Speaking of which, has the status of existence or status of operation been confirmed or verified about this supposedly new hypersonic missile?
DF-26
I remember reading about DF-26 having a much greater range if carrying a 120-kg 575 nuclear warhead. For example, when carrying the current 1000+kg conventional warhead, the DF-26 only has a range of around 3,500 km. However, if swapped to carry a 575 nuke, the range increases to roughly 8,000 km. Can someone find the source for me. I remember it is a Chinese article talking about 535 and 575 warheads.
Liquid-fuelled missiles can be LoW if they use fuel ampoules.
it almost certainly uses hypergolic UMDH+N2O4, since the LM-2 launch vehicle that was based on the DF-5 does. Both are stable indefinitely in steel containers and indeed, US used this for their LoW silos until 1987 (Titan 2) and Russia still uses this on their SS-18s and R-29s.
So is the oft-repeated maxim that it takes 30-60 mins to fuel straight up untrue? It does seem likely that it uses the storable fuel if the LM-2C does. That would mean all the existing DF-5 silos can be LoW'd.
It depends on the alert status. DF-5s are only fueled up in crisis situations because of the corrosive nature of the fuel. It takes a lot of time to fuel the missile up. However, they can remain on standby for days. So the answer is yes, it takes a long time to fuel them up. But ultimately it is only relevant if China is caught in a very surprised situation.
