China Ballistic Missiles and Nuclear Arms Thread
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I mean no country seriously treats any radiological dispersal device/weapon, if you prefer this name. In my memory there’s no test for such devices with or without criticality in any country (and in Russia). Perhaps you are talking about Burevestnik rather than Poseidon? It’s designed as an vehicle and fallout is just by-effect.
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I doubt they know much at all, in both signal and human intelligence, China should have a sizeable edge, and the nuclear program is something China is very very secretive about.
Beijing's nuclear posture, including public lowball statements on how many nukes are "active", should be considered mainly political theater vis a vis local nuclear powers such as India and Pakistan, to discourage a warhead numbers arms race that could erode Chinese missile defense advantages.
It is not hard for China to keep a huge number of warheads separated from the launch vehicles and/or partially dissembled.
The question of how many nukes is not as important as how advanced the nukes are. A few dozen airburst HGVs on FOBS can strike almost without warning and create an EMP that knocks out electricity over a whole continent, while China cannot be immediately pinned as the culprit.
Pushing the response time to the shortest possible while increasing missile defense at home is what I predict the new modernization term means. That means not necessarily any new nukes, although more nukes may be taken out of mothball to be added to the active count.
IIRC some had talked about using Gold isotope as a salted device and of course a cobalt enhanced device is real although from what I recall of all things from movie"Beneath the planet of the apes" where the mutants were worshipping a huge US super cobalt enhanced "Alpha Doom device-hated monkeys ever since.But I've always hated the idea of demated separated warheads as it just reduces one's readiness for a surprise attack although I'm sure PLA's planners have taken this in account.
in France we talk about balance of terror !antiterror13
Brigadier
Thank you. Do you think China now has more PU-239 weapon grade than let's say 10yrs ago? if the case, by how much based on your estimate
I am wondering that it seems China is expanding ICBM fleets quite aggressively but there is no credible news about expanding the number of nukes
I appreciated their work on de-mystifing PLARF structure, saving many time to check designation code every time. What they wrote on prospect is completely wrong: the silo number is outdated, still shell game cliche and one base per silo field.
I wonder why ppl emphasize on HGVs because I don't really see them tipped on silo ICBM. Because deployment of HGV is a tradeoff between penetrating ability and number of warheads. It makes much more sense to modify old DF-31 with HGV as a survivable & credible second strike force without losing warheads number.
Here's the deal:
1. You can tip one DF-41 with three warheads with penetration aids and deployable range in northern China.
2. DF-41 with 1 HGV warheads or possibly 2 as the shroud is not even large enough to deploy 3 with not seen yet penetration aid and deployable in the entire China.
I don't see any evidence that China has more WGPu than when it stopped production in the '90s. It's difficult to produce Pu in secret since reactors require cooling and that's generally conspicuous. However, that doesn't exclude other routes like purchasing it from Russia or laser isotope separation of civilian reactor waste. In addition, Pu is not strictly required for a viable bomb. Pu is used in one small part of the bomb (the primary stage) and a small quantity is used (2kg); it's replaceable by U-235 or composite uranium/plutonium cores.
I think the Chinese strategy is simply adapting to the current strategic situation, in the past the US did not see China as a serious threat while China still had the illusion of rational competition between the two for the foreseeable future. Even with Obama's pivot to Asia, that just seemed like posturing compared to sailing a carrier battle group through the Taiwan strait. In those times the Chinese strategy was simply bidding it's time, enough deterrence to give the US a serious punch in the face but not civilization ending since a bully would not risk getting shanked to get some lunch money. It allowed China to spend tons of money on RnD of its conventional armed forces which had rapidly caught up to that of the West.
With the election of Trump and the drastic turn in rhetoric, all those illusions are shattered and now strategic deterrence must upgrade from a bruise nose to burning their house down. The good thing was that due to the years of minimum deterrence and NFU much money was saved in not having to maintain a large nuclear stockpile, the same can't be said for Russia which had spend a fair chunk of its armed forces budget just maintaining ex-soviets nuclear stockpile, with the expected result in the current conflict.
With the election of Trump and the drastic turn in rhetoric, all those illusions are shattered and now strategic deterrence must upgrade from a bruise nose to burning their house down. The good thing was that due to the years of minimum deterrence and NFU much money was saved in not having to maintain a large nuclear stockpile, the same can't be said for Russia which had spend a fair chunk of its armed forces budget just maintaining ex-soviets nuclear stockpile, with the expected result in the current conflict.
Old Tweet thread on EW satellite system.
TJS-3 is so unique in the array that it is made by Shanghai Academy of Spaceflight Technology (SAST), which made all other EW satellites in the TJS series, but doesn't look like a EW satellite. Perhaps TJS-3 could be a prototype for next-gen EW satellite, lighter & cheaper similar with US proposal for next-gen EW system.
As the animation by @SegerYu shows, 4 current GEO EW satellites provide coverage over entire Eurasia and Pacific. There should be 2 more EW GEO satellites to cover CONUS/Atlantic and at least 3 HEO satellites to cover northern hemisphere.
US is phasing out GEO, HEO EW satellites within two decades, well at least they publicly said so, and switch to LEO constellations and MEO satellites to address concerns from China.
Interestingly, "The U.S. Space Force is buying billion-dollar satellites that on average take seven years to develop while China is moving to build new constellations at a rapid pace. This is a problem that calls for new ways of doing business," said Frank Calvelli, assistant secretary of the Air Force for space acquisition and integration. I wonder what he means in Chinese LEO EW constellation, knowing something we didn't?
TJS-3 is so unique in the array that it is made by Shanghai Academy of Spaceflight Technology (SAST), which made all other EW satellites in the TJS series, but doesn't look like a EW satellite. Perhaps TJS-3 could be a prototype for next-gen EW satellite, lighter & cheaper similar with US proposal for next-gen EW system.
As the animation by @SegerYu shows, 4 current GEO EW satellites provide coverage over entire Eurasia and Pacific. There should be 2 more EW GEO satellites to cover CONUS/Atlantic and at least 3 HEO satellites to cover northern hemisphere.
US is phasing out GEO, HEO EW satellites within two decades, well at least they publicly said so, and switch to LEO constellations and MEO satellites to address concerns from China.
Interestingly, "The U.S. Space Force is buying billion-dollar satellites that on average take seven years to develop while China is moving to build new constellations at a rapid pace. This is a problem that calls for new ways of doing business," said Frank Calvelli, assistant secretary of the Air Force for space acquisition and integration. I wonder what he means in Chinese LEO EW constellation, knowing something we didn't?
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