China Ballistic Missiles and Nuclear Arms Thread

[TK3600]

Opportunity cost is a thing.

What China is willing to plow into a large scale nuclear build up means less money for other military procurement (and more importantly, civilian development).


Frankly I dislike the entire way that the discussion about Chinese nuclear procurement is framed.

It seems to be that there is a persistent degree of insecurity by some users (not you specifically), who are unaware that China faces a stark nuclear disadvantage and want to rectify this as soon as possible without recognizing the reason why China's nuclear arsenal up to this point has been relatively constrained to begin with.


Instead of looking at the question as "what's the biggest nuclear arsenal that China should have and how fast can they get it" -- the right way of asking it imo is:

What's the smallest nuclear arsenal China needs and what's the slowest they can procure it, to be able to prosecute a successful national strategy in the near term, medium term and long term?


Instead of dreaming big, it is better to first see what the compulsory prerequisites are, rather than the Robert Baratheon style demanding of "MOAR WINE NUKES".

For what it buys, another 500 nukes cost pennies in Chinese economy. China mastered the tech of easy solid fuel, and has most efficient infrastructure constructers. All the pricy delivery platforms are bought in forms like ashbm. Those are dual use. All China needs are the warheads to greatly expand the capability. Hell, China had hundreds of nukes back when their economy was 20 times smaller.

 

[Blitzo]

I think that we can assume that you dont like nuclear weapons very much.

Your assumption would be wrong.

My own belief for the kind of nuclear arsenal that China likely requires is likely no less than what most people here have previously written, and may even exceed them.

But it would be useless of me to make a projection or prediction as to what China can or will procure in the near and medium term future, and all it does is add needless noise to a consensus that everyone has already agreed upon years ago.

I better expect better from this forum than screeching at frustration that China's nuclear warheads are too few in number.

As I said, let's take a step back and accept first of all that China is at a nuclear disadvantage and that is going to remain the case for the immediate future. Then we can look at current hints of what PLA nuclear procurement may be, and we can construct theories what sort of nuclear strategy they may have and how it may evolve into the future.

For what it buys, another 500 nukes cost pennies in Chinese economy. China mastered the tech of easy solid fuel, and has most efficient infrastructure constructers. All the pricy delivery platforms are bought in forms like ashbm. Those are dual use. All China needs are the warheads to greatly expand the capability. Hell, China had hundreds of nukes back when their economy was 20 times smaller.

I have no opposition at all to China adding another 500 nukes to its arsenal in the near term.

Heck, I never expressed any opposition to China adding another 10,000 nukes to its arsenal, given a sufficiently reasonable timeline.



However what we think to be reasonable and what the CMC may to think be reasonable and worth opportunity cost are different things.

My post which you quoted was addressed to the idea of China achieving parity in deployed warheads within 5 years.
Personally I think that may be a bit fast, and may require something more like 10 years to achieve.

 

[antiterror13]

Nuclear armament is less expensive than conventional weapon. It approximately costs China 15 million USD to build a MX Peacekeeper Pro Max or 8 million to build one DF-41.

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Since we have no data on how much it costs per warhead in China, we can calculate the figure based on US estimation adjusted by inflation.

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It costs US $5 million per warhead in 1996 USD value, which is worth $9.5 million today after inflation.

Then we can conclude
Chinese Peacekeeper: $72 million per missile with warheads, $23 billion to fill 320 silos.
DF-41: $36.5 million per missile with warheads $11.7 billion to fill 320 silos.

It is the procurement cost only, it is very difficult to precisely calculate how much it is going to take on initial training/silo construction cost/personnel recruitment & relocation. We can simply x2 the cost on missile & warheads based on Ohio overall breakdown, no way silo field costs more than submarine.

Though it looks outrageously high compare with China's $229.5 billion in budget, we should note it will be distributed over the next 5 years. It means that the nuclear program costs between $4.68 billion/2% and $9.2 billion/4% budget annually, meanwhile providing a nuclear arsenal between 1,500 ish to 2,500 ish.

Any idea how China could get enough plutonium and U-235 for those warheads? I have been wondering whether China still secretly producing PU and U-235?

 

[gelgoog]

I doubt getting the U-235 would be an issue. China has the second largest enrichment facilities in any nation next to Russia.
And if for whatever reason the West does try to decouple from Russian enriched uranium supplies near the end of this decade, then China can buy that Russian enriched uranium for their civilian nuclear reactors, and use all their own enrichment capacity for the military nuclear program.

More of a problem would be making the plutonium required in meaningful amounts. Countries used to have special reactors for making military grade plutonium but all or nearly all of these have been closed down. While it is also possible to use chemical separation on spent fuel of civilian nuclear reactors to produce weapons grade plutonium this is more expensive since it requires processing larger volumes of material. Plutonium used to be made in several countries with special graphite moderated or similar reactors designed specifically for military purposes which had plutonium rich output. Now, the thing is, a lot of people are assuming once those two CFR-600 fast reactors China is building come online that they will be able to produce military grade plutonium in large quantities. But we do not know enough about the specifics of those reactors to know if that is possible. Also, while China does have some separation facilities for plutonium, they would need to be scaled up significantly to have that large of a warhead stockpile in the near future.

 

[ACuriousPLAFan]

Side-by-side comparison of DF-41 and Hwasong 17.

 

[antiterror13]

Side-by-side comparison of DF-41 and Hwasong 17.

View attachment 99938

Woow, Hwasong 17 is so big, because liquid fuelled ICBM, look similar size to DF-5 series

 

[gelgoog]

Yeah it is huge. The TEL alone broke some kind of record. And it basically uses the same engines as the R-36 rocket.

 

[Orthan]

Side-by-side comparison of DF-41 and Hwasong 17.

IMO, this comparition is not at scale. Notice the wheels and the crew cabin. They are much bigger in the case of hwasong TEL. They should be roughly the same size in the two TEL´s.

 

[Kalec]

Dude posted wreckage of a missile in Lop nur. It looks like the first stage of a DF-21 or DF-26.

The nozzle has been removed, the coating was also scrapped, though military left the empty carbon fiber shell there.

It also indicate that missile itself is not expensive, China uses carbon fiber for strategic, tactical and even commercial rocket engines.

 

[gelgoog]

Carbon fiber is way more expensive than steel would be for sure. But yes China is a major manufacturer of the material.
The extra performance i.e. range or payload are what makes the difference.
Nice picture.