China Ballistic Missiles and Nuclear Arms Thread

[ougoah]

1000 warheads or so is enough to cover US, Europe, and have some left over. It's just that the top two nuclear stockpilers have enough to weather successful first strikes on them and still be able to end half the world. China having a larger nominal economy when adjusted for PPP and having more people than both Europe and USA combined is justification enough to consider stockpiling as much as the US and Russia already have been doing for decades. China has been threatened by the US several times in history and US hawks constantly consider first strike option. Europe doesn't need stockpiles because no one is constantly threatening to nuke them. Not even Russia does that on Europe or would really want to at all.

China is not only being threatened by the US but tacitly by the UK and the other vassals albeit with much less enthusiasm. It deserves and ought to stockpile at least 1000 MT range warheads and have them in TELs, underground networks, silos all around the country and in the form of the 72 JL-2, Type 094 based missiles. This should be expanded to China "mass producing" new DF-5s or superior platforms that include HGV delivered warheads which is probably why they are expanding now (because they are arming new heavy ICBMs with HGVs). DF-41 and JL-3 should become mainstay long range mobile ICBMs.

 

[Overbom]

1000 warheads or so is enough to cover US, Europe, and have some left over.

Is that with a 50% chance that it might get intercepted or with a defective missile/warhead. Because then that 1000 number should become 500 guaranteed hits against the West.

So thats 500 warheads against the US, UK, France, India, and a minimal reserve against Russia. Is 500 enough to hit all of the above countries in the worst case scenario? I doubt it

 

[ougoah]

China should stop develop traditional ICBM，but put focus on emerging hypersonic vehicles to deliver warhead

China's HGVs are boost glide and boost air breathing. How do you think HGVs are themselves put into flight and cover most of the altitude and some of the range? Through ICBMs. They are carried and delivered by ICBMs onto desired altitude/orbit/speeds.

The "DF-ZF" vehicle shown as part of the DF-17 missile is an EXTREMELY large boost glide vehicle (possibly air breather since it does have a front cover on and has openings around the vehicle) and scramjet/sodramjet are viable air breathing propulsion methods.

China is the only one who has demonstrated guidance and communication with HGV and MaRV through plasma cloud. Literally no one else has done this yet. It requires space based and/or extreme high altitude UAVs to establish a means to guide MaRVs or HGVs toward moving targets like ships at sea. Russia talks about it but has yet to perform a single MaRV test on moving target (moving is important because any ballistic warhead accurate enough could potentially pass as MaRV since inertia guidance is enough to achieve this potentially).

The DF-ZF is a one off. It probably houses a lot of electronic material for whatever purpose. HGV warheads carrying nukes do not need to be that large. The HGVs designed to be used on ICBMs for nuclear delivery are much smaller and potentially even could have multiple vehicles packed into a large enough ICBM.

 

[ougoah]

Is that with a 50% chance that it might get intercepted or with a defective missile/warhead. Because then that 1000 number should become 500 guaranteed hits against the West.

So thats 500 warheads against the US, UK, France, India, and a minimal reserve against Russia. Is 500 enough to hit all of the above countries in the worst case scenario? I doubt it

There is definitely a sweetspot point of diminishing returns. Give it some safety margin let's say even a factor of 2. That's more than enough when you calculate for the utter annihilation of adversary if it comes to nuclear war. It might be 1000 warheads it might be 2000. But I think 1000 warheads is probably enough already. Even 300 would devastate. Honestly the US may not even want to risk 1 or 2 North Korean nukes anywhere near top productive/populated American cities in exchange for total nuclear covering of North Korea (which is a hypothetical!). Even 300 warheads from China is dangerous enough to be a total existential gamble.

1000 warheads. Half are intercepted or fail somehow. That's 500 MT warheads for about 100 cities with many that are VERY close to each other. A MT warhead on a typical large modern metropolis is going to turn it into rubble and the surface of Venus around it. Fallout from 500 warheads concentrated in north America and Europe is going to cause enough fallout environmental and economic devastation to destroy both for good. If they shoot at China first and China is only able to return 500 warheads and even if half of those are delivered successfully, that's enough. It might be more worthwhile to improve delivery and expand to alternative WMDs. All cards are on the table since we're hypothesizing the situation where China is attacked first by the US or whoever. So why limit to nukes. In time, H-20 will also be another method to respond with. Only the Euros and Americans or whoever are in charge of them are crazy and violent enough to consider these paths.

What China needs is deterrence and if that fails, the ability to end both western Europe and north America. Deterrence hopefully stops the warhawks of the West from constantly publicly declaring and thinking about nuking anyone even Iran. They should be made aware of consequences because they basically behave like a kid who has never not gotten his rotten way. And these muppets want to talk about nuclear disarmament where everyone else reduce numbers but they get to keep all of theirs because they're God's special little demons and the US deserves to keep superpower status "for the good of the world". Hilarious if it weren't so scary and serious. Literally the most hateful, intolerant, violent, mass murdering genociders declaring themselves saints because they enjoy their enormous soft power and brainwashing over the common western citizen. Ask their enemies or people in the "third world" ie neutral and they all curse them to hell. We're talking about a regime that has constantly waged war. Killed millions of civilians in the middle east (of verified records only!), strafe at mosques and crowds of "inferior humans" for fun, launch attacks without justification or diplomatic attempts of resolution. The list of Western atrocities are greater than the rest of the world combined. Yet because they're polite in convenient times and because they're wealthy, many look upon them with some agreement (when they're not being shot at or accused of xyz). Can't be too careful. The same evil that works for you one day will eventually destroy you. This applies to China as well and looking carefully at how this Thucydides trap plays out.

 

[tonyget]

China's HGVs are boost glide and boost air breathing. How do you think HGVs are themselves put into flight and cover most of the altitude and some of the range? Through ICBMs. They are carried and delivered by ICBMs onto desired altitude/orbit/speeds.

The "DF-ZF" vehicle shown as part of the DF-17 missile is an EXTREMELY large boost glide vehicle (possibly air breather since it does have a front cover on and has openings around the vehicle) and scramjet/sodramjet are viable air breathing propulsion methods.

China is the only one who has demonstrated guidance and communication with HGV and MaRV through plasma cloud. Literally no one else has done this yet. It requires space based and/or extreme high altitude UAVs to establish a means to guide MaRVs or HGVs toward moving targets like ships at sea. Russia talks about it but has yet to perform a single MaRV test on moving target (moving is important because any ballistic warhead accurate enough could potentially pass as MaRV since inertia guidance is enough to achieve this potentially).

The DF-ZF is a one off. It probably houses a lot of electronic material for whatever purpose. HGV warheads carrying nukes do not need to be that large. The HGVs designed to be used on ICBMs for nuclear delivery are much smaller and potentially even could have multiple vehicles packed into a large enough ICBM.

You need to mount warhead on top of HGVs，then mount HGVs on top of ICBM. It's too large for multi-warhead configuration，I think one ICBM can only carry single HGV+warhead.

 

[ougoah]

You need to mount warhead on top of HGVs，then mount HGVs on top of ICBM. It's too large for multi-warhead configuration，I think one ICBM can only carry single HGV+warhead.

Warhead goes inside HGV not on top of it. It could be the case where even large ICBMs can only carry 1 HGV (which is the deliver vehicle that carries the warhead).

HGV's warhead section wouldn't be shaped or designed like the typical conical warheads. It would most likely be lower yield since the HGV itself would probably require a fair amount of space for its own flight and guidance related components.

HGVs can be made to the length of a chair. It's not hard to miniateurise the vehicle (until we're talking really small like a smartphone). The difficult part is making the warhead design change and fit. That might not be enough space for a high KT or MT warhead but the next gen warhead designs probably improve on miniateurisation a lot. Even back in the Cold War, the two powers could manage MT in some very small spaces. China's miniateurisation isn't unimpressive to say the least. It's also been talking about the next gen of designs becoming ready several years ago.

We don't know the size of HGVs being used in Chinese ICBMs. Therefore we can't know how many they can pack in or if it's only one per ICBM. I would imagine they should be fitting two due to the typical geometries of disclosed HGV wind tunnel models and the DF-ZF ... only real life HGV shown note that ARRW still will not disclose the look of the real HGV within the booster and Russia hasn't shown the look of their designs although they probably all share many similarities due to the same problems like Airbus and Boeing look near identical in overall shaping.

Using the DF-ZF as and indication of ICBM HGV size is inappropriate. The DF-ZF is possibly the least strategically sensitive HGV weapon for China to be so transparent and candid with revealing it. It's also a MRBM booster and probably designed to perform some alternative tasks e.g. EMP weapon, EA/EW etc (explaining its oversize since that's not necessary for warhead delivery). It could also actually be a propelled HGV with fuel storage. We don't know its hypersonic glide range at all and what it's truly capable of in terms of turning performance and any of its real parameters and use.

 

[ZeEa5KPul]

The DF-41 has a similar weight and performance to the old Peacekeeper MX missile fielded by the USA.

No. The Peacekeeper is a 90 ton missile, the DF-41 is 60 tons. We can say it has a similar mass fraction (payload : structural weight : fuel) and performance (I believe the DF-41 uses NEPE propellant in all three stages, which might be more advanced than the Peacekeeper), which means it has the same range for a payload scaled down by 1/3.

 

[AndrewS]

No. The Peacekeeper is a 90 ton missile, the DF-41 is 60 tons. We can say it has a similar mass fraction (payload : structural weight : fuel) and performance (I believe the DF-41 uses NEPE propellant in all three stages, which might be more advanced than the Peacekeeper), which means it has the same range for a payload scaled down by 1/3.

Source?

I'm seeing the DF-41 as approx 80 tons.

 

[ZeEa5KPul]

Source?

I'm seeing the DF-41 as approx 80 tons.

Those sources are mistaken.
https://www.reddit.com/r/LessCredibleDefence/comments/ob5263/_/h3nshlm I also recall Jeffrey Lewis estimating the DF-41's weight at 60 tons (and analyzing it as a scaled down Peacekeeper).

 

[AndrewS]

Those sources are mistaken.
https://www.reddit.com/r/LessCredibleDefence/comments/ob5263/_/h3nshlm I also recall Jeffrey Lewis estimating the DF-41's weight at 60 tons (and analyzing it as a scaled down Peacekeeper).

Ok. Personally, I don't see evidence to make a judgement on whether the DF-41 is 60 tons or 80 tons.

If we go with 60 tons, we've got a Trident-2 class missile.
So you just need more missiles to reach the same warhead numbers, that's all.