China Ballistic Missiles and Nuclear Arms Thread
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I’d prefer that China deploy ONLY road-mobile ICBMs in their land-based component; but, that’s cost-prohibitive. I’d station 125 road-mobile DF41s all in the Altai Prefecture, near the Kazakh, Russian, Mongolian border!
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it would be sensible for china deploy all her land based nuclear missiles in mobile launchers. these could be road mobile, rail mobile, or even air launched. this is especially true because chinese ICBM forces will remain very small compared to peak strength of the cold war superpowers for the foreseeable future.
In the 70s The US tested, but not deployed, launching minutemen missile from C-141 transports by pushing it out the back, stabilizing the missile with drogue chute and firing its engine midair. DF-41 is too heavy to be carried and launched by Y-20, but DF-31 or JL-3 can potentially be carried and launched by Y-20.
The places mentioned seem unsuitable for road mobile TEL deployment seems unsuitable. these are the places in china where large road mobile transport erector launcher are easiest to find because roads are few, terrain open, cover minimal, and other road traffic that can be used to confuse surveillance sparse.
in addition, these are also the places where defense against a counter-force first strike by stealth aircraft os most difficult to defeat because proximity to border means lack of depth to integrated air defences. who is to say US stealth bombers can’t overfly russia to strike at china?
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What he said is most likely true but lets not forget he's addressing the Congress here. He has to exaggerate China's abilities as much as he can to justify and even increase that bloated military budget.
This isn't that usual " China so strong we have a new USSR, give us a trillion" article. Because it doesn't go into the numbers and ranges. It merely says that they have a lot of issues that they address really fast and the advancements China made even within the span of 6 months is huge.
Quite different from the usual boogeyman fundraiser speech - unless US sees a war next year ( which 98% likely don't ).
Within the last 6 months to me seems to suggest fielding HGVs whether they are standalone delivery systems or "packed" within large ICBM/SLBM. No regional nation has the ability to even defeat Chinese SRBM and MRBMs* let alone higher speed missiles, forget HGVs. The immediate threat to China is the US and her regional bases. Sophisticated ballistic missiles carrying whatever payload types would be directed and saved for high threat adversaries. If advancements in the MAD field have been made recently, it could only be referring to new developments such as JL-3 and HGVs being more integrated into the set. Of course all the peripherals like survival of missiles and payloads, penetration tech, ECCM etc.
* Japan and Korea do have some limited BMD capabilities but numbers for interceptors are intended for North Korean inventory and technology levels, not MaRV and HGVs in highly contested digital environment. India has no BMD capability yet. Any Chinese effort to improve nuclear delivery (outside of going down the path of just spamming numbers) is really aimed at deterring the US from initiating war. China has no interest in initiating war to upset a sure win given time. In order to deter the only possible actor/aggressor (US) China seriously needs to continue improving both stockpiles and delivery technologies. There is no good enough.
* Japan and Korea do have some limited BMD capabilities but numbers for interceptors are intended for North Korean inventory and technology levels, not MaRV and HGVs in highly contested digital environment. India has no BMD capability yet. Any Chinese effort to improve nuclear delivery (outside of going down the path of just spamming numbers) is really aimed at deterring the US from initiating war. China has no interest in initiating war to upset a sure win given time. In order to deter the only possible actor/aggressor (US) China seriously needs to continue improving both stockpiles and delivery technologies. There is no good enough.
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Silo-based weapons still have their advantages. For example, they have a higher throw weight, meaning that they can carry more warheads. So maybe a small number of silo based missiles specifically designed to deliver a large number of warheads against enemy cities can be kept?
Also, do note that while the US may be capable of destroy Chinese silo-based missiles in a first strike, India certainly cannot hope to do that. So having a few silo-based missiles should be enough to deter India from doing anything stupid.
China does not have any modern heavy weight ICBM that can’t be launched from mobile TELs. The only silobound ICBMs are antiquated liquid fueled DF-4 and 5 missiles that are unlikely to survive to be launched and will likely be decommission soon.
ICBM’s only possible targets are the US, Australia and Europe. Their range can’t be depressed enough to hit India or Japan. If india or another potential regional nuclear power such as japan chose to launch against china, their relatively small arsenals would require them to focus on chinese weapons that pose the greatest threat to them. these would not be the IBCMs. these would be the MRBM and IRBMs.
ICBM’s only possible targets are the US, Australia and Europe. Their range can’t be depressed enough to hit India or Japan. If india or another potential regional nuclear power such as japan chose to launch against china, their relatively small arsenals would require them to focus on chinese weapons that pose the greatest threat to them. these would not be the IBCMs. these would be the MRBM and IRBMs.
it should be kept in mind that chinese strategic nuclear arsenal is constrained not by the number of launchers, but the number of warheads. so it really make sense to distribute available warheads onto the most survivable means of delivery available. These would not be silos.
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