China Ballistic Missiles and Nuclear Arms Thread

[BoraTas]

Empty or faked silos are just nonsense. One big lesson the USSR took from the Cuban Missile Crisis was that it needed strategic parity with the United States in order to achieve real political equality. Small deterrent was not enough. NFU is another "nonsense" policy. Sounds good but really doesn't mean much operationally

The empty silo strategy was a US proposal in the late cold war. Up to 200 peacekeepers with 12 350 kt warheads each were going to be built. For each missile, there would be 24 silos and 23 decoy missiles. Each of these silos would be hardened to withstand 70+ MPa overpressure. This means a 750 kt warhead may go off just 200 meters away from the silo and the silo would still survive. The missiles and decoys would be reshuffled periodically to prevent intelligence leaks. This scheme would require the soviet union to spend 14400 warheads to reliably destroy 200 missiles. The US thought the Soviets would just target cities at that point, guaranteeing survivability of the arsenal. We are talking about 2400 warheads, 200 missiles, 4600 decoy missiles, and 4800 extremely hardened silos here. This was in addition to 300-400 already existing silos, 40 SSBNs and 300+ bombers. It was so outrageous that even Raegan (the guy who increased the military spending to 8% of the US GDP) called it a Rube Goldberg scheme. China doesn't need such an elaborate scheme when it can just fill all of its silos with real missiles. China needs 300+ ICBMs to be on the same footing with the US and Russia. Filling all of the coming 250 silos would barely achieve it. If we were talking about 1000+ silos in construction then I would say a good chunk of them were fake but we are talking about just 250. I bet at least half of them will be filled with real missiles.

 

[Bob Smith]

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GT picked up on the FAS news.

 

[bustead]

I actually think deploying DF-41s in silos would be a waste. They are designed to be mobile and are relatively light comparing to silo based heavy ICBMs. They simple do not have sufficient throw weight to justify the lost of mobility.

Thus, I think China is either deploying a new type of ICBM similar to RS-28 or an upgraded version of DF-5 (DF-5C was tested a few years back).

 

[Godzilla]

Out of curiosity, how deep are the siloes for DF-5 or DF-41/45? I assume DF-41 or 45 will essentially be the same as the length of the road mobile canisters plus a little bit for the foundation and silo hatch? but would DF-5 need more infrastructure underneath and around for the refueling/exhaust vent?

 

[lcloo]

On June 14th, the NATO summit was held at NATO headquarters in Brussels, Belgium, after which NATO issued a joint communique for the first time named China, claiming that China was engaged in "nuclear expansion". China is "rapidly expanding its nuclear weapons arsenal", "opaque" information in the process of military modernization and military cooperation with Russia "pose a systemic challenge to the international order and the security-related areas of the NATO alliance," the communique said. At the same time, the communique also mentioned that NATO urged China to open nuclear dialogue on the size and theory of nuclear weapons, because transparency will benefit both NATO and China.

However, in response to similar speculation in the United States, People's Daily has long argued that these "missile silos" are in fact wind power bases. The People's Daily quoted military expert Du Wenlong as saying that this is not the first time that the United States has mistook Fujian Tulou for a missile silo.

China's Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Ministry of Defense have responded to unfounded accusations from the United States about China's nuclear expansion.

几年6月14日，北约峰会在比利时首都布鲁塞尔北约总部召开，会后北约发表联合公报首次点名中国，声称中国进行“核扩张”。公报称，中国“正在快速扩张核武器军备”，在军事现代化进程中信息“不透明”，以及跟俄罗斯展开军事合作，“对国际秩序与北约联盟安全相关领域构成了系统性的挑战”。同时，公报也提及，北约敦促中国就核武器规模和理论展开核对话，因为透明度将同时有利于北约和中国。

不过，对于美国类似的炒作，我人民日报早就辟谣称，这些“导弹发射井”实际上是风力发电基座。人民日报援引军事专家杜文龙的话称，美国类似炒作并不是第一次，美国曾将福建土楼误认为导弹发射井。

对于美国方面有关我国扩核的无端指责，我国外交部、国防部有过多次回应。

 

[DarkStar]

Anyone have any specs or info re DF-45?
I keep seeing it being referenced here and there, it appears to be a superior version of DF-41D.

 

[escobar]

No clear confirmation...

From US STRACOM

https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1420149192203374603

 

[DarkStar]

I've read an article about laser induced "Cavitation" in the Drive last year.

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Besides US and Brazil joint study and Russia (briefly), it's good that China is the other country to engage in this field. The most important hurdle however would be the powerplant. Lasers require a lot of electric power and the weight for the generation, regulation and laser modules all work against the potential gains from the system.

Is it possible for the power source to be a nuclear reactor inside a nuclear missile?

 

[ougoah]

Is it possible for the power source to be a nuclear reactor inside a nuclear missile?

No. That's a terrible idea unless the missile itself carries a nuclear warhead. Only the Russian Burevestnik missile program which they are supposedly still working on, applies such a concept. It requires a very large missile (much larger than a typical cruise missile) and its intended function is to loiter "indefinitely" but ultimately for the purpose of nuclear strike.

As soon as you launch the missile, there are too many dangers associated with something going wrong and contaminating with nuclear waste, it means the missile is launched only in response or to initiate a nuclear exchange. It has actually very little pay-off. The Americans had a similar program but abandoned it because they realised the risks completely don't return anything useful that can't already be covered by fielding better and more ballistic missiles. Basically once you launch a nuclear powered missile, it either ends in contamination, fault/failure resulting in contamination, or nuclear exchange. For the last part, you may as well have thousands of warheads, MaRV and MIRVed long range missiles etc. The only useful thing with this loitering missile is somewhere in between total nuclear exchange and conventional warfare already taking place. It just has no use. The technology although is extremely impressive and being able to miniaturise a reactor means mastering the tech for many more practical applications.

To have such a thing just to power a laser which doesn't require that much power is even more stupid and it's extremely doubtful China's nuclear tech is currently already above Russia's when its submarine and ship nuclear propulsion tech isn't even matching Russia's now.

 

[Jiang ZeminFanboy]

On June 14th, the NATO summit was held at NATO headquarters in Brussels, Belgium, after which NATO issued a joint communique for the first time named China, claiming that China was engaged in "nuclear expansion". China is "rapidly expanding its nuclear weapons arsenal", "opaque" information in the process of military modernization and military cooperation with Russia "pose a systemic challenge to the international order and the security-related areas of the NATO alliance," the communique said. At the same time, the communique also mentioned that NATO urged China to open nuclear dialogue on the size and theory of nuclear weapons, because transparency will benefit both NATO and China.

However, in response to similar speculation in the United States, People's Daily has long argued that these "missile silos" are in fact wind power bases. The People's Daily quoted military expert Du Wenlong as saying that this is not the first time that the United States has mistook Fujian Tulou for a missile silo.

China's Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Ministry of Defense have responded to unfounded accusations from the United States about China's nuclear expansion.

几年6月14日，北约峰会在比利时首都布鲁塞尔北约总部召开，会后北约发表联合公报首次点名中国，声称中国进行“核扩张”。公报称，中国“正在快速扩张核武器军备”，在军事现代化进程中信息“不透明”，以及跟俄罗斯展开军事合作，“对国际秩序与北约联盟安全相关领域构成了系统性的挑战”。同时，公报也提及，北约敦促中国就核武器规模和理论展开核对话，因为透明度将同时有利于北约和中国。

不过，对于美国类似的炒作，我人民日报早就辟谣称，这些“导弹发射井”实际上是风力发电基座。人民日报援引军事专家杜文龙的话称，美国类似炒作并不是第一次，美国曾将福建土楼误认为导弹发射井。

对于美国方面有关我国扩核的无端指责，我国外交部、国防部有过多次回应。

This story fits here.

J-20 5th Generation Fighter VII

^What does the text say? Loyal to Chairman Mao.

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