China Ballistic Missiles and Nuclear Arms Thread

[Phead128]

The missile costs are the same because there are 50 ballistic missiles in each scenario. I'm saying the overhead of maintaining 100 isolated silos is greater than 5 fields of 100 silos each. In scenario 1 there are 50 live and 50 decoy silos, while in scenario 2 there are 50 live and 450 decoy silos. The point of this is that the enemy doesn't know which silos are live and which aren't, so he has to hit everything. In scenario 2 he has to use 500 warheads, while in 1 only 100.

Your scenario makes sense only if MIRV-ed warheads can teleport anywhere on Chinese territory, so you would consume more warheads in a cheaper (more) decoyed clustered silo design than an expensive (less) decoyed isolated design... but MIRV-ed warheads have limits to how far apart it can hit.

In reality, nations are more delivery-vehicle limited than warhead-limited, and MIRV-ed missiles have limitations in how far apart each warhead can target and hit. MIRV-ed missiles are limited to targets along the general linear flight path of the missile, the distance between targets is hundreds to thousands of kilometers, and so MIRV-ed missile can only hit targets in relatively close proximity to that path. Some claim to be able to hit targets as far as 1,500 kilometers apart.

A clustered silo design would be an easy target for MIRV-ed warheads if the "d" distance is less than the MIRV-ed warhead targeting distance of "d2". If isolated silos are built farther than the MIRV-ed warhead targeting distance of "d2", then you are forcing the enemy to use more missile delivery vehicles. Delivery vehicles are generally the bottleneck compared to warheads.

 

[ZeEa5KPul]

I find the proposition that the bottleneck is delivery vehicles, i.e. tubes with propellant, unconvincing.

We can argue this back and forth ad nauseaum. The real answer to your question is that a legion of experts who have forgotten more about nuclear basing and posture than you and I will ever know have looked at the problem and come up with this solution. Who are you to second guess them?

 

[Phead128]

I find the proposition that the bottleneck is delivery vehicles, i.e. tubes with propellant, unconvincing.

Bro, there are thousands of warheads, and a far limited number of delivery vehicles (e.g. MIRV-ed warheads is 10X warhead to 1 delivery vehicle ratio) in operational service.

So if you spread the targets across a greater geographical area, then it MIRV-ed warheads are less effective. You need more delivery vehicles to target geographically disparate targets.

MIRV-ed warheads is a fancy (nuclear) version of clustered munitions... so it's not a farfetched conclusion to say "Clustered nuke silos" is susceptible to nuclear cluster bombs.

 

[escobar]

Great read on the advantage of missile silo from Russia experience

Deploying missiles in silos, as opposed to on mobile launchers, also offers some advantages in the launch from under attack scenario. A launch order can reach the silo almost immediately and the missile can be launched very quickly (silo ICBMs deployed in the 1980s were on combat duty with their gyroscopes spun up). Even if a counterforce strike is well coordinated, it is impossible to hit all target at once--for quite a few silos there will be a window of a few minutes between the first detected nuclear detonation somewhere else and the arrival of "its own" attacking warheads.

Mobile missiles, especially when they are on patrol, are much harder to deliver a launch order to as they cannot rely on a hard-wired connection with the command center. They are also slower to react, even though they could still be launched fairly quickly once they are deployed in a field position (I am not sure about gyroscopes, though--spinning them up may take a few precious minutes). They are harder to locate, of course, but that advantage has been steadily eroding in recent years (as

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). Road-mobile missiles are probably still up to the job as a deep-second-strike weapon, but they may not provide the same level of confidence in the success of retaliation as their silo-based siblings launched from under attack.

There is another factor to take into account--missile defense. A heavy missile deployed in a silo could carry a very potent countermeasures package in addition to its warheads. If the assumption is that only a handful of ICBMs would survive or escape a counterforce attack, it's better to have missiles of the R-36M2 class among them.

The key advantage of mobile missiles is their ability to hide. Unlike submarines, however, mobile missiles can be seen from space, so that advantage is not absolute. The note shows that the Soviet Union was concerned about space reconnaissance and understood that at some point mobile missiles will be relatively easy to detect. According to the document it was not a problem in the late 1980s, when the US was assessed to operate one "Lasp" and two KH-11 satellites. It's not entirely clear what "Lasp" referred to - that name, which appears to stand for

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, was mentioned

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, which ended operations

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. In general, it appears that the Soviet Union didn't have a very good understanding of the US surveillance programs. It knew, however, about the trends and expected that the United States will deploy 2-4 Lacrosse radar imaging satellites as well as the 2-4 next-generation Keyhole, referred to as KH-12. In the short run these developments were to be countered by a number of measures, such as longer patrols and electronic countermeasures. It was, however, assessed that the situation will change around 2000 and reliance on mobile missile will eventually become a risky proposition. To ensure survivability of its retaliatory force, the Soviet Union was planning to move to super-hardened silos - 5,000 atm (compared to

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) and eventually to silos with "absolute protection". These were "Fortifikatsiya" and "Magma" R&D projects. Fortifikatsiya was already included in the

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.

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[Richard Santos]

Information released in the late 1980s in support of SALT II talks suggest a minuteman missiles’s MIRV target foot print is an ellipse about 1000 km long and 100 km wide in the direction of missile’s ground track.

So if the chinese want to complicate American land based missile’s MIRV targeting, and assuming american missiles come over the north pole, then It would be better to spread their fixed silos in a long E-W line, because the same missile can hit targets separated by distance similar to distance between Beijing and Shanghai in the north south direction, but only targets separated by distance between shanghai and wuxi in the east west direction.

This becomes more effective if the American missiles have more MIRVs. but minutemen has only 3.

Also modern maneuverable warheads designed to evade terminal missile defence may invalidate this approach.

 

[james smith esq]

Great read on the advantage of missile silo from Russia experience

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Key advantage of mobile ICBMs is their mobility, particularly upon launch warning. It’s doubtful that hiding them is, or ever was, a primary consideration in their deployment.
With sufficient dispersal and deployment in vast open areas -as Russia does- the probability of a 90-100 kt warhead (the most numerous US-SLBM type and the type specifically optimized for anti-silo effects) successfully targeting a mobile ICBM is greatly reduced. As such, it’s likely that silo-based ICBMs would be even more prioritized as targets.

 

[Xizor]

Great read on the advantage of missile silo from Russia experience

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A good read while I have to disagree ( with no evidences to offer but just my intuition to lean upon) that Hiding Mobile TEL missiles are harder. It shouldn't be. A diverse, rugged terrain with forest cover guarantees that hiding TEL's would be quite easy for China. China is a big country. Camouflaging TELs is easy.

However, the points about transmitting launch instructions is indeed valid. Submarines too face this issue ( VLF and ELF provide some answers but incomplete) and for that reason you'd notice mentions of the futuristic "Quantum communications" with many USN future SSN/SSBN plans.

Thankfully, China isn't lagging in Quantum technology research. We may see it get applied for future TELs and Chinese SSBNs.

 

[james smith esq]

Great read on the advantage of missile silo from Russia experience

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And, yet, despite these experiences and lessons, “... after 2000...”, the mobile RS-24 Yars is the single-most deployed missile in Russia’s entire ICBM/SLBM force (~44% of the ICBM force) and mobiles make up over 50% of the ICBM force?
Hmmmmmmm?

 

[Richard Santos]

I would expect any country with any pretensions to second strike capability would have invested in reliable ways to get the second launch off.

If post attack communication is indeed unreliable, then the second strike force could potentially rely on neutron or gamma ray sensors to detect explosion of incoming warheads, and automatically launch a second strike if certain number of hits are registered in a certain area.

The soviets were deploying such an automatic second strike system in the late 1980s.

 

[weig2000]

Both silo-based deployment and mobile deployment, plus early warning system, are needed for China going forward. With sufficient quantity, which I'm sure is undergoing expansion now, the current doctrine of minimum deterrence will also need to be changed. That doctrine is for a completely different country of a very different era.

Fortunately, China is fast approaching to the point where it will have an advanced and valid nuclear triad (DF41, DF45/DF-5C, JL3/096, H-20), with the industrial and economic base to produce and deploy them in sufficient quantities.