China Ballistic Missiles and Nuclear Arms Thread

[Xizor]

One downside to this approach is that the tracks are fixed and there is a limited degree of evasive maneuvers the targets could perform. I wonder if there is a quick and dirty fix for this.

Night time missile tests, perhaps? Maybe not disclosing the track layout to those that head the missile strikes ? Warships can't move backwards but this rail vehicle ( diesel electric powered ?) should be able to reverse : more uncertainty for the missile strike team .

 

[AssassinsMace]

Remember the good ole days when the US said China couldn't make ASBM work because no one (meaning they couldn't do it) could hit a moving carrier with a ballistic missile...?

 

[ansy1968]

Remember the good ole days when the US said China couldn't make ASBM work because no one (meaning they couldn't do it) could hit a moving carrier with a ballistic missile...?

@AssassinsMace Sir, I do, I do and they mockingly said it's just a fireworks to impressed like the Third Taiwan Straight Crisis, how times change...lol

 

[MwRYum]

Remember the good ole days when the US said China couldn't make ASBM work because no one (meaning they couldn't do it) could hit a moving carrier with a ballistic missile...?

Speaking of which, indeed have not heard such claim made by USDoD for quite a while...instead one'd hear how China is "destabilizing the region" blahblahblah... and how the US rush forward projects to give ABM capability to its surface fleet.

 

[Suetham]

This sort of thing might be useful in countering USAF's Agile Combat Employment concept. If I can hit time sensitive targets all over the western pacific then what good is ACE. Imagine dispersing out of Guam and having DF missiles reaching the remote small airfields before the aircraft do, leaving them without a place to land.

Can it also be used for the aircraft to be taxiing in order to test Chinese missiles on a moving target? Thus, in a similar way to the DF-21D with a supposedly navigating target. I believe it would just be a matter of "calibration" to correlate the image finder with the intended target.

 

[Maikeru]

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[clockwork]

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Nice read. But:

"Since the 1980s, Chinese nuclear strategists have recognized that the threat of massive retaliation lacks credibility and could be considered too escalatory against a limited nuclear attack. Instead, they may have sought more sophisticated nuclear development and employment policies. At the same time, China may be concerned that the US reemphasis on low-yield nuclear weapons in recent years indicates a lower threshold for nuclear use. China could de-escalate a nuclear conflict on its own terms by responding symmetrically or proportionately to limited US nuclear employment. Accurate theater-range nuclear missiles, such as the DF-21 and DF-26, could hold US military bases, carrier groups, or Guam under threat."

The only problem with that is by the time the US uses tactical nukes, those targets will have already been annihilated by China's conventional missiles. So they won't remain as available targets for retaliation. The US will probably use tactical nukes only when all its assets/forces in Asia have been wiped out by the PLARF (as I predict will easily and rapidly happen), leaving it no conventional options. Therefore China will have no choice but to choose more strategic targets to retaliate against, I think a small nuke against the city on Guam (not Andersen AFB), or maybe Hawaii, is likely.

 

[DarkStar]

Do you honestly think the radioactive poisoning of chinas neighbourhood and Asia for that matter should only be answered with a small tactical nuke on Guam and not say, a tactical nuke on Memphis and the poisoning of the Mississippi river delta?

 

[gelgoog]

Nice read. But:

"Since the 1980s, Chinese nuclear strategists have recognized that the threat of massive retaliation lacks credibility and could be considered too escalatory against a limited nuclear attack.

Since the 1980s China has developed the DF-31AG, DF-41, and JL-2A. China's deterrent does not "lack credibility". US defense experts typically downplayed the Chinese nuclear weapon inventory back then because Chinese intercontinental missiles were in silos and lacked range to hit the entire US mainland. They were vulnerable to a first strike. It also used to be China could only hit US cities on the West Coast. Well that isn't the case anymore. China's ICBMs can hit any place in the US and they are both road mobile and underwater.

Instead, they may have sought more sophisticated nuclear development and employment policies. At the same time, China may be concerned that the US reemphasis on low-yield nuclear weapons in recent years indicates a lower threshold for nuclear use. China could de-escalate a nuclear conflict on its own terms by responding symmetrically or proportionately to limited US nuclear employment. Accurate theater-range nuclear missiles, such as the DF-21 and DF-26, could hold US military bases, carrier groups, or Guam under threat."

The only problem with that is by the time the US uses tactical nukes, those targets will have already been annihilated by China's conventional missiles. So they won't remain as available targets for retaliation. The US will probably use tactical nukes only when all its assets/forces in Asia have been wiped out by the PLARF (as I predict will easily and rapidly happen), leaving it no conventional options. Therefore China will have no choice but to choose more strategic targets to retaliate against, I think a small nuke against the city on Guam (not Andersen AFB), or maybe Hawaii, is likely.

If the US attacks the Chinese mainland with nukes I have no doubt the Chinese will retaliate in kind and quite likely in force.
As long as the nuclear weapons are used tactically in combat scenarios there is a lower chance for escalation but it is certainly not zero.
There is a reason the US and Soviet Union dropped most of their tactical nuclear weapons after the 1970s. They were hugely expensive and hard to contain from proliferating to other foreign powers.

 

[ZeEa5KPul]

Since the 1980s China has developed the DF-31AG, DF-41, and JL-2A. China's deterrent does not "lack credibility". US defense experts typically downplayed the Chinese nuclear weapon inventory back then because Chinese intercontinental missiles were in silos and lacked range to hit the entire US mainland. They were vulnerable to a first strike. It also used to be China could only hit US cities on the West Coast. Well that isn't the case anymore. China's ICBMs can hit any place in the US and they are both road mobile and underwater.

That's not what he's saying. Far be it from me to defend Tong Zhao and his ilk, but we should be accurate about the arguments we make. Until recently, China had only two options in response to a limited nuclear attack: 1) A massive nuclear response. 2) Nothing. The former lacks credibility because the US retaliation would be at least as damaging and destructive. It's not worth it to lose everything in response to an initial strike with relatively limited losses. This is the point he's making.

China expanding both its strategic and tactical arsenals address this by giving China proportional response options to limited US nuclear strikes (I would argue even conventional strikes against China itself). The US cannot then threaten a massive escalation to China's limited nuclear response because a Chinese retaliation with a much larger and more robust arsenal on a hair trigger would be obliterating.