China Ballistic Missiles and Nuclear Arms Thread

[chuck731]

Let me introduce '14FengDong',the new global delivery service from China Courier Service Corporation. - EMS.

Your cargo will be delivered across the ocean at an incredible speed and your precious cargo will be well protected before the delivery.

*actual service may be different

Is there any info on cargo survival rate and cost per kilo?

The cargo is death, and its survival rate is 100% in the absence of ballistic missile defence. The cost is another matter. But of what use is any money left once you send this parcel off? As a fringe benefit you get to whistle "The Ride of the Valkyries" over and over again in the half hour or so after you mail this package. After that you find out whether there really is a heaven or hell after all.

 

[Broccoli]

Here is other picture of same TEL from last year, the original uploader in Chinese forum called it DF-31 TEL.

And here is a good reason why you don't want to have thousands of nuclear warheads.

As the United States struggles to deal with budget problems, as the U.S. Air Force deals with boredom, poor morale, drug use, and cheating on certification exams by their personnel entrusted with control of nuclear missiles, we have a solution that will save money as well as make the world a much safer place – get rid of most of our nuclear weapons immediately. A recent New York Times editorial pointed out that it would cost $10,000,000,000 just to update one small portion of the U.S. arsenal, gravity bombs. The U.S. government has no data on the overall cost of maintaining its nuclear arsenal, but various sources estimate the cost over the next decade between $150 billion and $640 billion, depending largely on which nuclear related tasks are included in the budget.

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[AssassinsMace]

By the fenders they're all different from one another.

 

[chuck731]

I also think the TEL in the 2 photos have different wheel arrangements.

This one has a large gap between 1st and 2nd axles, and no other obvious gaps between other axles. None of the axles appear to have wrap around fenders. Also it looks to me like it has 7 axles in all. Also, the rear upper corner of the body is rounded.

This one has 2 large gaps, one between 1st and 2nd axles, another between 2nd and 3rd. Wheels on both 1st and 2nd axles have wrap around fenders. There are also noticeable gaps between 6th and 7th axles, and 7th and 8th axles. This one definitely has 8 axles. The rear upper corner of the body is square.

I will guess the first one is a DF-31 TEL, the second one is a DF-41 TEL, as the 2nd TEL appears to me to be significantly longer than the first.

 

[chuck731]

And here is a good reason why you don't want to have thousands of nuclear warheads.

[/QUOTE] Good point, but the photos themselves suggests one reason why it would be cheaper for the Chinese to build a mobile missile system than for the Americans to do the same. Notice the Chinese TELs are prowling public access roads. I could not believe any American TEL with live nuclear warheads would ever be allowed to prowl public access roads. This means it would cheaper for the Chinese road mobile ballistic missiles to achieve the same level of survivability and dispersal since the entire Chinese road network that can take a 100 ton TEL becames in effect dual use.

 

[shen]

China doesn't need thousands of nuclear warheads, just enough to target key US congressional swing districts. Preferably made in these key swing districts.

 

[weig2000]

Good point, but the photos themselves suggests one reason why it would be cheaper for the Chinese to build a mobile missile system than for the Americans to do the same. Notice the Chinese TELs are prowling public access roads. I could not believe any American TEL with live nuclear warheads would ever be allowed to prowl public access roads. This means it would cheaper for the Chinese road mobile ballistic missiles to achieve the same level of survivability and dispersal since the entire Chinese road network that can take a 100 ton TEL becames in effect dual use.

This is a false comparison. This has nothing to do with supposedly a dictatorship disrupting ordinary people's peaceful life and endangering their safety and a supposedly democracy putting people first. This is about national survival and dealing with existential threat. American doesn't need a road-mobile nuclear force because it has a much better submarine based nuclear force. China had to develop a road-mobile nuclear strike force because its submarine based nuclear force is much less developed and less reliable, yet. If the US were in a similar situation to China, during, say, Cold War, I have no doubt the US would do whatever it takes to ensure its nuclear force can survive the first strike. Damn, even this day and age, NSA can still disregard people's privacy and personal rights in the name of "national security."

Be careful of any conscious or subconscious moral superiority assumption, like western commentators accusing the "Red China" of employing "human-wave" tactics during the Korea War (what the hell do they think China would fight with, facing a vastly better equipped enemy?).

 

[chuck731]

This is a false comparison. This has nothing to do with supposedly a dictatorship disrupting ordinary people's peaceful life and endangering their safety and a supposedly democracy putting people first. This is about national survival and dealing with existential threat. American doesn't need a road-mobile nuclear force because it has a much better submarine based nuclear force. China had to develop a road-mobile nuclear strike force because its submarine based nuclear force is much less developed and less reliable, yet. If the US were in a similar situation to China, during, say, Cold War, I have no doubt the US would do whatever it takes to ensure its nuclear force can survive the first strike. Damn, even this day and age, NSA can still disregard people's privacy and personal rights in the name of "national security."

Be careful of any conscious or subconscious moral superiority assumption, like western commentators accusing the "Red China" of employing "human-wave" tactics during the Korea War (what the hell do they think China would fight with, facing a vastly better equipped enemy?).

Be careful of using didactic tone to disguise morbid hypersensitive, it is a giveaway. I think only a person suffering from a chronic moral inferiority complex would be hypersensitive enough to read assumption of moral superiority into neutral deduction about a point of fact.

 

[kyanges]

I honestly don't know, so, please, can someone tell me why we're assuming there's a live warhead in that TEL to begin with?

Is it because the tube on top can safely be assumed to always have something in it because that's just how they work?

 

[Broccoli]

I honestly don't know, so, please, can someone tell me why we're assuming there's a live warhead in that TEL to begin with?

Is because the tube on top can safely be assumed to always have something in it because that's just how they work?

At least in 1980's and early 1990's (before DF-31 RV) PRC kept warheads separate from the missiles because they didn't have PAL like system then, but I think that could have changed because nuclear weapons have become more accurate since then, and there is countries like India getting weapons what can reach all over China. I'm not saying that PRC leaders think that Indian jingoist media reports about "China killer AGNI V" are part of their official police, but their weapons development must have some effects how PRC deploys their nuclear weapons.

The Chinese nuclear tests, 1964–1996 by Thomas C. Reed.

At that time weapons safety was not at the top of the Chinese priority list. In response to questions from Stillman, his hosts admitted their weapons were not "one point safe," meaning they did not use insensitive high explosives, and therefore an accidental detonation could, in fact, have produced some nuclear yield. The Chinese stockpile situation was remedied during the decades that followed.

The Chinese scientists also understood the impact of thermal cycling on high explosives; they did not allow their nuclear weapons to remain exposed to sunlight for extended periods of time. That led Stillman to raise a discussion of weapons security: "Do Chinese nuclear weapons contain design features or protective devices to preclude their unauthorized use?"

The NINT director responded that terrorism was not a consideration in their nuclear weapons designs, that Chinese discipline precluded unauthorized use. At that time the Chinese weapons program relied on "politically reliable" guards, not electronics. The director did agree, however, that those safety and security policies needed to change. I suspect that such changes have since taken place.