The JL-2As carry 3 warheads per missile.
The poor maritime geography and presence of capable ASW with hostile neighbours?
China ICBM/SLBM, nuclear arms thread
- Thread starter Blitzo
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My impression was that they carry a single 650kt warhead.
As well as the fact that at any one time only a fraction of the total fleet of SSBNs are at sea at any one point, yes.
That's the original JL-2. Y8s mentioned to me that he thinks the JL-2A has an aerospike, which rules out a unitary warhead since the spike would impinge on it when retracted. This means the warheads are placed off-axis. He didn't explicitly mention 3, but that seems the likeliest number to me.
Nuclear numbers are all well and good, but the PLA buildup has been well-documented in the past; even if the rate exceeds Pentagon expectations the end goal remains the same.
The mention of conventional ICBMs under development is much more interesting to me, since I've only seen that idea treated as fringe speculation in the past. Opens up a whole new can of worms in terms of strikes, deterrence, and all that.
The mention of conventional ICBMs under development is much more interesting to me, since I've only seen that idea treated as fringe speculation in the past. Opens up a whole new can of worms in terms of strikes, deterrence, and all that.
I think the 650 kt warhead - called 535 and tested in 1992 - has long been the standard generation warhead for most PLARF's ICBMs, IRBMs, and SLBMs, just like W87 and W88 in USAAF and USN services respectively. It used to weight 470kg for the original DF-31, but reduced to 360kg for DF-31A, partly allowing the DF-31A to have a range of 11,200 km. In fact, following the retirement of DF-3 and DF-4, the only warheads in service with the PLARF are the 535 and 506 (that 1970s massive 4MT warhead on DF-5A).
Of course, there are lots of unconfirmed reports of a W76-like warhead called 575 with a yield of 90-150kt weighing just 120kg or less. The nuclear tests after 1992 all had yields around 90-95kt. Some argue that the tests were simply for primaries (the first-stage fisson pits), whilst others argue that could point to a smaller ICBM warhead for MIRVs. So far we don't have any information whether this new warhead is in service or not.
I may have missed that, but I recalled that the aerospike was for JL-3 rather than JL-2A. Oh well, I'll ask him.
Very interesting. Isn't it possible for it to still carry 1 warhead off axis though?
enjoying the discussion so far, thanks guys.
so China seems to have rapidly accelerated its nuclear warhead production capacity exceeding outside expectations.
The 300+ silos built and completed in a rapid manner are a testament to the strong imminent strategic need for deterrence against the USA.
the question is why built so many silos all at once if the missiles/warheads are not ready in tandem? To save costs if all silos are built at the same go, or some being kept empty as decoys, or as a demonstration of political will/intent?? Maybe, but one could only speculate.
during the recent successful BRI summit meeting, President Xi and Putin held a one-on-one summit meeting and Putin came out confirming that the 2 heads of state have talked about "very sensitive" issues. Now what are these very sensitive issues? Very interesting, but these can only be political or military ones or cooperation on space explorations.
Is it possible that Russia has too many redundant warheads/stockpiles of Plutonium and, therefore needs to ask China to help dispose of/reprocess them wink-wink? But of course, there may be some international treaties prohibiting such a move.
so China seems to have rapidly accelerated its nuclear warhead production capacity exceeding outside expectations.
The 300+ silos built and completed in a rapid manner are a testament to the strong imminent strategic need for deterrence against the USA.
the question is why built so many silos all at once if the missiles/warheads are not ready in tandem? To save costs if all silos are built at the same go, or some being kept empty as decoys, or as a demonstration of political will/intent?? Maybe, but one could only speculate.
during the recent successful BRI summit meeting, President Xi and Putin held a one-on-one summit meeting and Putin came out confirming that the 2 heads of state have talked about "very sensitive" issues. Now what are these very sensitive issues? Very interesting, but these can only be political or military ones or cooperation on space explorations.
Is it possible that Russia has too many redundant warheads/stockpiles of Plutonium and, therefore needs to ask China to help dispose of/reprocess them wink-wink? But of course, there may be some international treaties prohibiting such a move.
No, the weight distribution of the payload would be off center and there's no reason to do that. There's no need for an aerospike when you have one warhead, you do
Tbh I don't think the new staged combustion engine has been ready because its first hot test was in 2022. I would say it could reach the point of deployment by 2027 or 2028 but it wouldn't matter. This very "DF-5C" is perhaps storable always-on-alert DF-5A.
Fissile material is much easier to build than missiles and guidance system. I am flattered that DoD report mentions about plutonium retraction though they complete get it wrong.
They haven't known about the 3rd 200ton/year reprocessing plant yet and didn't mention the expansion of old plant 404. Also the warhead plant was never publicly revealed by US official, I wonder why.
DoD:
The DoD interpretation is Chinese SLBM will be equipped with single warhead until the introduction of Type 096.
So they are basically saying that JL-2A is a JL-2 with longer range, well then why call it JL-3. For their information, DF-31 is like a chicken to dinosaur compared to DF-31AG but PLA still called it DF-31XYZ instead of DF-41.
"The Type 096 SSBN is probably intended to field MIRVed SLBMs and will likely begin construction in the early 2020s."
It could be changing when it went into 2020s and 2030s. Many unconfirmed sources are claiming China is developing new warheads with new yield/weight by using data acquired from one way or another.
535 is the code name given by CAEP (China's Los Alamos) and the men in service called the warhead in the name of its missile. For example, the warhead of DF-31 is called DF-31 warhead and the warhead of DF-41 is called DF-41 warhead.
The warhead design is still changing and I just don't know they could be using old data to design warhead different with tested yield.
For example, the Victory Day parade and the PLA parade, when the ICBMs, DF-31 ann DF- 5B, which are strategic nuclear weapons, crushed through the screen and dazzled the world, the designer in the research lab would stand up and yell: "Look, look! There is my design, my calculation in this warhead." (Note: both of them use 535 warhead)
The new generation designers would be thinking, "When the warhead I designed is paraded 10 years later, I'll be able to proudly say to my son, look at this, your dad's team did this!" Is that something you can buy with higher salary?
I mean if US can design W93 warhead from old data without new test, China can do the same thing though. Anyway great power could return to nuclear test as we are speaking and better prepared for a huge kaboom in Lop nur. The new tunnel is in the area of old vertical shart, which is unusally used for large yield tests.