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Sardaukar20

Captain
Registered Member
"US resumes nuclear warhead production with first plutonium pit in 35 years.
The plutonium pit, a component produced for the first time in 35 years, is an essential part of the United States’ nuclear warheads."


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Russia and especially China already have full warhead production running. The US had apparently only restarted today. Considering China's own industrial power and the political will to close the warhead gap with the US, they are still gonna achieve it even if the US manages to re-expand it's warhead inventory.
 

antiterror13

Brigadier
Russia and especially China already have full warhead production running. The US had apparently only restarted today. Considering China's own industrial power and the political will to close the warhead gap with the US, they are still gonna achieve it even if the US manages to re-expand it's warhead inventory.

How many warheads China could produce in a year? do you think is in "FULL" ? or just started ?
 

Index

Junior Member
Registered Member
How many warheads China could produce in a year? do you think is in "FULL" ? or just started ?
Afaik very much impossible to know. The production of wgPu is classified, and given that China controls the kind of satellite imaging coming out of the country, impossible to observe besides by going on the ground.

But awhile back in the ICBM thread it was also speculated that some designs in the Chinese arsenal doesn't even use wgPu, it used enriched uranium. At least there are a few known wgPu facilities, while enriched uranium can come from anywhere.

China has the world's most secretive nuclear program, I think the reason is that it's development direction goes contrary to many of China's peaceful stated goals.
 

Sardaukar20

Captain
Registered Member
How many warheads China could produce in a year? do you think is in "FULL" ? or just started ?
It's a state secret. So my simple answer is: I don't know. We can only speculate.

Assuming that western sources are correct. That China currently has around 500 warheads, and it's been 4 years since China proclaimed that it intended to expand its nuke arsenal in 2020. Back in 2020, China apparently had 260 warheads. So maybe 240 warheads in 4 years, or about 60 warheads per year. Don't take these numbers seriously, because it's too simplistic, and Western sources on China have not been reliable.

What I am speculating is going on is that China's warhead production is increasing annually. They probably started out in 2020 from a slow walk, and are now on a slow jog. China had built a number of new breeder reactors, ostensibly for civilian purposes. Breeder reactors are not very economical for commercial power generation, but are excellent for producing fissile materials. Still, what we could see could be monitored by the IAEA. What we can't see, we don't know. So I do have a feeling that China's warhead production rate is most likely to be higher than what the Western analysts are projecting.
 
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antiterror13

Brigadier
It's a state secret. So my simple answer is: I don't know. We can only speculate.

Assuming that western sources are correct. That China currently has around 500 warheads, and it's been 4 years since China proclaimed that it intended to expand its nuke arsenal in 2020. Back in 2020, China apparently had 260 warheads. So maybe 240 warheads in 4 years, or about 60 warheads per year. Don't take these numbers seriously, because it's too simplistic, and Western sources on China have not been reliable.

What I am speculating is going on is that China's warhead production is increasing annually. They probably started out in 2020 from a slow walk, and are now on a slow jog. China had built a number of new breeder reactors, ostensibly for civilian purposes. Breeder reactors are not very economical for commercial power generation, but are excellent for producing fissile materials. Still, what we could see could be monitored by the IAEA. What we can't see, we don't know. So I do have a feeling that China's warhead production rate is most likely to be higher than what the Western analysts are projecting.

I am not convinced that the limiting factor of China's warhead production in the limitation of China's limited stock of fissile material as the "west" only estimate that China has a very limited WgPu and HEU compared to even France or British
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Sardaukar20

Captain
Registered Member
I am not convinced that the limiting factor of China's warhead production in the limitation of China's limited stock of fissile material as the "west" only estimate that China has a very limited WgPu and HEU compared to even France or British
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View attachment 136953
Never trust the West about China. Those are the same people who said that Japan has enough fissile material to produce thousands of warheads today. If Japan could potentially do that, then why is China, with an active nuclear program is gonna be limited to just 1500 warheads by 2035?
 

Index

Junior Member
Registered Member
I am still not convinced that the limiting factor of China's warhead production in the limitation of China's limited stock of fissile material as the "west" only estimate that China has a very limited WgPu and HEU compared to even France or British
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View attachment 136953
China never liked these "international" arms control organizations, so it makes sense they just don't report to them. It's not like they can actually fact check China on the ground.

Warheads in launch readiness (like the sometimes quoted 500+ number) should mostly depend on political considerations first and secondly on how many good launch platforms there are. China otherwise keeps an unknown number of nukes separated from their launch platforms, officially to avoid accidents but realistically probably for opsec reasons.
 
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