China Ballistic Missiles and Nuclear Arms Thread

[mys_721tx]

I find it really puzzling why some people refuse to believe that China doesn't/can't have warheads in the thousands. As if China having a nuclear arsenal commensurate with its stature blasphemes against their religion.

Because the point of minimal deterrence is to have a countervalue second strike to make an adversary think again. The warheads are expensive to maintain and we do not see a change in doctrine.

You have to have thousands, even tens of thousands, warheads to properly disarm an adversary during a counterforce first strike, but you do not need that many to retaliate against population centers.

 

[styx]

i think that no first use policy has the advantage to limit the number of nuclear warheads ready to launch.

 

[styx]

To take out 50% of american population and nearly all of their economic potential 300-400 strategic nukes will be sufficient. I think also that chinese warheads can be more powerfull than what west estimates because they are countervalue weapons and not counter force

 

[ZeEa5KPul]

Because the point of minimal deterrence is to have a countervalue second strike to make an adversary think again. The warheads are expensive to maintain and we do not see a change in doctrine.

You have to have thousands, even tens of thousands, warheads to properly disarm an adversary during a counterforce first strike, but you do not need that many to retaliate against population centers.

I don't buy that argument at all. Analysts said that China didn't need MIRVs for minimal deterrence, yet we very clearly see China MIRVing its entire ICBM arsenal. When we say "minimal deterrence", we should ask ourselves "minimal to accomplish what?" The number of Chinese warheads that would survive a first strike and make it through missile defenses would - optimistically - destroy half of America. That just means half of America isn't destroyed, and that's absolutely unacceptable. A retaliatory strike must annihilate the enemy. Total annihilation, nothing less is acceptable. That's the only way for China to establish deterrence. Even without a change in doctrine, 1000+ missiles are required to properly accomplish minimal deterrence. If an American president were told that a first strike would obliterate China and cost America a handful of cities, he might decide that the sacrifice is worth it to get rid of China forever.

And the warheads are not expensive to maintain relative to China's vast resources. The cost of quintupling the current count wouldn't even be a rounding error in China's military budget.

To take out 50% of american population and nearly all of their economic potential 300-400 strategic nukes will be sufficient. I think also that chinese warheads can be more powerfull than what west estimates because they are countervalue weapons and not counter force

That means 50% of the American population survives. Unacceptable.

 

[ougoah]

This is all so very 1980s. Fusion and fission weapons are nice to have and all but we live in an era where just the threat of chem and bio weapons can collapse entire nations into chaos. It is not an impossibility to use covert and commercially convenient means to deliver the components of such weapons into every corner of the populated world in case of MAD. Of course their existence remains a question but is it really such an impossible task? China's certainly not the first or only competent player in these fields.

Total annihilation of global population in case of retaliation can be achieved in plenty of ways. Nuclear is just the fireworks everyone's still enamored by. Spending "too much" on ICBM and warheads maintenance can be cost inefficient for what the tools offer if better tools exist. More than 1000 high yield warheads is for the insecure man and is really betting on and safeguarding against a world nobody wants. Better those funds go into hypersonic delivery procurement and research to improve existing systems. As for the warheads themselves, 200-300 even if true is enough to supplement the masses of bio and chem weapons. Spend a few billion buying those Russian nuclear powered cruise missiles and torpedoes once they perfect them too

There's also no immediate threat of full scale nuclear armegeddon yet anyway. If there was, there's no barrier to China really going Russian/US crazy in numbers except for maybe nuclear material. Enrichment technology and rates are no problem. Not missile building or delivery systems. Not warhead miniaturization or delivery. If material is truly a bottleneck, it makes more sense to have quality in the material and delivery systems that are developed and fielded.

 

[Hyperwarp]

Great. Any possibility some of them are actually dummy missiles ?

The TELs during parades will have no missiles. That's why the tires are nice and round.

 

[Hendrik_2000]

This is all so very 1980s. Fusion and fission weapons are nice to have and all but we live in an era where just the threat of chem and bio weapons can collapse entire nations into chaos. It is not an impossibility to use covert and commercially convenient means to deliver the components of such weapons into every corner of the populated world in case of MAD. Of course their existence remains a question but is it really such an impossible task? China's certainly not the first or only competent player in these fields.

Total annihilation of global population in case of retaliation can be achieved in plenty of ways. Nuclear is just the fireworks everyone's still enamored by. Spending "too much" on ICBM and warheads maintenance can be cost inefficient for what the tools offer if better tools exist. More than 1000 high yield warheads is for the insecure man and is really betting on and safeguarding against a world nobody wants. Better those funds go into hypersonic delivery procurement and research to improve existing systems. As for the warheads themselves, 200-300 even if true is enough to supplement the masses of bio and chem weapons. Spend a few billion buying those Russian nuclear powered cruise missiles and torpedoes once they perfect them too

There's also no immediate threat of full scale nuclear armegeddon yet anyway. If there was, there's no barrier to China really going Russian/US crazy in numbers except for maybe nuclear material. Enrichment technology and rates are no problem. Not missile building or delivery systems. Not warhead miniaturization or delivery. If material is truly a bottleneck, it makes more sense to have quality in the material and delivery systems that are developed and fielded.

The problem with this argument is when nuclear exchange happened it will all be over in matter of minutes. There is no time to produced warhead It is not like WWII which is drawn out over 3 or 4 years.
The question is did you have inventory or not!
I don't think maintaining warhead is expensive A lot of people get confused between maintain warhead and maintaining warhead + missile .
Yeah missile is problematic if it liquid but solid fuel missile has long storage life not infinite but way better than liquid

 

[antiterror13]

Because the point of minimal deterrence is to have a countervalue second strike to make an adversary think again. The warheads are expensive to maintain and we do not see a change in doctrine.

You have to have thousands, even tens of thousands, warheads to properly disarm an adversary during a counterforce first strike, but you do not need that many to retaliate against population centers.

Many people said that the nuke warheads are expensive to maintain ... how expensive is it? ... why Russia with such limited defense budget could afford to have thousands nuke warheads ? I don't think China has any issues with the cost of maintaining the nukes ... and also China has enough plutonium (~3.6 tons) and HEI (~17 tons) for many thousands nukes. And for thermonuclear bomb, only small quantity of U-235 and Pu-239 is required. All (or most) Chinese nukes are thermonuclear bomb (hydrogen bomb) anyway

 

[SpicySichuan]

China has one of the biggest nuclear mine in the world Even using conservative estimate the plutonium stock U 238 for nuclear fuze should be around 2000 warhead I have that report if you go back on this thread several pages

Could you help me a little bit here with regard to the info?

 

[SpicySichuan]

nuclear weapons in principle are made to intimidate, not to be used.

Not in the minds of supporters of First Use like Trump, Neocons, Pakistani Army, Force De Frappe, Kim Jong'un, and Russians. This is why both the Trump Administration and the Russians support the development of small yield tactical nukes in order to "escalate to -de-escalate." As much as I agree with you that nukes are meant to intimidate, there are lots of military guys and politicians out there still believing in starting a limited tactical nuclear war as a contest of will to force their enemies to back down. Trump and "his friend" the Little Rocket Man clearly believe in this extremely risky strategy.