Thanks to one of my friends that I saw this report last week.
Some details are incorrect and nothing changes that much compared with report by Air University.
China ICBM/SLBM, nuclear arms thread
- Thread starter Blitzo
- Start date
Some details are incorrect and nothing changes that much compared with report by Air University.
let me point out a few more more... speculative details that may be disagreed with.
With what? Jiuquan is 2400 km inland so are they gonna tank up over the middle of China or something? Even + 1000 km range cruise missiles ( the ) taking off from Shenzhen Bay (the closest coastline) can't reach it, and if their carriers are parked in Shenzhen Bay, we have other problems.
How? Russia has longer range munitions than those proposed to be used on China, Ukraine is much smaller and much less dense than China, has far simpler terrain in terms of elevation and vegetation variation, and Russian forces are launching from right up to the border. Russia has detailed maps of Ukraine down to the street level. Yet they're still unable to neutralize Ukrainian command facilities, airfields or missile launchers. Ukrainian Tochkas - which are very short ranged - were still hammering Donbass until last October when Ukraine ran out.
Now imagine the difficulty of hitting extremely hardened and well defended targets in a very large, geographically complex country, at the very edge of physical range even if the launchers are aircraft flying out of Guangdong Province (lol).
. Not for a military project either, but for a civil construction project.
This again lmao.
let me point out a few more more... speculative details that may be disagreed with.
With what? Jiuquan is 2400 km inland so are they gonna tank up over the middle of China or something? Even + 1000 km range cruise missiles ( the ) taking off from Shenzhen Bay (the closest coastline) can't reach it, and if their carriers are parked in Shenzhen Bay, we have other problems.
How? Russia has longer range munitions than those proposed to be used on China, Ukraine is much smaller and much less dense than China, has far simpler terrain in terms of elevation and vegetation variation, and Russian forces are launching from right up to the border. Russia has detailed maps of Ukraine down to the street level. Yet they're still unable to neutralize Ukrainian command facilities, airfields or missile launchers. Ukrainian Tochkas - which are very short ranged - were still hammering Donbass until last October when Ukraine ran out.
Now imagine the difficulty of hitting extremely hardened and well defended targets in a very large, geographically complex country, at the very edge of physical range even if the launchers are aircraft flying out of Guangdong Province (lol).
. Not for a military project either, but for a civil construction project.
This again lmao.
I think there are entire premises and conclusions and thought processes they describe which are confusing and weird (as you describe, copium).
The only "useful" parts of these reports are the orbat estimates, and even then it's "useful" in the sense of gauging how far they are from the estimates by the community and people who track things more closely like Kalec.
Some obvious mistake:
The methodology just doesn't make sense to me.
Take 664 BGD as an example, Decker's methodology lies on the idea that "only the red circled garages will park TEL vehicle, all others are for supporting vehicles."
I mean I see the point that these garages are a perfect fit for TEL vehicle. I have found it myself last year and posted in this thread this year prior to this report. The garages are 25 meters and the TEL are around 20 - 22 meters in length. But if one just slips his eyes a little bit westward, there are two main bays which can be used to store TEL.
Ofc the high bay is smaller in DF-41 than in DF-31AG brigades. For instance, DF-31AG has a 30m x 120m or 40m x 80m high bay in contrast to the high bay of 30m x 60m that DF-41 brigade has. By common sense, if a 30m x 120m high bay has enough room for 12 launchers, the 30m x 60m will at least have space for 6 launchers.
I am really tired of repeating old cliches but each PLARF brigade has 6 battalions and every battalion has 2 companies (or 3 companies in some of SRBM brigades). The launchers could either be 6, 12, 18 or even 24 however it can't be 8.
Not to mention DF-41 has a major upgrade in term of guidance system.
"三自"（ 自主功能检测，自主误差标定，自主初始对准）
"Three-autonomy" （autonomous function test, autonomous error calibration, autonomous original alignment）
It means DF-41 almost definitely needs less supporting vehicles than DF-31 series, namely no dedicated launch control vehicles, no more cabling buses. DF-41 probably still needs an oil fueling vehicle, command vehicle, three personnel vehicles and possibly a road clearing vehicle like the Russians.
I find it hard to understand that the average land area per brigade increased from 0.2 km2 to 0.35 km2, and DF-41 requires less guidance support vehicles but somehow the launcher per brigade reduces from 12 to 8.
619 MRBM or IRBM.
628 Unknown, possibly IRBM located in Chongqing.
629 Likely to be DF-41 as they are temporarily located with the OT&E DF-41 brigade 644.
The upside:
The report finds the existence of 657 BGD, remove previous mistake of non-existent 637 BGD, correct the number of silo built. Update some location coordinate previously mistaken by the Air University report.
And most importantly, it provides a detailed list of coordinates of new DF-5 silos saving a lot of time to find them.
No it doesn't, still 12.
The methodology just doesn't make sense to me.
Take 664 BGD as an example, Decker's methodology lies on the idea that "only the red circled garages will park TEL vehicle, all others are for supporting vehicles."
I mean I see the point that these garages are a perfect fit for TEL vehicle. I have found it myself last year and posted in this thread this year prior to this report. The garages are 25 meters and the TEL are around 20 - 22 meters in length. But if one just slips his eyes a little bit westward, there are two main bays which can be used to store TEL.
Ofc the high bay is smaller in DF-41 than in DF-31AG brigades. For instance, DF-31AG has a 30m x 120m or 40m x 80m high bay in contrast to the high bay of 30m x 60m that DF-41 brigade has. By common sense, if a 30m x 120m high bay has enough room for 12 launchers, the 30m x 60m will at least have space for 6 launchers.
I am really tired of repeating old cliches but each PLARF brigade has 6 battalions and every battalion has 2 companies (or 3 companies in some of SRBM brigades). The launchers could either be 6, 12, 18 or even 24 however it can't be 8.
Not to mention DF-41 has a major upgrade in term of guidance system.
"三自"（ 自主功能检测，自主误差标定，自主初始对准）
"Three-autonomy" （autonomous function test, autonomous error calibration, autonomous original alignment）
It means DF-41 almost definitely needs less supporting vehicles than DF-31 series, namely no dedicated launch control vehicles, no more cabling buses. DF-41 probably still needs an oil fueling vehicle, command vehicle, three personnel vehicles and possibly a road clearing vehicle like the Russians.
I find it hard to understand that the average land area per brigade increased from 0.2 km2 to 0.35 km2, and DF-41 requires less guidance support vehicles but somehow the launcher per brigade reduces from 12 to 8.
662 BGd most likely still 6 and 663 BGD could be either 6 or 12, these old farts haven't got garrison upgrade for like a decade, how will they magically double their missiles without garrison expansion?
619, 628 and 629 BGD are missing in this ORBAT.
619 MRBM or IRBM.
628 Unknown, possibly IRBM located in Chongqing.
629 Likely to be DF-41 as they are temporarily located with the OT&E DF-41 brigade 644.
The upside:
The report finds the existence of 657 BGD, remove previous mistake of non-existent 637 BGD, correct the number of silo built. Update some location coordinate previously mistaken by the Air University report.
And most importantly, it provides a detailed list of coordinates of new DF-5 silos saving a lot of time to find them.
I was quite hesitated on whether I should post it but just for a matter of record for myself and openness on nuclear armament. So please don't repost it (not like everyone will buy into it) or quote me as well.
The next-gen SLBM will have a diameter of 2.3 meters.
The 713rd Institute, responsible to design naval launch system, published a bidding saying that they want to acquire a elastic sealing ring for the initial installation position (Φ1626mm) and the position of the missile cylindrical section (Φ2300mm).
For a missile as large as 2300mm in diameter, I can think of nothing but SLBM, so the next-gen SLBM (JL-3/4) will be like M51.2 in diameter and a shock absorber at the top of launch tube like Trident D5.
The next-gen SLBM will have a diameter of 2.3 meters.
The 713rd Institute, responsible to design naval launch system, published a bidding saying that they want to acquire a elastic sealing ring for the initial installation position (Φ1626mm) and the position of the missile cylindrical section (Φ2300mm).
For a missile as large as 2300mm in diameter, I can think of nothing but SLBM, so the next-gen SLBM (JL-3/4) will be like M51.2 in diameter and a shock absorber at the top of launch tube like Trident D5.
Further explanation on what it means.
Like the Trident D5, it has a shock absorber (marked in dark) at the top of its launch tube and the JL-3/4 has the same thing over its launch tube.
I made a rudimentary measurement on the detailed Trident D5 illustration. The diameter of shock absorber: the diameter of trident missile is around 1 : 1.42.
Meanwhile the two "elastic rings" in the bidding is 1626mm : 2300mm = 1.4145, they are close to a degree of rounding error compared with Trident D5 launch system. But the diameter of bidding SLBM clearly stated 2300mm or 2.3m, meaning it will be in the same diameter of M51.2 SLBM. It is possibly due to the fact China needs a larger SLBM to put the same throw weight toward the other end of Pacific Ocean.
Machine translation from Russian source but you know the gist:
Thanks for the analysis.
I notice you describe it as "JL-3/4" -- do you think the timing for this bidding could conceivably be for a "JL-4" (keeping in mind that the current assumption is that JL-3 is not in service and likely only in late stages of development)?
I use JL-3/4 because I am not quite sure which stage. DoD said that JL-3 is already in service, which I suspect that they might mistake an upgrade JL-2A as JL-3 instead. IMO CASC is not going to develop a two-generation-ahead SLBM meanwhile 096 didn't even appear in bidding.
The current bidding information, is clearly something related to next-gen SLBM, be JL-3 or possibly JL-4 if JL-3 story is real. Notably it is a launch tube R&D and already enters into engineering phase as they have a targeted SLBM in mind. (2.3m in diameter)
Btw the shock absorber is only a part of series of bidding, other part include production of launch tube, injection & testing equipment and launch control system, however they don't have any detail in the bidding except for their name.
Another interesting is a bidding for an aluminum bracket, which is intended to hold the launch tube, so it is a bit larger in diameter compared with 2.3m.