Lewis or Eveleth mentioned that the distance between silos is 3 km.
China Ballistic Missiles and Nuclear Arms Thread
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That would normally be my reaction, but the guy who said this is rock-solid. That's why I asked if anyone here has picked this up.
Besides, intelligence agencies would know about ICBM launches, not us. We knew (or at least I did) about the DF-41 test launches in the mid 2010s because of Bill Gertz, and his sources dried up.
escobar
Brigadier
DF-45? What is this? HGV ICBM?
Oh, and you committed an elementary mathematical error. If there are 12 silos in a 30 km stretch, you should divide 30 by 11, not 12, to calculate the average distance between silos.
No, an 80+ ton solid-fuelled silo-based ICBM (similar to the US Peacekeeper) with regular warheads.
Regular warheads meaning conventional? So a Chinese Prompt Global Strike?
No, I mean good old-fashioned, conical nuclear warheads, not HGV. As I understand it, the DF-45 has six 650 kiloton warheads.
Well not really. Usually the host nation might report on it (India with Agni Prime recently) or western media would pick up on it from host nation. Foreign intelligence almost rarely publicly leak this to media and unless foreign states comment on it officially, something like that would be missed. I mean we don't exactly have our own AEGIS ships, early warning radars near China or our own launch detecting satellites. So how would we know. The foreign state/s that usually disclose this type of stuff in annual papers may not choose to or may not know enough to report on it or may not have yet had the time to print it. Doesn't mean it didn't happen.
JL-3 tests were leaked by Chinese sources and then sort of verified by pseudo accurate and pseudo reputable/official sources. If it weren't for leaks, we wouldn't have known about it.
They can detect launches and observe them if they're stationed near enough to watch but they won't necessarily report on a new Chinese ICBM. It's need to know until it isn't.
How strange it is coinciding with all these new silos being constructed. Decoy silos or real, who knows. Now this rumour.
Can you ask your source how difficult it is to make warheads small enough to fit onto HGVs which fit into long range ICBMs and SLBMs?
They can already do single HGV on MRBM. If an HGV carrying warhead can be used on IRBM, it would pretty much take it to ICBM target ranges with HGV itself flying a fair bit of the closing distance well within the atmosphere. I think that's the ultimate deterrence goal for nuclear, missile mounted HGVs.
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