China Ballistic Missiles and Nuclear Arms Thread

[Confusionism]

Dude, spent nuclear fuel doesn't need 40 million m^3 to fill and 90-120m depth won't be enough.

I did some research on the company. It seems to be a subsidiary of China National Nuclear Corporation, set up in 2015 to construct a "中核甘肃核技术产业园" which said to be a multi-billion project. The local government said it can't disclose some of the company's information due to military secret.

Dudes, this stops make sense to me, a reprocessing plant surely doesn't need tens of billions of money to reprocess. Or they are reprocessing uranium, plutonium to make nuclear warheads for the silo 150km away.

The CEO of 中核龙瑞 is literally former 404 factory's CEO, one of Chinese nuclear weapon factory in the cold war. 王俊峰, then manager of 404 is now manager of 中核龙瑞. 刘士鹏, then president of 404 is the president of 中核龙瑞. The same men for the same jobs but in different name.

Even if everything about the bidding is fraud, the silos are not fake and China needs to produce new warheads to fill those silos. It appears to me that the company 中核龙瑞 is a cover-up for nuclear weapon production, with duties to dig the holes and produce warheads.

Government source:

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for god sake STOP PLEASE, before your imagination starts to run away with you, please take a closer look at the bidding materials. The earthwork to be excavated is a large pit with an upper base of 1150mx1150m and a lower base of 100mx100m at a depth of 90 to 150 m. If you remember the formula for the volume of a quadrangular platform, you can see what its volume is.

You can keep your imagination going, but it has nothing to do with missile silos!

 

[PiSigma]

Just found two screenshots posted on Chinese internet dated back to the first silo found in Yumen. The origin ones are posted in 11/2017.

The first one mentioned construction project in Yumen which is contracted for mainly ￥180/m^3 or ￥380/m^3 on specifically "digging [something] 110m deep, 8m wide."

The second one mentioned the average contract price per m^3 is ￥190 and the total project will be 500 MILLION m^3.
For comparison, Minuteman silo project excavated 20 million yard^3 (roughly 15.29 million m^3) for 150 launch facilities and 15 launch centers.

My question is how real this screenshot is and if it is a scam. And if it is a fraud, why Yumen. Because Yumen is in middle of nowhere and basically reserved for PLA, rocket launch and oil field. If someone planned to scam whole lot of money from construction companies, there was no mention about deposit for this project at all.

Another question is whether it was only accounted for silo project in Yumen if it is real. Someone on Chinese internet suggested the number might not be accurate or could be for the entire silo-based missile project. I have found no reasonable answer and definitely won't be surprised if new silos are found in the future.

If it is not fake, it is really telling and connecting every dots in this nuclear change.
- In this timeline, China - US relation deteriorated after Trump got elected in 2016.
- After Trump formally inaugurated in January 2017, he ordered to change the nuclear posture review.
- Since then China decided to rapidly expand nuclear force by ten fold, restart plutonium and warheads production.
- Silo excavation started bidding in late 2017 and began construction in probably 2018/2019.
- US declared trade war on China in January 2018.
- The new NPR published in February 2018 explicitly said the new administration will "expand U.S. nuclear options now, to include low-yield options," de-facto nuclear coercion in the case of Taiwan.
- A 2.65m diameter solid fueled engine successfully conducted its first hot testing in March 2019.
- Silo bases in Yumen and Hami are found by satellite in their late construction stage in June 2021.
- Another one found in Ordos, and probably more to be found in somewhere else.

Edit: The projection was scheduled to be completed in 5 years according to the second screenshot, not sure how real it is tho.
View attachment 88561

View attachment 88560

It's a scan. The PLA got engineering corps for nuclear construction and tunnel construction that no civilian company can do. The drawings for military facilities are never shared with any civilian construction company ever. Everything is 100% internal to the PLA.

My source: my grandfather's brother, who lived in the middle of the desert of Xinjiang for 20 years designing and building nuclear facilities as their lead civil engineer.

 

[manqiangrexue]

It's a scan. The PLA got engineering corps for nuclear construction and tunnel construction that no civilian company can do. The drawings for military facilities are never shared with any civilian construction company ever. Everything is 100% internal to the PLA.

My source: my grandfather's brother, who lived in the middle of the desert of Xinjiang for 20 years designing and building nuclear facilities as their lead civil engineer.

This is exactly the kind of stuff you need to keep off of the internet. In addition to your own safety concerns, don't help any potential enemy correctly determine whether important information coming out of China is reliable. If you have to watch with a bag of popcorn the people here argue about it, so be it. But people with sensitive information must keep it safe, even if the information were as simple as whether a picture is a scam or not.

 

[Kalec]

for god sake STOP PLEASE, before your imagination starts to run away with you, please take a closer look at the bidding materials. The earthwork to be excavated is a large pit with an upper base of 1150mx1150m and a lower base of 100mx100m at a depth of 90 to 150 m. If you remember the formula for the volume of a quadrangular platform, you can see what its volume is.

You can keep your imagination going, but it has nothing to do with missile silos!

Jesus Christ, what are you talking about? No one is saying that this project is for silo construction, and it is not for deep nuclear waste disposal where is hundreds of miles away, another place in Yumen. The landfill depth for this reprocessing plant is only 5 meters, a near-surface disposal, publicly stated in government document.

Plant 404 is formerly plutonium producing and reprocessing factory and now changes its name into the previously mentioned company. China has to restart plutonium production in order to make more warheads, and I haven't yet checked the status of Plant 821 which also probably restarted plutonium production.

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[gelgoog]

That diagram looks like some sort of long term storage of nuclear waste. Not something you would use to produce plutonium.

 

[Temstar]

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Sutton found some more ship targets used by PLARF

Curious to see multiple sites with the same three lines, I wonder which base that's suppose to represent.

Check out the accuracy:

Dead center hit against a destroyer sized target. I've always thought AShBM shouldn't just be called "carrier killer", they are equally valid for peeling off the CSG's escorts so as to degrade their air defense and open the door for follow up attacks with more conventional ASM.

 

[tphuang]

Shilao podcast said it pretty clear that they've mastered the ability to target moving naval ships pretty quickly. If there is two things China is good at, they are missiles and electronics. In a few more years, ASBM will just be looked at as different forms of Anti-ship missiles that are really hard to intercept. And while the armchair QBs keep focusing on ASBM, China will have moved on to HGVs and HCMs for anti-ship missions. USN is really good at intercepting a few ballistic missiles coming at them. This really is just a game of whether the attacker can outpace the development of defender. At this point, we have to probably look at ASBM as China's leading anti-ship missile technology of 5 years ago. They are moving so fast on this front that they will probably have both HGV and HCM anti-ship missiles in the next 5 years. And after that, they will likely continue to improve on making anti-ship missiles harder to detect and intercept.

 

[FairAndUnbiased]

Shilao podcast said it pretty clear that they've mastered the ability to target moving naval ships pretty quickly. If there is two things China is good at, they are missiles and electronics. In a few more years, ASBM will just be looked at as different forms of Anti-ship missiles that are really hard to intercept. And while the armchair QBs keep focusing on ASBM, China will have moved on to HGVs and HCMs for anti-ship missions. USN is really good at intercepting a few ballistic missiles coming at them. This really is just a game of whether the attacker can outpace the development of defender. At this point, we have to probably look at ASBM as China's leading anti-ship missile technology of 5 years ago. They are moving so fast on this front that they will probably have both HGV and HCM anti-ship missiles in the next 5 years. And after that, they will likely continue to improve on making anti-ship missiles harder to detect and intercept.

ASBM is just one tool of many, but a very important tool: extreme range standoff anti-ship capability. The engagement envelope of PLA against enemy naval targets is comprehensive:

1. multirange: long range (1000+ km), mid range (300-1000 km), short ranged (<300 km).
2. multidomain: spaceborne (ASBM), high altitude (HGV), mid altitude (HCM), low altitude (sea skimmer), subsurface (torpedo)
3. multiplatform: ground (TELs), surface ship (055, 052D), submarine, bomber, fighter.
4. multisensor: satellite, long range radar, HALE/MALE drone, small drone, recon aircraft, hydrophone

There's no way to sneak around this, there's no trick to beat it.

 

[ougoah]

There may be no way to "sneak by" the layered and integrated A2AD but there are always ways to slowly attack and dismantle it element by element. The attacker always has the advantage in this respect. It is kind of like AD (even really good ones) vs SEAD/DEAD. Latter has advantage and all the initiative.

For china it is necessary to counter the force with an adequately trained and equipped force that is nearly equal in numbers. This is what allows china to stop any action that slowly dismantles the network. USN wants extremely long range for NGAD so their fleets can stay outside the engagement range of land based ASBM and HGV/HCM. Sea based ones are very very few in numbers and ability for contesting and winning the air at X range from Chinese coast needs to be increased by china.

When neither are standing still with the arms race, it's not enough to be good enough. With NGAD in USN service, the game gets changed again. Normal state is peace and stability but US is the one that wants to change that which means they have the initiative. It's not china that is threatening US coast and interests in its region. To be able to properly counter the US, great and near perfect A2AD isn't enough unless the range of that gets extended to global reach like the recent Chinese hypersonic test. Now if that is a weapon that can strike supply lines in eastern Pacific... Well yeah rest easy then. Until that PLAN needs to double in size. The tech and equipment are excellent but nothing stands still and both these nations are now the fastest movers in military tech. That is to say China's main antagonist is one of the world's fastest tech developers.

 

[antiterror13]

Shilao podcast said it pretty clear that they've mastered the ability to target moving naval ships pretty quickly. If there is two things China is good at, they are missiles and electronics. In a few more years, ASBM will just be looked at as different forms of Anti-ship missiles that are really hard to intercept. And while the armchair QBs keep focusing on ASBM, China will have moved on to HGVs and HCMs for anti-ship missions. USN is really good at intercepting a few ballistic missiles coming at them. This really is just a game of whether the attacker can outpace the development of defender. At this point, we have to probably look at ASBM as China's leading anti-ship missile technology of 5 years ago. They are moving so fast on this front that they will probably have both HGV and HCM anti-ship missiles in the next 5 years. And after that, they will likely continue to improve on making anti-ship missiles harder to detect and intercept.

Why Shilao podcast saying something is quite secret/confidential information?, is it something that China/PLA want that information out ?