China Ballistic Missiles and Nuclear Arms Thread
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Only recently i have noticed this news. I wonder if this has been posted before. If the report is made public, it will be big IMO.
what i find regretable is the part where congress wants to know how the US will neutralize china´s "underground great Wall". I think that talk of using nuclear weapons against china and neutralizing china´s small nuclear arsenal will only drive china to acelerate the building of more nuclear missiles and even change china´s "no first use" policy. Dont these congress guys know this?
why are they doing this? perhabs this article may answer that.
Sad.
what i find regretable is the part where congress wants to know how the US will neutralize china´s "underground great Wall". I think that talk of using nuclear weapons against china and neutralizing china´s small nuclear arsenal will only drive china to acelerate the building of more nuclear missiles and even change china´s "no first use" policy. Dont these congress guys know this?
why are they doing this? perhabs this article may answer that.
Sad.
broadsword
Brigadier
Obama has already authorized the upgrading of the US nuclear arsenal in Europe. What's stopping him from inking the "upgrading" those based elsewhere?
AssassinsMace
Lieutenant General
The conclusion of the Georgetown study is really stupid. Three thousand miles of tunnels so China must have one nuke for every mile. Haven't they every heard of a shell game? Do they also believe China has three thousand ICBMs because why would China have to separate each nuke a mile apart and have the US feel threatened half a world away? The US can make as many bunker busters, conventional or nuclear, all they want. The US will go bankrupt in order to destroy three thousand miles of tunnels. Ground penetrating bombs are just going to contain the explosion even more. Three thousand targets meaning three thousand bunker busters and they will have to know exactly where the nuke is in the tunnel. Why would China bother with building tunnels if the US were capable of locating each nuke anyway? And it's pretty irrelevant for the need of ground penetration if it were nuclear. The fact is the only way they can eliminate the threat from these tunnels without poisoning the world with radiation is to have ground troops going through all three thousand miles. Good luck with that. If China had three thousands nukes, no need to hide them in tunnels. You don't see the US building an underground network of tunnels to protect it's nuclear arsenal because underground silos are enough to protect them to ensure a first and second strike capability. All these tunnels do increase survivability of China's lesser number in order to maintain them as a deterrence. So why bother unless the US is planning to attack China in a sneak surprise. That's the only way this plan to eliminate these tunnels as threat will work the most.
I agree that merely assigning one nuclear weapon per mile of tunnel is a simplistic way of assessing the size of China's nuclear arsenal.
However, their conclusion that one cannot escape is the cost of building such a length of tunnels to house relatively few numbers of nuclear weapons is not only wasteful, but even MORE expensive than building 3000 nuclear weapons in the 1st place - given that China's nuclear manufacturing infrastructure is already in place.
The capability to build more weapons is there, what is lacking is the will to do so.
Nevertheless, I suspect that there is more to it than just another shell game.
Perhaps it is not just nuclear weapons that they are hiding down there.
Or they could in the event 'build up' to a larger nuclear stockpile should the feel the need to do so - and no one would be the wiser.
They could stockpile all the necessary materials and leave them in an un-assembled state, then if the pressure was on suddenly 'acquire' more nukes.
However, their conclusion that one cannot escape is the cost of building such a length of tunnels to house relatively few numbers of nuclear weapons is not only wasteful, but even MORE expensive than building 3000 nuclear weapons in the 1st place - given that China's nuclear manufacturing infrastructure is already in place.
The capability to build more weapons is there, what is lacking is the will to do so.
Nevertheless, I suspect that there is more to it than just another shell game.
Perhaps it is not just nuclear weapons that they are hiding down there.
Or they could in the event 'build up' to a larger nuclear stockpile should the feel the need to do so - and no one would be the wiser.
They could stockpile all the necessary materials and leave them in an un-assembled state, then if the pressure was on suddenly 'acquire' more nukes.
AssassinsMace
Lieutenant General
I'm sure China does has more than the 300 that's been reported. I think China could figure out a less expensive way of protecting its nukes if it was more expensive to build tunnels. Yeah I agree it's more than just shuffling nukes around.
Broccoli
Senior Member
It seems that PRC has chosen to look what comes out of the US ABM systems instead of rushing to manufacture new expensive missiles like Russia does. US ABM systems could be another "star wars" bluff what is used to drain enemies resources, and Russia is playing along by developing and manufacturing new expensive ICBM's when there is no need to do so.
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antiterror13
Brigadier
That policy is just nothing. PLA will use it when is needed, no matter what
Imagine if let's say JMSD managed (I know its highly unlikely) to destroy all PLAN and also managed to destroy three gorges dam and Shanghai financial district ... and JMSD didn't use any nuke.
Do you really think China would stick to the policy ? and PLA wouldn't use its nukes agains Japanese ?
I know it's a bit extreme, but you get my point ?
Going by this data:
- It is possible that china has stopped construction of new ICBMs since 2011. That could answer why the numbers have leveled;
- Why is china still using DF-4? They are totally outdated;
- Why does the author say that there are only about 20 DF-31A? First he says correctly “less than 30”. Later he goes back. Why? DF-4 and DF-31 are not included in those “less than 50”;
- Once again, no mention of DF-41;
- No mention of MIRV
antiterror13
Brigadier
DF-4 is still better than anything India has (operational) and it is proven IRBM. Enough to deter India. Why would you "waste" your DF-31/A to deter India ?
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