China Ballistic Missiles and Nuclear Arms Thread

[ougoah]

I have never read this and cannot believe it, it would be contrary to US constitutional principles to wipe out 2 billion innocent people if the launch was done say by a North Korean submarine, but please post some link. In the case of decapitation, strike time is crucial, in as little as 30 minutes a SLBM (MIRV) could strike the Pentagon and Washington DC simultaneously. I know US has a protocol to activate the Minuteman in this very case when the President and the Secretary of defence are dead but I cannot believe they would launch everywhere, it is no more a cowboy nation and especially when it comes to nuking everything is programmed in the smallest details otherwise we would have had some accident already. Part of the decision-making process will be managed by AI in the very next years but US will remain
a country ruled by law, everything in US including nuclear war must be under the umbrella of the constitution, the pentagon chief reminded (recently in the election aftermath ) the US population to upheld constitutional values.

This is all purely conjecture posed by academics. There is no book on how to react when an unknown origin SLBM pops your capital city. Imagine that... no one nation has published their strategic and tactical response manuals.

I've explained the reasoning and cannot be bothered wasting hours tracking down the dialogue and written conjecture exploring this topic... in a very informal way. You must only think about it rather than expect official paperwork on the topic.

Rest assured, the US would not respond well if there is a ICBM/SLBM coming its way, let alone detonating a KT/MT warhead in Washington DC. Russia and China would be shitting themselves if this ever happened. There is no way Russia or China would shoot just one or a few missiles if it means business in a decapitation strike. Same with everyone else (if they have the material like the three main nuclear powers). I don't expect the US to assume a sole or limited strike on its cities to be the work of North Korea. Your hypothetical scenario is too far removed from reality to consider.

The principle of extended MAD makes sense. It moves the nuclear escalation action onto a higher ladder, making it a safer world. It's not about 2 billion lives or 7 billion. No hollywood rogue state or terror group is likely going to get SLBMs and North Korea wouldn't be doing this for no reason out of the blue. That's not how real life works.

If the US is hit and throughly damaged by ICBM or SLBMs and there is no way to tell who or where? they will very likely respond with massive attacks on Russia and China. If it's a singular missile that somehow escaped all interception and early warning, they might assess. Again there is no handbook publicly available. But rest assured that if their destruction is comprehensive, they will assume it is Russia and/or China. Even if they know it isn't. Do you really think there is 0 chance of US strike on Russia and China when it is condemned to that fate? The unspoken acknowledgement is that any nuclear power being struck down comprehensively (assumed) is going to make life hell for everyone else. This on principle makes it everyone else's responsibility to keep them alive and not reach nuclear level escalation.

 

[r41]

There is no book on how to react when an unknown origin SLBM pops your capital city. Imagine that... no one nation has published their strategic and tactical response manuals.

this is where you are wrong, a big part of the Pentagon is playing these scenarios 365 days a year no stop, updating them and refining them day by day night by night as new technology is coming along streamlining early detection satellite capabilities and subsequent nuclear response ,this is a vital part of US nation survival, the doomsday clock is close to midnight and in this century very likely something is going on ..AI will help a lot in those instances, but it is all confidential material of course but is there if needed very detailed as in those instances you do not have the time to improvise, it would be too late.., and even if I am not a US citizen I believe all scenarios come under the umbrella of US constitution

however, I am not particularly interested in the above as I am pretty sure there are no reliable records as it is all confidential material it would be just speculation

my question was a technical one i.e. whether the US has technological capabilities to understand the SLBM country of origin...

 

[Anlsvrthng]

Rest assured, the US would not respond well if there is a ICBM/SLBM coming its way, let alone detonating a KT/MT warhead in Washington DC. Russia and China would be shitting themselves if this ever happened. There is no way Russia or China would shoot just one or a few missiles if it means business in a decapitation strike. Same with everyone else (if they have the material like the three main nuclear powers). I don't expect the US to assume a sole or limited strike on its cities to be the work of North Korea. Your hypothetical scenario is too far removed from reality to consider.

Reason of the existence of Russian/Chinese nuclear stockpile is to protect themselves from the USA first strikes, not the other way around.

Check the history /number of warheads by year.

 

[caudaceus]

All major nuclear powers (Russia, China, USA) have their nukes pointed everywhere. If they receive a hit on even a major city, let alone the capital, they are launching everywhere. They die, everyone on earth is to die with them. If Russia launches on Washington DC, US is launching at China too and everywhere else. It is a matter of principle.

The idea is that no nation can come out of any major nuclear exchange better than any other. Otherwise there is incentive (albeit small) to work towards limited exchanges. Major nuke powers deter this by extending MAD to rest of world. Contrary to popular belief, China has plenty of warheads and missiles of all kinds to perform this on at least the US and Europe if it is struck down. It just needs more to ensure total coverage even on its own and to calculate for missiles intercepted, faults, and decapitating first strike that could destroy many of its missiles. Six 094 boats are just not enough for this. Lucky China is huge and has very decent OTH and early warning radars which apparently they are going to modernise and upgrade with Russia. These may even share information with Russia so they only need to keep upgrading their China facing early warning for the very remote chance China does nuclear strike on Russia. New early warning units can even warn Russia of American strike on Russia coming from SSBNs in the lower latitude Pacific.

Again, it doesn't matter who launched on you. If you do get hit, you launch everywhere. That's the unspoken rule with at least Russia and USA. If they intercept it then who knows how that situation develops but if US gets hit, the attacker won't be launching one missile, it'll be aiming to cover the US and if that is carried out, why wouldn't the US fire at both Russia and China?

That's not MAD anymore that's the Samson Option. I thought only Israel that adopt such doctrine

 

[rambo54]

regarding the current silo construction activities at the Jilantai training area here is an update

collection of PLARF ICBM silo sites

631 BGD (DF-5):
26.430798° 109.461619°
26.440168° 109.563167°
26.474605° 109.628637°
26.484785° 109.913385°
26.561460° 109.845039°
26.647262° 109.824122°

633 BGD (DF-5):
26.813615° 109.649977°
26.862784° 109.926366°
26.947766° 109.710317°
27.031156° 109.787734°
27.034850° 109.880551°
27.555069° 110.139076°

634 BGD (new BGD designation - ex DF-4 unit):
26.226802° 109.899252° (probably not more operational)
silo construction sites:
26.312825° 109.950207°
26.268429° 109.925050°
26.229409° 109.902404°
26.187509° 109.893501°
26.201972° 109.825240° (?)

661 BGD (DF-5):
34.360948° 111.844619°
34.285119° 111.627000°
34.200074° 111.008099°
33.978289° 111.254042°
33.863262° 111.308070°
33.929779° 111.043372°

662 BGD (ex DF-4):
33.793365° 111.989619° (probably not more operational)
silo construction sites (probably DF-41):
33.809673° 111.942163°
33.786145° 112.024081°
33.760071° 112.163703°
33.764707° 112.207761°
33.794804° 111.986607° (?)
possible silo construction of training silo 34.805388° 112.669795°

Jilantai Training area:
silo construction:
1: 39.746381° 105.509589°
2: 39.724931° 105.456533°
3: 39.764666° 105.539440°
4: 39.797608° 105.550501°
5: 39.725928° 105.528947°
6: 39.732757° 105.559889°
7: 39.687287° 105.553662°
8: 39.703812° 105.534165°
9: 39.710550° 105.567584°
10: 39.681257° 105.524795°
11: 39.743942° 105.592851°
12: 39.755310° 105.566505°
13: 39.771920° 105.581859°
14: 39.784121° 105.620818°
15: 39.804642° 105.580126°
possible Silo/LCC: 39.700042° 105.416443°

DF-5 training silos:
34.546390° 112.147532°
27.034169° 110.540672°
DF-4 training silo:
42.287511° 126.881696°

Taiyuan
DF-5 test silo: 38.878196° 111.592246°
DF-41 test silo: 38.888750° 111.597635°

 

[halflife3]

China’s Historical Plutonium Production

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Also from the Stratcom account:

https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1376555369393164288

An interesting read.

 

[voyager1]

China’s Historical Plutonium Production

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Also from the Stratcom account:

https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1376555369393164288

An interesting read.

Why did the Stratcom respond? Shouldn't they already know these details (classified?)?

Or do they just raise awareness so that they can beg for more money again..

 

[bajingan]

Can't make useful warhead from civilian plutonium.

Require too big critical mass .


Doesn't make sense to use multi megaton warheads. A single , 10 megaton warhead has less destructive power than 10 pieces of 500 kiloton bombs. And the later weight less.

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According to this article
"About a week ago, Richard learned that China now has more fast-breeder nuclear reactors than it previously did, an example of "how rapidly China is changing, or at least how rapidly we are figuring it out," he said.
"With a fast-breeder reactor you now have a very large source of weapons-grade plutonium available to you," Richard said. "That will change the upper bounds of what China could choose to do if they wanted to in terms of further expansion of their nuclear capabilities."
A fast-breeder reactor makes more fissile material than it consumes. The revelation that China has more fast-breeder reactors means it is potentially developing more nuclear material that can be used for nuclear weapons"

Im not a nuclear physicist but Adm. Charles Richard, the head of us strategic command said that plutonium does indeed can be used to make nuclear warheads

 

[Ndla2]

Why did the Stratcom respond? Shouldn't they already know these details (classified?)?

Or do they just raise awareness so that they can beg for more money again..

I believe it's the latter.

 

[Ndla2]

Im not a nuclear physicist but Adm. Charles Richard, the head of us strategic command said that plutonium does indeed can be used to make nuclear warheads

Agree with you. And we don't have to be a nuclear physicist to know that simple fact.

When i was in my primary school, my science teacher told me that Fat Man was using plutonium while Little Boy was using Uranium. Since then i know that both of those materials can be used to make nuclear warheads.