I think this is my final piece on Chinese nuclear warhead.
From Chinese side, many nuclear experts, who designed warhead themselves, have long being saying that China is at least on par with "advanced international level." Although being opaque on warhead design for decades, I think there are at least 5 active warhead designs.
The first nuclear bomb is named after Project 596 and the DF-2 warhead was called 548 warhead, DF-3 & DF-4 warhead was likely to be 524 warhead or 512 warhead.
It is a very clear pattern here. The first digit starts with a "5" and the last two digits got halved between generation. I would like to take a wild guess here, there is warhead named as "503" between 506 and 515, but it doesn't matter anyway.
The quality of 535 and 575 is likely to be on par with US/Soviet design in late 70s and 80s because they were developed after China acquired very accurate information on Russian and American design in 80s.
From the book "Tiger Trap: America's Secret Spy War with China,"
"The US document had measurements in inches. The Chinese document had dimensions in millimeters. If you translated the US document into millimeters and rounded off the number and then translated it back to inches there could be a slight discrepancy."
While US insisted that China couldn't have tested its first miniaturized bomb in 1992 if not stealing from US. It is complete bs as everyone knows it. Because neutron bomb also required a miniaturized design and China successfully tested it in 1984. It also doesn't make sense since China just tested a new bomb, rumored to be 575 warhead, in 1990 and why should China still use inferior design after claimed "espionage" happened in late 70s.
The unclear part of Chinese warhead arsenal is mainly due to numerous fractional test in 90s, making it very hard to estimate the yield. They was said to "provide reference for future warhead design." US is also developing new W93 warhead by using past test data, so it is still possible for China though unlikely to develop new warhead from one way or another. At least US is claiming that China is modernizing warhead design without providing any details.
US admitted in 2020 report for the first time that US, Russia and China are generally on the same page of nuclear warhead design, after all warhead design has been in freeze for decades still no sign of any huge upgrade.
From Chinese side, many nuclear experts, who designed warhead themselves, have long being saying that China is at least on par with "advanced international level." Although being opaque on warhead design for decades, I think there are at least 5 active warhead designs.
| Rumored Codename | Launcher | Yield | Nuclear test |
| 506 warhead | Exclusively DF-5A | 4Mt - 5Mt | The 21st nuclear test on 11/17/1976 |
| 515 warhead | DF-21/JL-1 and possibly by DF-26 | 1Mt | The 16th test on 06/17/1974 or the 27th test on 10/16/1980 |
| 535 warhead | DF-5B/DF-31/DF-41 | 650kt | The 37th test on 05/21/1992 |
| 575 warhead | Unknown | 200kt - 250kt | The 33rd test on 06/05/1987 or the 36th test on 05/25/1990 |
| "Shadow warhead" | Unknown | Unknown | A series of nuclear tests in 90s |
The first nuclear bomb is named after Project 596 and the DF-2 warhead was called 548 warhead, DF-3 & DF-4 warhead was likely to be 524 warhead or 512 warhead.
It is a very clear pattern here. The first digit starts with a "5" and the last two digits got halved between generation. I would like to take a wild guess here, there is warhead named as "503" between 506 and 515, but it doesn't matter anyway.
The quality of 535 and 575 is likely to be on par with US/Soviet design in late 70s and 80s because they were developed after China acquired very accurate information on Russian and American design in 80s.
From the book "Tiger Trap: America's Secret Spy War with China,"
It is not only amusing but scary that "The Chinese data was said to be one millimeter off." And it was caused by unit conversion.
"The US document had measurements in inches. The Chinese document had dimensions in millimeters. If you translated the US document into millimeters and rounded off the number and then translated it back to inches there could be a slight discrepancy."
While US insisted that China couldn't have tested its first miniaturized bomb in 1992 if not stealing from US. It is complete bs as everyone knows it. Because neutron bomb also required a miniaturized design and China successfully tested it in 1984. It also doesn't make sense since China just tested a new bomb, rumored to be 575 warhead, in 1990 and why should China still use inferior design after claimed "espionage" happened in late 70s.
The unclear part of Chinese warhead arsenal is mainly due to numerous fractional test in 90s, making it very hard to estimate the yield. They was said to "provide reference for future warhead design." US is also developing new W93 warhead by using past test data, so it is still possible for China though unlikely to develop new warhead from one way or another. At least US is claiming that China is modernizing warhead design without providing any details.
