Yeah, it's obviously bullshit and over-exaggerated, but this is why I'm interested in their source, the "report" or whatever. That could be interesting to read. Bloomberg itself has been a bottom-tier publication for several years now.
China's Defense/Military Breaking News Thread
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US Intelligence mentions corruption.
Bloomberg's "unnamed" source: " rockets filled with water"
Likely scenario would be like "we need to replace our fuel (for our trucks) in our fuel depot because of water contamination" when there was none or some contamination. Fake purchase order and they just continue using the present fuel.
What’s hilarious is that WSJ has the story last week where it said there is basically no intelligence network in China anymore because they were all executed by Xi Jinping’s orders because China has cameras up everyone’s wazoo.
Could just be dueling publications coming out with their own spin on things, similar to British tabloids.
I imagine that a rocket fuel tank would use a more accurate densitometer to measure fuel. The density of fuel and water would be different. This person seems to imagine that rockets are using a float level meter like a car or something.
Real question is does it matter?
Just a few months ago we’ve had supposed experts claiming that China lost a nuclear submarine first in the Taiwan straits, then in the Yellow Sea. Before we have had equally ludicrous claim that modern Chinese destroyers don’t have fire extinguishers or water tight doors. Other supposed experts lapped them up despite the fact that those claims violate common sense.
PLA still uses DF-5, which is liquid fuelled. And its a nuclear ICBM, which is also what is mentioned before about PLA generals undermining PLA nuclear deterrent with corruption. Also, just because western media talks about missiles filled with water instead of fuel it doesn't mean its all water and no fuel. There could be a hidden theft happening with corrupt officials skimming let's say taking 5% of the fuel and selling it for money and filling it up with water. These kind of skimming off the top theft and corruption is common in many countries, governments.
One thing we need to understand, Xi wouldn't be purging so many generals and taking out people with a lot of skill and experience unless there was something seriously wrong inside the PLA rocket force. Whatever happened, it was something big and something that seriously undermined PLA capabilities.
Moreover, why is western media trying to portray PLA as weak is a bad thing. If PLA and China wanted to show themselves as super strong, they would be boasting about their capabilities non-stop and even making up stuff. But they want to hide their capabilities instead. They are still in hide and bide mode and they want to make themselves appear weak as much as possible to reduce western overreaction. I think these western media hyping up China collapse or China weak is a good thing. If they believe all of PLA missiles are filled with water then they will be over confident and more likely to foolishly attack, which gives China the pretext to hit back and surprise them and win massively.
Graft, lobbying, corruption is an issue for all military forces and the existence of it always applies a bit of a negative effect on any military depending on the scale of it. Given the PLARF is a relatively new institution that has also inherited an array of existing capabilities and platforms from the preceding 2nd Arty, I wouldn't be surprised if both some old angles for graft was able to make its way in and if new angles for graft could also emerge in the shakeup.
The purpose of military leadership during recent years would have been to apply the discipline to stamp it out. Even if the senior officers being reprimanded were not aware of graft or they weren't involved in it, the inability to identify it to begin with would be reasonable grounds for challenging their ability to discharge their duties.
Alternatively, simply having water contaminant or something in a liquid fueled missile could be a reflection of that aspect of the service not running well (rather than graft or corruption), which would also be grounds for termination due to lack of confidence.
I think there are smarter ways to commit corruption than diluting rocket fuel with water.
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..
next generation heavy silo based ICBM DF-45 likely to come in 2 years to replace all those old ICBMS ..
sorry we don't believe what western shills says. its completely a made up story just to degrade PLA.. CIA lost its network in China ever since Xi Jinping came to power. and i have read this complete article. they are talking about DF-5..
do you even know, how many Ballistic/Hypersonic missiles test PLARF did in last few years ?
in 2021, PLARF did 135-150 hypersonic/ballistic missile tests
in 2022, PLARF did more than 170-200 hypersonic/ballistic missile tests
in last few years, China has done more ballistic missile live fire tests than any other country in the world. its more than entire world combined. so from where did the fuel come from ? use your tiny brain
man you seriously lack the knowledge about CPC and how party works. especially Central Military commission. those generals and commanders are symbolic. real power held by Three big Men in CMC. the day Xi Jinping dismiss second in command, it will be worrisome. till then its all normal ..
its tragic that, Non-Chinese people don't understand the Chinese mindset. its better for you to read about China. go home and take some rest. will be good for you ..
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US media joked a lot about this. They still harp on about it over a decade later. Funny thing is they seem to forget the issues the US itself had with bacteria contamination in milk powder very recently. Because of unsanitary factory operations.
Like that US milk powder factory which had already failed several inspections and yet was allowed to continue to operate. Until babies started getting sick and dying.
The DF-5 isn't much of a deterrent anymore. The DF-41 can do pretty much the same missions and is way more survivable.
You clearly have no idea what you are talking about. While I don't know how these rumors started there are plenty of valid reasons to fill a liquid rocket with water. After a rocket fuel tank is manufactured it is typically filled with water to check if it is leak tight or not.
There is also little chance of someone stealing the fuel. These rockets use corrosive toxic hypergolic fuel. Not something you can transport without a license. Good luck finding a fence who would buy that hydrazine and nitrogen tetroxide. And hypergolic fuel burns violently in contact with water. So you won't be mixing the two together at all.
Also, I don't know how the DF-5 series is supposed to operate, if this is the missile they are even talking about. But the thing is the early hypergolic rockets, at least in the Soviet Union, they were not stored with the propellant on them. They were stored empty and fueled up before being used. Back then the technology to reliably maintain fueled up rockets for long periods of time did not exist. The hypergolic fuel would corrode sealants and do other nasty stuff plus you would get fuel leaks. Of hypergolic fuel which combusts violently in the presence of even moist air. The Soviets eventually fixed that by storing their missiles fully fueled inside a hermetic container capsule. But I don't know if China ever got to that level of technology or they just did not bother.
There are also perfectly valid reasons to use water to train the missileers in the rapid rocket fuelling procedure without the dangers involved with doing it with actual hypergolic fuel. In case this is one of those rockets that needs to be fueled before launch.
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simple question: do you know what the reaction between 1/2 of the DF-5 fuel (nitrogen tetroxide) and water is?
Do you understand that N2O4 is not an acid, and does not corrode stainless steel, while nitric acid HNO3 is an acid, and corrodes stainless steel?
Putting water in hydrazine also doesn't work. Although it doesn't have chemical incompatibility issues, it forms a hydrate complex that has a different density than hydrazine itself.
Like this is the kind of bullshit that can fool someone with no technical background but to anyone with even a rudimentary knowledge of chemistry it immediately looks silly and hilarious.
And then there's the question of how would a corrupt supplier even get to these chemicals. All of these chemicals are extremely toxic and large quantities (like the tons you need for rocket fuel) are tightly controlled. It passes through at least 3 sets of hands: the manufacturer, a distributor, and the final user. At each step, QC is possible, and even something as rudimentary as measuring density would find a problem.
Bloomberg tech writers probably thought that 3nm chips are literally 3nm long.
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