China Ballistic Missiles and Nuclear Arms Thread

[BoraTas]

I think this is where our positions (mine and yours and Plawolf's) diverge -- which is that I think the prospect of a US BMD system being capable of diminishing the effectiveness of PLA ICBMs to be very much a plausible prospect in the medium term future.

When I say diminishing the effectiveness, I do not mean to say that ICBMs are obsolete or "countered" -- but rather that the extent of the ICBMs that are able to make it through the BMD, is reduced to a degree that the US believes it will not be "MAD" but where the US can come out ahead in the rubble. That belief of "non equal MAD" would be very destabilising, and is something I believe could be very realistic.

Therefore, the purpose of IC-HGVs would be to ensure MAD in the face of a BMD system, and to ensure the confidence of deterrence.

I completely agree with this. Considering the counterforce capabilities of the USA, a BMD system is hugely threatening for China and even Russia in the long term future. It is interesting what the world came to. In the cold war both the USSR and USA avoided building large BMD and bunker networks to avoid destabilization. They were refraining despite the existence of 20000+ nukes on both sides. Now we have the USA moving BMD systems to other nuclear powers' borders.

 

[sinophilia]

I think this is where our positions (mine and yours and Plawolf's) diverge -- which is that I think the prospect of a US BMD system being capable of diminishing the effectiveness of PLA ICBMs to be very much a plausible prospect in the medium term future.

When I say diminishing the effectiveness, I do not mean to say that ICBMs are obsolete or "countered" -- but rather that the extent of the ICBMs that are able to make it through the BMD, is reduced to a degree that the US believes it will not be "MAD" but where the US can come out ahead in the rubble. That belief of "non equal MAD" would be very destabilising, and is something I believe could be very realistic.

Therefore, the purpose of IC-HGVs would be to ensure MAD in the face of a BMD system, and to ensure the confidence of deterrence.

I don't understand how this would be possible though when the US has only a couple dozen strategic interceptors and the AEGIS ships are not great at countering ICBMs afaik.

The US doesn't seem to have any program to field thousands of interceptors in the near future (the GBI replacement is not even fielding hundreds of missiles) so what would this be referring to?

 

[VioletsForSpring]

I think this is where our positions (mine and yours and Plawolf's) diverge -- which is that I think the prospect of a US BMD system being capable of diminishing the effectiveness of PLA ICBMs to be very much a plausible prospect in the medium term future.

When I say diminishing the effectiveness, I do not mean to say that ICBMs are obsolete or "countered" -- but rather that the extent of the ICBMs that are able to make it through the BMD, is reduced to a degree that the US believes it will not be "MAD" but where the US can come out ahead in the rubble. That belief of "non equal MAD" would be very destabilising, and is something I believe could be very realistic.

Therefore, the purpose of IC-HGVs would be to ensure MAD in the face of a BMD system, and to ensure the confidence of deterrence.

The near future viability of non theatre ABM is still up in the air. ABM systems are ridiculously expensive, so unless the US upped the defense budget by atleast 5% of gdp we wouldn't see a significant increase in anti ICBM systems, despite it having bipartisan support.

 

[ZeEa5KPul]

If you are suggesting that the IC-HGV would have a conventional role and would be used against CONTUS as a conventional strike weapon... That is a very, very niche capability and frankly for it to be viable, it would require both China and the US to fully understand that launches of such a weapon cannot be interpreted as a nuclear attack.

I would go further than @plawolf's view: I don't see a conventional role, but a first use tactical nuclear warfighting role. Using a weapon like this with a conventional explosive is very silly. There's absolutely no way to generate a volume of fire with a conventionally armed IC-HGV sufficient to have any military utility.

As for the requirement that the US understand this role (mine or plawolf's) - the US will be made to understand. With an expanded strategic arsenal, China can point to its DF-41s, DF-45s, JL-3s, H-20s, et al. and tell the US that that's what's in store if it gets cute and "misunderstands" the role of the IC-HGV.

When I say diminishing the effectiveness, I do not mean to say that ICBMs are obsolete or "countered" -- but rather that the extent of the ICBMs that are able to make it through the BMD, is reduced to a degree that the US believes it will not be "MAD" but where the US can come out ahead in the rubble. That belief of "non equal MAD" would be very destabilising, and is something I believe could be very realistic.

That's all well and good but it's mitigation, not problem solving. Problem solving would be directly targeting the US BMD radars themselves. These installations are static and the size of small mountains - a perfect target for an IC-HGV. That opens the way for the normal ICBMs. Better than that, it restores deterrence and takes away American decisionmakers' belief (which they falsely hold today) in "non equal MAD."

It's a bit like how I think the DF-17 is intended to be used: The DF-17 hits the enemy theatre BMD, which opens the way for the DF-15, 16, etc. which take out the air defenses and sensitive ground targets, which then opens the way for the J-16 bomb trucks. Each subsequent system is cheaper and able to generate more volume of fire than the system that came before it.

People like acronyms in military affairs and I find it focuses their thought. In that spirit, I'll propose a new acronym for this mission: DEMD. Destruction of Enemy Missile Defenses.

 

[Blitzo]

I don't understand how this would be possible though when the US has only a couple dozen strategic interceptors and the AEGIS ships are not great at countering ICBMs afaik.

The US doesn't seem to have any program to field thousands of interceptors in the near future (the GBI replacement is not even fielding hundreds of missiles) so what would this be referring to?

"For now".
When the PLA would have been in early planning to significantly increase their ICBM force and nuclear deterrent force sometime last decade, would they believe that the US would remain still and not seek to greatly diminish their vulnerability to China's new enlarged and more credible ICBM force?

They knew that the US was further along in their BMD capabilities (including ICBMs) than any other nation -- surely they would have operated under the assumption that an enlargement of their ICBM force would have seen the US seek to counter that advantage to an unknown but significant degree.
That is to say, I believe as part of the PLA's enlargement of their ICBM/nuclear deterrent force, they would have operated under the assumption that the US would seek to develop and procure in increased numbers, the capability to mitigate US vulnerability to China's enlarged ICBM/nuke force. Operating under that assumption, means they would naturally seek to pursue technologies and systems capable of evading US mitigation efforts to ensure the newly established mutual vulnerability remains.

 

[AndrewS]

I would go further than @plawolf's view: I don't see a conventional role, but a first use tactical nuclear warfighting role. Using a weapon like this with a conventional explosive is very silly. There's absolutely no way to generate a volume of fire with a conventionally armed IC-HGV sufficient to have any military utility.

DELETED

 

[ZeEa5KPul]

An HGV which weighs 500kg and impacts at Mach 20 would have the equivalent energy of a 3 kiloton tactical nuclear warhead
So I don't think they actually need to deploy a tactical nuclear warhead as a payload

No, you're off by three orders of magnitude. The kinetic energy of such a projectile would be 1/2* 500 * (20 * 343)^2 = 1.18e10 Joules. 1 Joule is 2.39e-13 kilotons. So your glider would have 2.8e-3 kilotons or 2.8 tons.

You needn't even go through that calculation. The kinetic energy the glider has ultimately comes from the chemical potential energy of the rocket that launched it. If that rocket exploded on the launch pad, would that be anywhere near a 3kt (3x the Beirut blast) explosion?

 

[Blitzo]

I would go further than @plawolf's view: I don't see a conventional role, but a first use tactical nuclear warfighting role. Using a weapon like this with a conventional explosive is very silly. There's absolutely no way to generate a volume of fire with a conventionally armed IC-HGV sufficient to have any military utility.

As for the requirement that the US understand this role (mine or plawolf's) - the US will be made to understand. With an expanded strategic arsenal, China can point to its DF-41s, DF-45s, JL-3s, H-20s, et al. and tell the US that that's what's in store if it gets cute and "misunderstands" the role of the IC-HGV.

I simply do not believe we are at a stage (or near a stage) of the strategic balance of power that we can consider the idea of the PLA using tactical nuclear weapons against CONTUS without escalation to large scale nuclear exchange.

Perhaps into the more distant future, sure.

But at this stage, I believe the overriding most likely primary role of the IC-HGV is as a delivery vehicle for nuclear weapons -- essentially as an "ICBM with much more success to penetrate opfor BMD".
In the more distant future, sure, it could take on other roles, but I think that is sufficiently far away that relies on an understanding of what the geopolitical standards and balance of power of the era is (say, post 2040), to make those kind of strategic-political level decisions, and that's outside of what I think we can comfortably speculate about.

That's all well and good but it's mitigation, not problem solving. Problem solving would be directly targeting the US BMD radars themselves. These installations are static and the size of small mountains - a perfect target for an IC-HGV. That opens the way for the normal ICBMs. Better than that, it restores deterrence and takes away American decisionmakers' belief (which they falsely hold today) in "non equal MAD."

It's a bit like how I think the DF-17 is intended to be used: The DF-17 hits the enemy theatre BMD, which opens the way for the DF-15, 16, etc. which take out the air defenses and sensitive ground targets, which then opens the way for the J-16 bomb trucks. Each subsequent system is cheaper and able to generate more volume of fire than the system that came before it.

People like acronyms in military affairs and I find it focuses their thought. In that spirit, I'll propose a new acronym for this mission: DEMD. Destruction of Enemy Missile Defenses.

I have nothing against the idea of using HGVs (whether they are SRBM, IRBM or ICBM ranged) against missile defense systems.
However, you must surely recognize that using IC-HGVs against an enemy's strategic missile defense systems (i.e. BMD targeted against enemy ICBMs) means that you are basically on the precipice of nuclear exchange already, and the ability to predict what the US may or may not do when their strategic BMD capabilities are targeted goes out of the window.

At that stage, why wouldn't you simply use the IC-HGVs themselves as the deliver methods of your nuclear warheads anyway?

 

[enroger]

An HGV which weighs 500kg and impacts at Mach 20 would have the equivalent energy of a 3 kiloton tactical nuclear warhead
So I don't think they actually need to deploy a tactical nuclear warhead as a payload

But let's suppose the HGV did carry a tactical nuclear warhead. What size do you think it should be? It would need to be more than 10 kilotons to be appreciably more powerful than the HGV with kinetic energy alone

And if you start arming HGVs with small nukes, that invites an escalation up the nuclear ladder

So I think it makes sense for China to have HGVs without a payload, for targets in the USA.
This would be a proportional response if the Chinese mainland was attacked, whilst not going over the nuclear threshold

You may want to check your math

 

[AndrewS]

No, you're off by three orders of magnitude. The kinetic energy of such a projectile would be 1/2* 500 * (20 * 343)^2 = 1.18e10 Joules. 1 Joule is 2.39e-13 kilotons. So your glider would have 2.8e-3 kilotons or 2.8 tons.

You needn't even go through that calculation. The kinetic energy the glider has ultimately comes from the chemical potential energy of the rocket that launched it. If that rocket exploded on the launch pad, would that be anywhere near a 3kt (3x the Beirut blast) explosion?

Here is what I've got

The heat of detonation utilized by

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to define a

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is 4.184 GJ/ton

If you assume 500kg for the vehicle and Mach 20, you end up with 12 Gigajoules of kinetic energy, as you've stated.
Assuming a ground strike, you would expect all the HGV kinetic energy to be released as the HGV is vapourised.

So that would be equivalent to a detonation of 3 tonnes of TNT high explosive

EDIT
I see where I went wrong. I was thinking kilotons instead of tons