China Ballistic Missiles and Nuclear Arms Thread

[FairAndUnbiased]

I’m a little bit confused of Chinese (not actually)new silo: what does that mean considering that US bombers and CM can bypass any early warning system?

I have an hypothesis but I don’t know if it’s reasonable: perhaps they can be used as orbit bombing system, so they can launch them automatically based on signals from short-ranged warning system(which is still useful for stealthy targets) and make decision after launch. Since OBS can keep in orbit for a long time, false alarm would not be a big thing.

DoD said China has tested some kind of FOBS, do you think it’s relevant?

The only way to take out a missile silo built into the ground is a direct hit with a bunker buster. Standard cruise missile cannot do it.

Typical overpressure resistance by silo doors is 2000 psi back in 1983.

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That requires detonation of a 500 kT weapon at 300 m, from the paper. Conventional munitions (using example of the Mk 82, 140 kg warhead) produces overpressure of 117 kPa at 16 m which is 17 psi. This is over 100x lower than the failure pressure of the silo doors.

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Cruise missiles cannot do anything to a hardened missile silo directly. It cannot even scratch it with the explosive force. It has to hit top down to add kinetic energy applied directly to the door. But that's not a cruise missile flight profile. So short range bunker buster is the only possibility. You can't even reach Chinese silos from the Chinese coast with most tactical planes, never mind from further away.

 

[SEAD]

The only way to take out a missile silo built into the ground is a direct hit with a bunker buster. Standard cruise missile cannot do it.

Typical overpressure resistance by silo doors is 2000 psi back in 1983.

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That requires detonation of a 500 kT weapon at 300 m, from the paper. Conventional munitions (using example of the Mk 82, 140 kg warhead) produces overpressure of 117 kPa at 16 m which is 17 psi. This is over 100x lower than the failure pressure of the silo doors.

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Cruise missiles cannot do anything to a hardened missile silo directly. It cannot even scratch it with the explosive force. It has to hit top down to add kinetic energy applied directly to the door. But that's not a cruise missile flight profile. So short range bunker buster is the only possibility. You can't even reach Chinese silos from the Chinese coast with most tactical planes, never mind from further away.

Are you sure that those silo are harden enough? For me the satellite images didn’t show such features. B-2 and B-21 can reach them by refueling in Indian Ocean and B61-11/12 can definitely destroy them.

 

[FairAndUnbiased]

Are you sure that those silo are harden enough? For me the satellite images didn’t show such features. B-2 and B-21 can reach them by refueling in Indian Ocean and B61-11/12 can definitely destroy them.

They'd need to overfly India and the entire air defense of the western military region. They'd also need to take enough munitions to hit every silo individually. And they'd still have mobile TELs and SSBN to contend with.

Also note that Jilin-1, a cheap commercial satellite, has proven itself capable of real time monitoring airplane takeoffs at airfields. Continuous monitoring of military airfields is easily possible.

 

[SEAD]

They'd need to overfly India and the entire air defense of the western military region.

Also note that Jilin-1, a cheap commercial satellite, has proven itself capable of real time monitoring airplane takeoffs at airfields. Continuous monitoring of military airfields is easily possible.

It’s a little bit too far away... I don’t doubt that satellites can be used for AEW in the future, but for now, Jilin-1 works in visible spectrum and very limited scan width(common problem for commercial satellites), that makes it a ridiculous candidate for any strategic alarm.

For air defense, I’m not sure if stealthy targets like B21 can be detected in decent distance. In my assumption 200-300km is conceivable, but it’s still far away from building early alarm based on that.

 

[clockwork]

I’m talking about OBS rather than a normal ICBM. For OBS, warheads can stay in orbit for several decades(if necessary) until the attack decision is made.

First of all, source needed on FOBS being able to stay in orbit for decades. Even if they could, the US can probably shoot them down, it's no different than any other low-orbit satellite. And you can't just launch all the land-based ICBMs on a FOBS trajectory unless they were built that way beforehand. It involves additional complexity incl retrograde thrusters to deorbit etc.

The LRSO only has a nuclear warhead there isn't even a conventional option. I still think B-21s + LRSOs pose a major potential threat to the silos.

 

[FairAndUnbiased]

It’s a little bit too far away... I don’t doubt that satellites can be used for AEW in the future, but for now, Jilin-1 works in visible spectrum and very limited scan width(common problem for commercial satellites), that makes it a ridiculous candidate for any strategic alarm.

For air defense, I’m not sure if stealthy targets like B21 can be detected in decent distance. In my assumption 200-300km is conceivable, but it’s still far away from building early alarm based on that.

You don't need watch the border with satellites. Just the airfields where the planes take off and land. That doesn't tell you exactly where the attack is coming from but it does put forces on alert.

 

[SEAD]

First of all, source needed on FOBS being able to stay in orbit for decades. Even if they could, the US can probably shoot them down, it's no different than any other low-orbit satellite. And you can't just launch all the land-based ICBMs on a FOBS trajectory unless they were built that way beforehand. It involves additional complexity incl retrograde thrusters to deorbit etc.

The LRSO only has a nuclear warhead there isn't even a conventional option. I still think B-21s + LRSOs pose a major potential threat to the silos.

OBS is basically satellites, there’s no need to explain why satellites can stay in orbit… it’s impossible for US, or anyone in the world to destroy thousands of warheads in orbit in a short time(if you can only destroy a part of warheads once a time, China can always attack with others before they are destroyed), but it’s possible to destroy hundreds of silos.

 

[SEAD]

You don't need watch the border with satellites. Just the airfields where the planes take off and land. That doesn't tell you exactly where the attack is coming from but it does put forces on alert.

Visible spectrum is useless at night/with cloud so any satellites based AEW should be IR at least. Scan width of Jilin-1 is only several dozens of km, you need REALLY a lot(thousands) of satellites for an airfield large enough.

 

[FairAndUnbiased]

Visible spectrum is useless at night/with cloud so any satellites based AEW should be IR at least. Scan width of Jilin-1 is only several dozens of km, you need REALLY a lot(thousands) of satellites for an airfield large enough.

Jilin 1 is just an example of this being demonstrated. You can watch the videos yourself.

It is very tedious to have these discussions where only 1 side has citations and scientific proof and the other side just makes assertions so I'd like proof of the runway area of typical airfields and a citation on Jilin 1 swath size.

 

[SEAD]

Jilin 1 is just an example of this being demonstrated. You can watch the videos yourself.

It is very tedious to have these discussions where only 1 side has citations and scientific proof and the other side just makes assertions so I'd like proof of the runway area of typical airfields and a citation on Jilin 1 swath size.

You mentioned the video satellite, but I found

可以获取11km*4.5km幅宽、0.92m分辨率的彩色动态视频

11km*4.5km width, 0.92m resolution for the video one. Jilin-1-high-resolution satellites has 40km width based on their website. Again, I cannot find any night/under cloud image from Jilin-1 or any other satellites like it, I’m curious about that.