China ICBM/SLBM, nuclear arms thread

[Luke Warmwar]

The assumptions here are still fundamentally flawed even by the standards of right-wing nuclear warfare theorists (of which I've had a few discussions with in the past), because at that point it becomes a snowball effect of both "use it or lose it" on top of the fact that a US that expends its arsenal in such a fashion also becomes open to full scale nuclear strikes from Russia or anybody else who hasn't utilized their nukes yet and has a casus belli with the US. Even North Korea's 48 strategic nuclear delivery devices would be sufficient to deal critical damage to the US, and China certainly isn't sitting still on the nuclear arms front.

The “use it or lose it” can apply in situations where both sides have a credible counterforce posture. In that situation, both sides have the capability to degrade the other’s stockpile, so any defected launch incentivises immediately using one’s own stockpile.

China’s nuclear stance is strictly second strike. It does not have a ‘launch on warning’ capability at present. This works well enough for a non-peer competitor. It works for the DPRK: any war would be existential for it, and the US won’t risk losing a few cities over it. The same calculus doesn’t necessarily play out with modern China. (Which leads to @vincent’s point that China could consider a switch to launch-on-warning.)

You’re right that Russia’s nukes will play into the US’s calculations with China. How many nukes do you think the US needs to have in reserve to deter Russia? A few hundred? A thousand? The US has 1.9k sitting in reserve: how long does it take for those to be slotted into the recently-vacated silos?

 

[Index]

This makes sense.

If you’re the US, and you think you have superiority, then it makes sense to advocate for a counterforce first strike. China doesn’t have many nukes, comparably speaking. At the moment it has 500 ish, most in silos, with a handful of subs. The US has 1.7k. It could hit every silo three times over, with another couple hundred comfortably in reserve for afterwards.

Maybe you’ll miss a few. Maybe your hunter-killer submarines won’t get all six of the Chinese ones. But if you’re staring down the barrel of a serious peer competitor in a decade or two, maybe you’d rather roll the dice now?

Not to mention, missing a few doesn’t even guarantee they’ll be used on your cities. Imagine you’re sitting in Zhongnanhai on the day after such an attack. You’ve lost 98% of your stockpile. You have ten nukes left. The US still has 200 left. So far, your major population centres haven’t been hit. Do you order your last ten nukes be used on cities in the USA, knowing that you’ll have every major city of your own hit in response five times over? Do you use them on US bases, leaving you with absolutely no deterrence against population centre nukes? Or do you surrender, lick your wounds, and make peace with US hegemony?

At least, that’s the US hawk school of thought, and why China’s current stockpile is insufficient. For effective deterrence, it needs to have enough that even the most optimistic of hawks will realise that MAD is in play. (As they do with Russia.)

With early warning satellites + radars, the moment some nukes are launched, all nukes would be in the air already.

Besides if the political situation deteriorates so much that nuclear war is likely, China would start putting its stockpiled separated warheads into as many missiles as they can make, instead of relying on only the 500-1000ish that they have on high alert at all times.

The ideal scenario for China is if US rage nukes an aircraft carrier group or some other irrelevant military installation, letting China defend itself with overwhelming force from a "first strike" and get rid of US once and for all without having to face all US nukes in 1 big wave, which ABM and bunkers can probably not handle.

 

[Luke Warmwar]

With early warning satellites + radars, the moment some nukes are launched, all nukes would be in the air already.

Besides if the political situation deteriorates so much that nuclear war is likely, China would start putting its stockpiled separated warheads into as many missiles as they can make, instead of relying on only the 500-1000ish that they have on high alert at all times.

The ideal scenario for China is if US rage nukes an aircraft carrier group or some other irrelevant military installation, letting China defend itself with overwhelming force from a "first strike" and get rid of US once and for all without having to face all US nukes in 1 big wave, which ABM and bunkers can probably not handle.

China doesn’t currently have a ‘launch on warning’ posture. It currently relies on survivability for a counter-value second strike.

Where are you getting that China has more than 500 stockpiled warheads? All estimates I’ve seen say it has 500 total.

 

[Index]

China doesn’t currently have a ‘launch on warning’ posture. It currently relies on survivability for a counter-value second strike.

Where are you getting that China has more than 500 stockpiled warheads? All estimates I’ve seen say it has 500 total.

What's your source for that?

It has the full infrastructure for early warning. Why would they not launch when they see enough ICBMs come in?

Officially speaking they say they consider using nukes only in the event of impending wmd attack. That sounds like no first use but a really low threshold for a second strike.

 

[gelgoog]

If you’re the US, and you think you have superiority, then it makes sense to advocate for a counterforce first strike.

And Russia doesn't even bother with that. Like Putin said they can wipe out the US in a counterstrike even if the US tries to destroy the Russian deterrent first.

China doesn’t have many nukes, comparably speaking. At the moment it has 500 ish, most in silos, with a handful of subs.

Bullshit. What about the Chinese DF-31AG and the DF-41? Those are road mobile ICBMs. That is the main nuclear threat not the silos or subs.

The US has 1.7k. It could hit every silo three times over, with another couple hundred comfortably in reserve for afterwards.

And then the Russians would probably nuke the US after they wasted their load on China.

Maybe you’ll miss a few. Maybe your hunter-killer submarines won’t get all six of the Chinese ones. But if you’re staring down the barrel of a serious peer competitor in a decade or two, maybe you’d rather roll the dice now?

You ignored the road mobile ICBMs again.

 

[CMP]

And Russia doesn't even bother with that. Like Putin said they can wipe out the US in a counterstrike even if the US tries to destroy the Russian deterrent first.


Bullshit. What about the Chinese DF-31AG and the DF-41? Those are road mobile ICBMs. That is the main nuclear threat not the silos or subs.


And then the Russians would probably nuke the US after they wasted their load on China.


You ignored the road mobile ICBMs again.

You're talking to a westoid NPC. Are you shocked that inconvenient facts are treated as if they don't exist?

 

[nugroho]

China doesn’t currently have a ‘launch on warning’ posture. It currently relies on survivability for a counter-value second strike.

Where are you getting that China has more than 500 stockpiled warheads? All estimates I’ve seen say it has 500 total.

If you’re the US, and you think you have superiority, then it makes sense to advocate for a counterforce first strike. China doesn’t have many nukes, comparably speaking. At the moment it has 500 ish, most in silos, with a handful of subs. The US has 1.7k. It could hit every silo three times over, with another couple hundred comfortably in reserve for afterwards.

do you have any Chinese military source that says China has only 500 nuclear warheads?
If you don't, please read this thread from page 1, you will know that China has more, a lot more than that.
None here know how many warheads China has.
From financial resources, China's stocks will be more than 500.

 

[ismellcopium]

At the moment it has 500 ish, most in silos, with a handful of subs. The US has 1.7k. It could hit every silo three times over, with another couple hundred comfortably in reserve for afterwards.

What are you on about? Did you even read the sources you cite? Virtually none of the 2021 newly built silos are included in that 500 number yet.

The US can't launch SLBMs with a time of flight shorter than 12 minutes or so (ie partially depressed trajectory) to the silo fields at the absolute fastest, by my estimate. Maybe that could pull off a first strike in low readiness peacetime but during high readiness I highly doubt they couldn't launch before impact.

We just saw the DF-45 TEL, which provides even higher mobile MIRV delivery capacity. During times of tension if there is any concern about survivability they can all be placed under mountains meaning there are 0 ICBMs vulnerable to counterforce strikes.

 

[ismellcopium]

Just had a thought, I wonder if at any point in the future for whatever reason they decide the silos may be too vulnerable, that they could pull all the missiles out of them, move them into the underground great wall and basically convert them all to rollout-to-launch instead. I don't see why not.

If the sponge effect of the silo fields is still desired, perhaps they could be re-filled with older or smaller ICBMs.

 

[CMP]

What are you on about? Did you even read the sources you cite? Virtually none of the 2021 newly built silos are included in that 500 number yet.

The US can't launch SLBMs with a time of flight shorter than 12 minutes or so (ie partially depressed trajectory) to the silo fields at the absolute fastest, by my estimate. Maybe that could pull off a first strike in low readiness peacetime but during high readiness I highly doubt they couldn't launch before impact.

We just saw the DF-45 TEL, which provides even higher mobile MIRV delivery capacity. During times of tension if there is any concern about survivability they can all be placed under mountains meaning there are 0 ICBMs vulnerable to counterforce strikes.

He's not about facts. He's just about winning his argument. That's why he doesn't even read his own cited sources. That scrub is on my ignore list now. New members or "Just Hatched" that start arguing from a place of ignorance against knowledgeable members are trash tier scrubs and really should just be banned.