China Ballistic Missiles and Nuclear Arms Thread

[JSL]

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The previous theory that these silos are shell game is now completely debunk !!

All these silos and future build silos will all be hosting ICBMs !!

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"Six decades ago, the US built 800 silos and fielded 800 ICBMs in 4 years. Given China’s advanced construction techniques, China can at least match the historical US construction pace. The US built 300 silos in 2 years—and the Chinese have more than 300 silos under construction. China’s Nuclear ICBM Silos – Shell Game?

The ICBM silo fields that China is building is not a shell game with lots of silos and just a few missiles. Modern intelligence, reconnaissance and surveillance prevents that."

 

[Andy1974]

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The previous theory that these silos are shell game is now completely debunk !!

All these silos and future build silos will all be hosting ICBMs !!

Please, Log in or Register to view URLs content!

"Six decades ago, the US built 800 silos and fielded 800 ICBMs in 4 years. Given China’s advanced construction techniques, China can at least match the historical US construction pace. The US built 300 silos in 2 years—and the Chinese have more than 300 silos under construction. China’s Nuclear ICBM Silos – Shell Game?

The ICBM silo fields that China is building is not a shell game with lots of silos and just a few missiles. Modern intelligence, reconnaissance and surveillance prevents that."

Saying this, is exactly what they would say if they are playing the shell game, that’s the whole point of the game.
Until weapons inspectors confirm the truth we won’t know.

 

[Andy1974]

Could a stealthy drone like the CH6 with its 12,000km range and 300kg of payload be used for strategic defense?

That range reaches almost all CONUS, the drone simply flies to near its target area during it’s 20 hours of endurance and just detonates.

With this huge range it could approach the US from many angles, placing an unbearable cost on their air defenses.

Obvioulsy these drones could be launched from catapults (no need for arrestor wires, it’s a one-way mission) by any 003 or 076 as well, but it’s not even needed as the range allows them to reach Washington DC directly from mainland China.

Announcing a strategic capability like this could provide a huge deterrent at just the right time to stop a war.

 

[ChongqingHotPot92]

Could a stealthy drone like the CH6 with its 12,000km range and 300kg of payload be used for strategic defense?

That range reaches almost all CONUS, the drone simply flies to near its target area during it’s 20 hours of endurance and just detonates.

With this huge range it could approach the US from many angles, placing an unbearable cost on their air defenses.

Obvioulsy these drones could be launched from catapults (no need for arrestor wires, it’s a one-way mission) by any 003 or 076 as well, but it’s not even needed as the range allows them to reach Washington DC directly from mainland China.

Announcing a strategic capability like this could provide a huge deterrent at just the right time to stop a war.

They are too slow under a real wartime scenario. It would take them 20+ hours to reach North America. By that time, civilisation would have already ended.

 

[Andy1974]

They are too slow under a real wartime scenario. It would take them 20+ hours to reach North America. By that time, civilisation would have already ended.

Is speed really an issue though?, if the bombs are on their way and only China can stop them it could make for an interesting 20 hours.

Russia’s giant nuclear powered and armed torpedo is also slow.

Unlike the other delivery systems, these could be launched without detection, enabling an effective first use policy if that were ever to be adopted.

 

[ChongqingHotPot92]

Is speed really an issue though?, if the bombs are on their way and only China can stop them it could make for an interesting 20 hours.

Russia’s giant nuclear powered and armed torpedo is also slow.

Unlike the other delivery systems, these could be launched without detection, enabling an effective first use policy if that were ever to be adopted.

Well, you need large runways to launch thousand of drones one by one, which is extremely inefficient. However, if you could place 2-3 nuclear-tipped independently targeted hypersonic glide vehicles on each DF-41, it would be much more effective in overwhelming adversary's missile defense systems.

 

[Andy1974]

Well, you need large runways to launch thousand of drones one by one, which is extremely inefficient. However, if you could place 2-3 nuclear-tipped independently targeted hypersonic glide vehicles on each DF-41, it would be much more effective in overwhelming adversary's missile defense systems.

I am not discounting the DF-41, this concep is in addition to ground based silos and is focused on deterrence, because drones can be scarier than ballistic missiles due to the surprise factor. Western media would hype the threat, scaring everyone.

Instead of large runways launching hundreds of drones, a hundred small runways could launch a few each. And surely carriers and catapult enabled flattops would be able to launch them, not to mention land based catapults which could be a more common feature in the future.

The “decoy” strategy could also be used by these drones using luneberg lenses on smaller drones/missiles it launches as it approaches air defenses.

For me, it’s a nice way to ensure MAD, and therefore peace.

 

[Broccoli]

Nuclear powered cruise missiles are slower than missiles for sure, but they can fly unconvetional routes into to their destinations unlike missiles due their unlimited range, missiles still have to travel relatively straight line before releasing their payload (even if the payload is HGVs).

It's just another problem for opponents as they gotta keep eye on whole globe if there is a nuclear war and that's why Chinese army is supposedly studying such weapons.

 

[plawolf]

Long range cruise missiles and drones are first strike weapons. Their value as second strike weapons would be much reduced because of the long launch times, especially for drones, since it’s unlikely you would want to have them armed with nukes and fully fuelled just sitting on runways for minimum response time over prolonged periods.

Their slow speed also makes it possible for the enemy to airbust nukes at their likely flight paths, especially early on in their flight, where the enemy may have high confidence of being able to take out most of them. Even those not destroyed outright could be knocked hopelessly off course since GPS/Beidou navigation satellites will almost certainly be systematically brought down during a MAD scenario, and the intense radiation and magnetism of large scale nuclear detonations as well as the storm winds created will most likely cause traditional back up navigation systems to all sorts of problems without satellite updates.

Will you be able to reliably take them all out? Highly unlikely. But OTOH, could you have high confidence that enough of these will make it to their intended targets to achieve a worthwhile degree of nuclear deterrence? Also highly unlikely.

There are much better alternatives.

 

[Andy1974]

Long range cruise missiles and drones are first strike weapons. Their value as second strike weapons would be much reduced because of the long launch times, especially for drones, since it’s unlikely you would want to have them armed with nukes and fully fuelled just sitting on runways for minimum response time over prolonged periods.

Their slow speed also makes it possible for the enemy to airbust nukes at their likely flight paths, especially early on in their flight, where the enemy may have high confidence of being able to take out most of them. Even those not destroyed outright could be knocked hopelessly off course since GPS/Beidou navigation satellites will almost certainly be systematically brought down during a MAD scenario, and the intense radiation and magnetism of large scale nuclear detonations as well as the storm winds created will most likely cause traditional back up navigation systems to all sorts of problems without satellite updates.

Will you be able to reliably take them all out? Highly unlikely. But OTOH, could you have high confidence that enough of these will make it to their intended targets to achieve a worthwhile degree of nuclear deterrence? Also highly unlikely.

There are much better alternatives.

Don’t other delivery systems rely on INS navigation? Would INS work for a drone? Sure there is some error associated with it because of drift over time but it’s pretty small and the blast of a nuke will be large enough.

If airbursting nukes along likely paths is the best form of defense against the concept then surely they could be employed to avoid that, eg they could fly over Russia, or they could delay their launching over several hours, or they could land and wait at small runways en-route, or they could be hidden.

In the future it’s reasonable to assume that the range of these stealthy drones will increase, allowing new vectors and launch options. It can fly 12k km today, could another version fly 20k in 2025? Or 40k by 2035?

Unlike ICBM’s, drone development is making large strides and breakthroughs, having a drone based deterrent allows you to take advantages of all these advances, e.g. swarming, loitering.