China ICBM/SLBM, nuclear arms thread

[Kalec]

It is completely possible to produce nuclear warhead solely by HEU, but I am afraid that it is simply not the case every major nuclear power does on their stockpile. The best cost saving strategy is to make composite primary to try to lower the cost.

As for the question on whether China made their warheads with plutonium or HEU. I think the clear answer is WgPu.

Just look at the word said by warhead designer himself. "Three in one" probably means by plutonium shell covered by beryllium reflector layer the sealed by aluminum or lead. And the very special component costs ten million RMB, not to forget it was the China in 1990s not today.

HEU costs about $53,000 per kilogram and WgPu costs about $4,000,000 per kg in 90s. It means that China had to build warheads with plutonium to cost that much in 90s and how is it possible to make expensive bombs back then and build cheap bombs right now, doesn't make sense.

For example, Russia recently sold 25,000 kilograms of 30% HEU to China at a price of $384 million, it works to be $15,360/kg in today's price and multiply it by 3. The HEU probably cost no more than $50,000 if China further enrich them by itself. It would be 33kg HEU in the primary core if China ever produced the primary at a cost of 10 million RMB.

而非球形产品是不同曲率过渡的曲面，而且厚度极薄，加工就很困难，我们通过“三结合”，工程技术人员和技术工人们坐在一起集思广益，有一个重要的核部件，仅材料就价值一千多万元，大家献计献策，改造了工艺设备，采用周密的技术措施，保证此部件一次制造成功，创造了十多项国内首创技术。

Non-spherical products are curved surfaces with different curvature transitions, and the thickness is extremely thin, so processing is very difficult. Through the "three in one", engineering and technical personnel and technical workers sit together to brainstorm, and there is an important nuclear component. Only the material is It is worth more than 10 million yuan. Everyone contributed ideas, transformed the process equipment, and adopted careful technical measures to ensure the successful manufacture of this part at one time, and created more than ten domestic first technologies.

 

[FairAndUnbiased]

It is completely possible to produce nuclear warhead solely by HEU, but I am afraid that it is simply not the case every major nuclear power does on their stockpile. The best cost saving strategy is to make composite primary to try to lower the cost.

As for the question on whether China made their warheads with plutonium or HEU. I think the clear answer is WgPu.

Just look at the word said by warhead designer himself. "Three in one" probably means by plutonium shell covered by beryllium reflector layer the sealed by aluminum or lead. And the very special component costs ten million RMB, not to forget it was the China in 1990s not today.

HEU costs about $53,000 per kilogram and WgPu costs about $4,000,000 per kg in 90s. It means that China had to build warheads with plutonium to cost that much in 90s and how is it possible to make expensive bombs back then and build cheap bombs right now, doesn't make sense.

For example, Russia recently sold 25,000 kilograms of 30% HEU to China at a price of $384 million, it works to be $15,360/kg in today's price and multiply it by 3. The HEU probably cost no more than $50,000 if China further enrich them by itself. It would be 33kg HEU in the primary core if China ever produced the primary at a cost of 10 million RMB.

One reason could be that emergency production is needed immediately, but there isn't enough time to spin up Pu production, so high U composite cores or even pure U cores need to be produced. Meanwhile back in the 90s the plants that produced Pu were just recently closed.

 

[Deleted member 24525]

One reason could be that emergency production is needed immediately, but there isn't enough time to spin up Pu production, so high U composite cores or even pure U cores need to be produced. Meanwhile back in the 90s the plants that produced Pu were just recently closed.

Are you suggesting that current circumstances warrant emergency warhead production?

 

[FairAndUnbiased]

Are you suggesting that current circumstances warrant emergency warhead production?

1000% yes based on foreign policy shifts in some certain power that signals a much more aggressive stance.

 

[Deleted member 24525]

1000% yes based on foreign policy shifts in some certain power that signals a much more aggressive stance.

Unless I'm mistaken that shift happened years ago. The CMC thought the US was preparing to attack it during the huge USN summer 2020 exercises in the south China sea. If there's something I don't know about the American nuclear posture then i would like to know.

 

[sunnymaxi]

Are you suggesting that current circumstances warrant emergency warhead production?

Chinese are smart people. they always think for long term. remember great firewall.

its been years since China have changed their policy regarding nuclear.

 

[FairAndUnbiased]

Unless I'm mistaken that shift happened years ago. The CMC thought the US was preparing to attack it during the huge USN summer 2020 exercises in the south China sea. If there's something I don't know about the American nuclear posture then i would like to know.

Yep and the result of the emergency production is being seen now.

 

[Abominable]

You can do it. It is just that using plutonium means they will be a lot more compact.

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The critical mass for plutonium-239 is 10 kg vs 52 kg for uranium-235. Plutonium is also more energy dense.

IIRC the plutonium is typically only used in the trigger of a nuke. And you need only a small amount of it.

The critical masses you are talking about are in pure forms. Plutonium's other isotopes poison the fission reaction much more than uranium. Uranium is also denser than the crystal form of plutonium used in nuclear weapons. All factors considered you tend to use 3x more uranium than plutonium.

That sounds like a lot but the mass of fissile materials in a warhead is a very small portion of the overall mass. Even though it's mass is 3x, it's volume isn't. For some applications it may be important but it ICBM.

Both uranium and plutonium are fine as a primary, some decommissioned American fission weapons even used both together.

It is completely possible to produce nuclear warhead solely by HEU, but I am afraid that it is simply not the case every major nuclear power does on their stockpile. The best cost saving strategy is to make composite primary to try to lower the cost.

As for the question on whether China made their warheads with plutonium or HEU. I think the clear answer is WgPu.

Just look at the word said by warhead designer himself. "Three in one" probably means by plutonium shell covered by beryllium reflector layer the sealed by aluminum or lead. And the very special component costs ten million RMB, not to forget it was the China in 1990s not today.

HEU costs about $53,000 per kilogram and WgPu costs about $4,000,000 per kg in 90s. It means that China had to build warheads with plutonium to cost that much in 90s and how is it possible to make expensive bombs back then and build cheap bombs right now, doesn't make sense.

For example, Russia recently sold 25,000 kilograms of 30% HEU to China at a price of $384 million, it works to be $15,360/kg in today's price and multiply it by 3. The HEU probably cost no more than $50,000 if China further enrich them by itself. It would be 33kg HEU in the primary core if China ever produced the primary at a cost of 10 million RMB.

The reason why plutonium would tends to be preferred is not so much cost but application.

Enriched uranium has lots of other uses, civilian nuclear reactors, submarine fuel, bunker busting bombs. Pu 239 is pretty much nuke only.

 

[ChongqingHotPot92]

Let's hear some testimony from actual warhead designer, shall we?

From Hu Side, the third gen chief designer of Chinese nuclear warhead.

His conversation with David Stillman before CAEP cut off communication with the US after 1999 Belgrade embassy bombing.

“By the late 1980s and up to the mid-1990s, we expanded our knowledge of the nuclear weapon design requirements step by step. We came to agree with your scientists that we had mastered 80 percent and then 90 percent of the full potential [i.e., efficiency] of the nuclear weapon design. The ability to get the last 10 percent would be of very little military value and also very expensive to acquire. We did not see the military requirement for further nuclear weapons tests, nor were we able to justify the expense. So we agreed with you to enter into a CTBT.’ And we thought that, by doing this, we could cooperate with you [the United States] on ending the nuclear arms race. But that apparently was not your [American] idea.”

Something does not seem right at China's policy level. China shut down WGPu production at Guangyuan and Jiuquan 404 during the early and mid. 1980s, long before the end of the Cold War and access to digital design tools for warhead miniaturization. An of course, construction at Fuling was completely wasted for nothing. Then in the words of Hu Side, China agreed to CTBT before they even finished the warhead miniaturization process with the hope that Washington (and Moscow) would be merciful. Then combine those Deng-era (with due respects to all of Deng's achievements) self-castrations with Jeffrey Lewis' analysis of minimum deterrence, it appears that the CPC leadership had a naive level of confidence in nuclear deterrence as if even having a few bombs would be sufficient in preventing general wars. Therefore, was REALLY because of the CPC's naive confidence in just having a few nukes, or was China SO POOR back in the 80s that they had to save money by even cutting down nukes?

 

[FairAndUnbiased]

“By the late 1980s and up to the mid-1990s, we expanded our knowledge of the nuclear weapon design requirements step by step. We came to agree with your scientists that we had mastered 80 percent and then 90 percent of the full potential [i.e., efficiency] of the nuclear weapon design. The ability to get the last 10 percent would be of very little military value and also very expensive to acquire. We did not see the military requirement for further nuclear weapons tests, nor were we able to justify the expense. So we agreed with you to enter into a CTBT.’ And we thought that, by doing this, we could cooperate with you [the United States] on ending the nuclear arms race. But that apparently was not your [American] idea.”

Something does not seem right at China's policy level. China shut down WGPu production at Guangyuan and Jiuquan 404 during the early and mid. 1980s, long before the end of the Cold War and access to digital design tools for warhead miniaturization. An of course, construction at Fuling was completely wasted for nothing. Then in the words of Hu Side, China agreed to CTBT before they even finished the warhead miniaturization process with the hope that Washington (and Moscow) would be merciful. Then combine those Deng-era (with due respects to all of Deng's achievements) self-castrations with Jeffrey Lewis' analysis of minimum deterrence, it appears that the CPC leadership had a naive level of confidence in nuclear deterrence as if even having a few bombs would be sufficient in preventing general wars. Therefore, was REALLY because of the CPC's naive confidence in just having a few nukes, or was China SO POOR back in the 80s that they had to save money by even cutting down nukes?

It was due to Deng's radical ideology - now in retrospect, almost equally radical as Mao just in the opposite direction - that economic development trumps everything, including national security. 造不如买，买不如租. Y-10 was only the tip of the iceberg.

It was not until the late Hu era, 25 years later, that China got actually serious about strategic defense and started the ball rolling for Xi.

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This is why when people say that Hu was more "moderate" I just 呵呵 and let them know that Xi is just continuing Hu's last policies - SCS, Yaogan, hypersonics, ASAT and ABM.