According to
@Kalec, the lid story is very likely to be real but in a completely different perspective...
I mean I have been hearing the rumor regarding the silo lid misfunction for a well, probably for half a year. Lol US intelligence is so fast that they published the story months later than my rumor mill.
They allegedly design the solid silo with a layer of protection over it in bid to absorb the incoming attack but somehow the lid can't be properly opened since then. And they failed a consequent test last year to open the silo lid, so that's it. IMO they still have like 2 years to fix this up before the real ICBM is coming into the silo, not a very big deal.
The water rocket part is funnier, I wish they actually did it. I am not in favor of liquid ICBM anyway and at least water rocket won't blow oneself away like hypergolic rockets. Seriously it seems to be a complete BS, China has 5 DF-5 brigades, 2.5 of them are not having active deployment at all at this moment, and the other 2.5 are so old that their ICBM is symbolic anyway, namely 661/633/631 BGD. Their fuel tanks are probably empty for most of their times because DF-5A/B are
NOT designed to be have storable fuel.
Tbh I would have been lying if I said it was all right for Chinese rocket industry/PLARF in 2023. Every leaderships of Chinese rocket industry were ousted in 2023 but it won't change the whole picture anyway, mostly delayed for several months or even one year. Ship industry gets their leadership ousted over and over again and I don't see Type 055 construction slowing down then what's the problem.
