China is top 3 in everything except...

Funny that you should mention naval size. China might have a "large" navy, in terms of number of vessels, but in terms of raw naval power, what rank does China have?

On the other hand, China's nuclear force may be small compared to US and Russia, but it does its job quite adequately. Why should China repeat Russia's mistake of keeping huge stocks of nuclear weapons that are expensive to maintain, and extremely difficult to dispose of?

The second artillery also has conventional missiles, and I don't think the numbers of those are small.

it seems that China focus on thing that they can sell and make profit,
tank, ships, aircraft, helicopter, satellite, missile and rocket... and so on.

besides, why wasting money on thing that expensive, have little use and cannot be sold ?

Take a look at the dailymail.co.uk article "China 'has up to 3,000 nuclear weapons hidden in tunnels', three-year study of secret documents reveals"...yes it may be western propaganda, but as I see as a Greek, Chinese are not North Koreans to brag about their muscles so much.It is wise to hide such a capability and the Chinese know very well what they are doing...

The method of how that was concluded was debunked because it was based on internet info and not actual investigation. One deduction was based on how many nukes by how many miles of underground tunnels.

A lot of these figures are spin for political purposes. Like how many ships in the Chinese Navy can count ships the US would not consider in its inventory.

I am sure you have heard the term 'Size Doesn't Matter' Its how effective the execution is

I am willing to bet China has more nuclear weapons than sources like Wiki say. Obvious not 3000+ like articles on Yahoo reports but definitely more than the UK and France. You also have to take in account how powerful each country's nukes are. For example, a DF-41 is claimed to have more megatons than the entire Indian nuclear arsenal.

Originally Posted by Phead128

Army, top 3, Naval size, top 3, airforce size, top 3, but the second artillery is pretty small compared to superpower US and former superpower Russia...

Why isn't China's nuclear force among the top 3?

Why is tiny countries like UK and France have a bigger nuclear force than China?

It just doesn't seem right...

China's nuclear deterrent is meant to deter military aggression against China and limited retaliation not nuclear over kill. Also China's place in the top 3 in airforce size is just size. The majority of it's airforce are obsolete relics if they decommissioned their cold war era fleet their size rank would drop.

I am 100% sure China's nuclear weapon power is in top 3, behind Russia and the US

Why would China do something stupid and build so many nukes if they don't have any additional benefit because of the second strike doctrine effectively negating nuclear war.
The destructive area increase for a larger nuke is only marginal in comparison to the increase of explosive power.
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedi...ball_sizes.svg
Destruction is roughly on a 2 dimensional surface while the explosive power projects energy into 3 dimensions.
A thousand times more power gives a ten times larger radius and a hundred times more destroyed surface, but you could achieve the same destroyed surface with 100 tactical nukes with the power value 1 instead of 1000 each and a combined yield of 100. That's the reason why there is cluster munition after all. Instead of increasing raw power, much more could be derived from controlling and directing the energy of specified characteristics. Conventional weapons will increasingly close the gap to tactical nukes and a number of tactical nukes or a capable replacement of these can achieve the same as giant single nukes at a fraction of the costs.
Small nukes have a lower yield efficiency and each needs an infrastucture for reliably kickstarting the spallation process that is difficult to create, but still need much less fissile material if combined for the same effect.
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedi...comparison.svg
Larger nukes have the problem with gravity that atmospheric pressure is ever lower high above, making an increasing part of shockwave energy go into creating a mushroom cloud (that is not limited to nukes).
Nukecloud.jpg

The most cost efficient application of nukes are mid sized nukes within the regime of good efficiency with multiple warheads in one highly developed missile. Gigantism is a sign of mental retardation because the creators lack the ability to use pocket calculators for cost efficiency. Strategic nuclear weapons are second strike tools. Tactical nukes by contrast are first strike tools as part of the nuclear escalation. Publishing nuke numbers was meant to end the arms race of the Cold War in which China wisely didn't participate. The demands for China's nuclear arsenal are credible minimum deterence (that doesn't require a Tsar bomba except to compensate for dissatisfaction with penis length and the aforementioned mathematical abilities) that might require some increases in missile number, sophistication and numbers of very salted (most important feature for strategic nuke strikes by contaminating whole regions with radioactive poison that makes human life impossible) strategic warheads as well as a few tactical nuclear devices for special strikes like neutron bombing, EMP, carrier-killing and suitcase nukes for asssassins if all other methods fail.
Nukes are the most expensive weapons that constantly drain lots of money from conventional armament and are unlikely to be really used against a similar armed enemy as old chairman Mao explained. The more nukes you have, the less likely you are to win the non-nuclear and non-territorial wars of the future.

China's nuclear megaton yield of it's warheads are probably top 3... I'd expect nothing less. :P

Warhead numbers is different from overall total nuclear megaton yield...and China isn't probably outclassed by tiny countries like UK and France, which are like the size (population/territorial size) of a medium Chinese province, so China is using deception to shroud the true number of warheads, which is smart I suppose, since it doesn't put China under the nuclear reduction supervision spot light.

I have never really understood why Russia or USA would actually truly state their real number of nuclear arsenal. It just makes the enemy know your secret, and gives them a TARGET to rivall... derp.

Originally Posted by Phead128

I have never really understood why Russia or USA would actually truly state their real number of nuclear arsenal. It just makes the enemy know your secret, and gives them a TARGET to rivall... derp.

are you saying that they were just bluffing each other ?

I seriously don't believe China has only 400 nuclear warhead. Flushed with money and increase of its technology.

China has long considered total war if a nuclear free fall happen. China need to have enough nuke warhead for all continent on the earth.

400 nuclear warhead is definitely not enough for such scenario. I take around 1200 nuclear warhead will be enough to act as deterent.

Originally Posted by Lion

I seriously don't believe China has only 400 nuclear warhead. Flushed with money and increase of its technology.

China has long considered total war if a nuclear free fall happen. China need to have enough nuke warhead for all continent on the earth.

400 nuclear warhead is definitely not enough for such scenario. I take around 1200 nuclear warhead will be enough to act as deterent.

Why the hell would China want to nuke the entire world???

China maintains a nuclear arsenal for *deterrence*. That means only enough nukes to scare your biggest opponent, not conduct exterminatus!

Originally Posted by solarz

Why the hell would China want to nuke the entire world???

China maintains a nuclear arsenal for *deterrence*. That means only enough nukes to scare your biggest opponent, not conduct exterminatus!

You need the real number to scare yr opponent. If US want to nuke Russia. Do you think they will just nuke Russia alone?

If the western world is against China. You need to take in USA, France and UK..

Another great example is the 1969Sino-Russia border crisis. Russia want to nuke China but USA steps in.