

There have been rumors regarding "windmill field" circulating on CJDBY since 2015. Thus, what we are witnessing is less a 'massive oversight' and more a 'refusal to believe' that this windmill exists. These arms control expert scrutinize rumors with the pedantry of antique appraisers, adhering to the absurd standard that 'without 100% certainty, we cannot deem something a possibility.'

Yet, the reality is that no one is obligated to gather evidence like a prosecutor, *especially when only figures like Jeffery, Decker enjoy institutional funding*, while the vast majority do not. Independent observers have no duty to treat this as paid labor rather than a personal passion.

What makes everything funnier, all op-ed engage in literal interpretation that is completely tone-deaf to East Asian humor. He remains oblivious to the fact that windmill means to be ICBM as metaphor. His confusion is akin to a Soviet official questioning why Finns would disguise a burn bottle as a 'cocktail,' or to foreign media failing to grasp the fraudulent connotations of 'filled with water' in Chinese discourse."

 

[Totoro]

Regrettably, the most glaring detail Decker overlooks is that his so-called 'China experts' bear a striking resemblance to UFO enthusiasts, in the meantime UFO-logists arguably possess more 'visual evidence' to substantiate their claims than do these analysts. In reality, our 'China experts' are merely 'think tankies' sitting in Virginia offices, churning out articles not to uncover the truth, but to serve the agendas of those who sign their paychecks.

There have been rumors regarding "windmill field" circulating on CJDBY since 2015. Thus, what we are witnessing is less a 'massive oversight' and more a 'refusal to believe' that this windmill exists. These arms control expert scrutinize rumors with the pedantry of antique appraisers, adhering to the absurd standard that 'without 100% certainty, we cannot deem something a possibility.'

Yet, the reality is that no one is obligated to gather evidence like a prosecutor, *especially when only figures like Jeffery, Decker enjoy institutional funding*, while the vast majority do not. Independent observers have no duty to treat this as paid labor rather than a personal passion.

What makes everything funnier, all op-ed engage in literal interpretation that is completely tone-deaf to East Asian humor. He remains oblivious to the fact that windmill means to be ICBM as metaphor. His confusion is akin to a Soviet official questioning why Finns would disguise a burn bottle as a 'cocktail,' or to foreign media failing to grasp the fraudulent connotations of 'filled with water' in Chinese discourse."

Kalec, thanks for that insight. I wanted to ask, is there any new updated unit ORBAT for the missile force, perhaps focused on non-nuclear units available somewhere? Last stuff I found dates back to 2024 or so, and even that might've been out of date.

 

[Blitzo]

These arms control expert scrutinize rumors with the pedantry of antique appraisers, adhering to the absurd standard that 'without 100% certainty, we cannot deem something a possibility.'

I would say this is also generalizable to most PLA watching by "experts" from establishment institution/media as well.

 

[Kalec]

Kalec, thanks for that insight. I wanted to ask, is there any new updated unit ORBAT for the missile force, perhaps focused on non-nuclear units available somewhere? Last stuff I found dates back to 2024 or so, and even that might've been out of date.

Thank you. the orbat by decker back in 2024 just missed several bde, still good to read. the main problem would be underestimation on launcher per bde.

 

[Totoro]

Thanks. So not much has changed since that Decker's orbat? (Even though it was published in summer of 2023, close to three years ago?)

You say he underestimated number of launchers per brigade? But his orbat already mentions quite high launcher numbers per unit.
36 for DF-10/1/15/16/17/26
Could there really be more than 36 per those brigades? How many today?

It is only strategic missile units that are cited with 6 to 12 launchers per unit.

Also, I would assume the DF21 units in his orbat have by now been replaced by DF-17/26 ?

He had listed 6 DF26 brigades back then, plus 4 more with unknown systems. Could all those be DF26 by now, or are some DF27? Which older systems is DF27 replacing, anyway? Or are those newly added brigades?

 

[Kalec]

You say he underestimated number of launchers per brigade? But his orbat already mentions quite high launcher numbers per unit.
36 for DF-10/1/15/16/17/26
Could there really be more than 36 per those brigades? How many today?

For example, the DF-100 unit in CCTV report has shown 8 TEL in one frame, usually mean to be from one battalion, making the number of TEL per bde to 48.

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It is only strategic missile units that are cited with 6 to 12 launchers per unit.

Only original DF-31(A) bde has 6 launchers, the rest of bde has at least 12 launcher at minimum, meanwhile we are seeing more and more 3 launcher in one frame at multiple locations so it has a very high chance that now each ICBM bde has 18 launchers instead of 12.

Also, I would assume the DF21 units in his orbat have by now been replaced by DF-17/26 ?

DF-21 have been replaced by DF-26 and DF-31AG for a while, plus DF-26 tel/bde is very high compared to what decker showed in the orbat.

He had listed 6 DF26 brigades back then, plus 4 more with unknown systems. Could all those be DF26 by now, or are some DF27? Which older systems is DF27 replacing, anyway? Or are those newly added brigades?

it is way more than that regarding DF-26. newly added bde are for CJ-1000 and ICBM mostly.

 

[Totoro]

Well, thanks for your input. When you have more time, I'm sure people here wouldn't mind a current orbat attempt of your own.

 

[Kalec]

Well, thanks for your input. When you have more time, I'm sure people here wouldn't mind a current orbat attempt of your own.

Sometimes it is about giving more reward value for carnegie or CNA for their paycheck to expertise rather than open source everything. ;-D