China Ballistic Missiles and Nuclear Arms Thread

antiterror13 said:

My understanding is India hasn't got H-bomb yet, at least the last test in 1998 (Shakti-1) was not convincingly H-bomb, even they claimed it was ... anybody knows?

Click to expand...

China conducted the third flight test of a new hypersonic missile this week as part of its strategic nuclear program and efforts to develop delivery vehicles capable of defeating US countermeasures, defense officials said.

The flight test of the developmental Wu-14 hypersonic glide vehicle was monitored by US intelligence agencies Tuesday during a flight test in western China.

The latest flight test followed earlier tests of the Wu-14 on Jan. 9 and Aug. 7. The three tests indicate that China’s development of a strike vehicle capable of traveling up to eight times the speed of sound is a high-priority element in China’s large-scale military buildup.

A Pentagon spokesman confirmed the test but declined to provide details.

“We are aware of reports regarding this test and we routinely monitor foreign defense activities,” Marine Corps Lt. Col. Jeff Pool told the Washington Free Beacon.

“However, we don’t comment on our intelligence or assessments of foreign weapon systems,” Pool added, noting that the Pentagon has encouraged China to adopt greater openness with regard to its defense investments and military objectives “to avoid miscalculation.”

Last month in Beijing, the United States and China agreed to a new military accord that called for notifying each country of major military activities. It could not be learned if the Chinese notified the Pentagon in advance of the Wu-14 test.

The Wu-14 was launched atop a Chinese ballistic missile and released along the edge of space.

Past tests of the glide vehicle were clocked as reaching an estimated speed of Mach 10, or 10 times the speed of sound — around 7,680 miles per hour.

Such speeds create difficult aeronautics and physics challenges for guidance systems and place extreme stress on materials used in construction of the vehicle.

The annual report of the congressional US-China Economic and Security Review Commission, made public Nov. 20, reveals China’s hypersonic weapons program is a major development effort.

The report said the People’s Liberation Army “is developing hypersonic glide vehicles as a core component of its next-generation precision strike capability.”

“Hypersonic glide vehicles could render existing US missile defense systems less effective and potentially obsolete,” the report said.

The report said once deployed the Wu-14 “could enable China to conduct kinetic strikes anywhere in the world within minutes to hours.”

China plans to deploy its high-speed glide vehicle by 2020 and a scramjet powered hypersonic vehicle by 2025.

Lee Fuell, technical director for force modernization and employment at the National Air and Space Intelligence Center (NASIC), told the Commission that Chinese glide vehicle is launched on a ballistic missile, dives to hypersonic speed and glides to its target. The weapon currently is assessed to be “associated with [China’s] nuclear deterrent forces.”

“Of great concern would be if [China] was to apply the same technology and capability with a conventional warhead or even just without a warhead because of the kinetic energy that it has in combination with their theater ballistic missiles … in a theater role,” Fuell said.

The intelligence analyst said that hypersonic vehicles “are extremely difficult to defend against because just the time is so compressed between initial detection, being able to get a track, being able to get a fire control solution, and then just being able to have a weapon that can intercept them in some way just because of the speed at which they’re moving.”

“If that is combined with more traditional ballistic missile attacks forcing a target to defend against very high aspect warheads coming in this way at the same time they have to defend against low altitude, very high speed targets coming in [another] way, it makes the defense problem orders of magnitude worse for the defender,” he said.

The commission report stated that China is expanding its strategic nuclear forces “significantly,” with deployment of new missiles, submarines, and multiple-warhead weapons.

Rick Fisher, a China military affairs analyst, said more tests are needed for China to turn the Wu-14 into a working weapon.

“But the real story is that such a program is now well underway,” said Fisher, with the International Assessment and Strategy Center. “For hypersonic systems, all tests, failures, and successes, provide a positive contribution toward the goal of developing a weapon.”

The Wu-14 is part of what military analysts have said in a growing hypersonic arms race involving China, Russia, and the United States.

Russia’s government announced last month that Moscow plans to field hypersonic missiles by 2020.

By contrast, US development of a hypersonic weapons program has been limited.

The Aug. 25 test of the Army’s Advanced Hypersonic Weapon ended in disaster after the booster launching the weapon blew up shortly after launch from a test base on Kodiak Island, Alaska.

Funding for hypersonic weapons development also has been limited to around $360 million dollars, an amount critics say is small compared to estimated investments by China.

“It is now necessary for the United States to substantially increase funding in two areas,” Fisher, the China military analyst said. “First the U.S. must expand and accelerate its own hypersonic weapons program.”

The Pentagon should fund several types of hypersonic systems in a development competition, Fisher said, as well as further research in counter-hypersonic arms.

Past Pentagon research has included development of both guided-but-unpowered glide vehicles, and high-technology scramjet-powered hypersonic vehicles.

A space plane called the X-37 also is being developed as part of a program known as conventional Prompt Global Strike.

US intelligence analysts have said the current Chinese Wu-14 program is currently part of its strategic nuclear program. However, China also could use the Wu-14 as part of its conventional strike program, such as planning attacks on aircraft carriers in the western Pacific.

“While missile based counter-systems may provide an early solution, there is much more potential in the realm of energy weapons,” Fisher said.

“For example, rail guns offer great potential for early solutions to maneuvering hypersonic weapons and this technology deserves much greater funding,” he said.

Fisher also said the United States should increase capabilities for targeting China’s space and high altitude reconnaissance and surveillance systems, to include satellites.

“These will be absolutely necessary for China to successfully employ its long range hypersonic weapons,” he said.

A Chinese Embassy spokesman could not be reached for comment.

Lora Saalman, an expert on China’s hypersonic development at the Carnegie Endowment, said after China’s second Wu-14 test in August that the closeness of the first two tests showed that Beijing is “fast-tracking” the strategic program.

“When compared with the yearly gaps in between its [anti-satellite] and [ballistic missile defense] tests in 2007, 2010, 2013, and 2014, the Wu-14 accelerates China’s development timeline exponentially,” she said in an email in August.

Saalman believes the Wu-14 is part of a Chinese version of the U.S. conventional Prompt Global Strike program.

Click to expand...

China's been busy this week conducting flight tests of a new hypersonic Mach 10 missile which, according to United States intelligence agencies, was primarily developed to evade defense systems of the U.S.


Quoting Marine Corps Lt. Col. Jeff Pool, the Washington Free Beacon reported Pentagon knew of China's experimental launches of the developmental Wu-14 hypersonic glide vehicle. Pool said the latest flight test was actually the third that China did, the first and second being on Jan 9 and Aug 7, respectively.

From what they gathered, Pool said China is perfecting the Wu-14 hypersonic glide to travel up to eight times the speed of sound, describing such speed is a "high-priority element in China's large-scale military buildup." Pool said Pentagon "routinely monitors the foreign defense activities" of other countries.

Launched atop a Chinese ballistic missile, the Wu-14 was released along the edge of space. Previous experiments, the Pentagon said, showed the glide strike vehicle clocked an estimated speed of Mach 10, or 10 times the speed of sound. This is roughly 7,680 miles per hour. Such speeds, according to the Beacon, "create difficult aeronautics and physics challenges for guidance systems and place extreme stress on materials used in construction of the vehicle."

But an annual report released on Nov 29 by the US-China Economic and Security Review Commission said China's Wu-14 hypersonic glide "could render existing U.S. missile defense systems less effective and potentially obsolete." Once deployed, the Wu-14 "could enable China to conduct kinetic strikes anywhere in the world within minutes to hours," the report further stressed.

It also said the high-speed glide vehicle is planned for deployment by China by 2020, along with a scramjet powered hypersonic vehicle by 2025. The weapons, according to Lee Fuell, technical director for force modernization and employment at the National Air and Space Intelligence Center (NASIC), is being "associated with [China's] nuclear deterrent forces."

The commission report also said China is expanding its strategic nuclear forces "significantly," with new missiles, submarines, and multiple-warhead weapons. Rick Fisher, identified by Beacon as a China military affairs analyst, said China will still need to perform more tests before the Wu-14 turns into a working weapon.

However, he urged on the U.S. that now is the time to "expand and accelerate its own hypersonic weapons program" because the country has already lagged behind others, particularly Russia and China. Russia in November announced it is already looking into fielding hypersonic missiles by 2020.

Mark Schneider, a former Pentagon strategic forces specialist, said the latest Chinese hypersonic vehicle test is "a serious threat" because the vehicle is nuclear and "can also be used as conventional version."

Click to expand...

balance said:

While the world is still amazed on Hypersonic Missiles, China tested DF-41, and it was successful.

Please, Log in or Register to view URLs content!

China carried out a long-range missile flight test on Saturday using multiple, independently targetable reentry vehicles, or MIRVs, according to U.S. defense officials.

The flight test Saturday of a new DF-41 missile, China’s longest-range intercontinental ballistic missile, marks the first test of multiple warhead capabilities for China, officials told the Washington Free Beacon.

China has been known to be developing multiple-warhead technology, which it obtained from the United States illegally in the 1990s.

However, the Dec. 13 DF-41 flight test, using an unknown number of inert maneuvering warheads, is being viewed by U.S. intelligence agencies as a significant advance for China’s strategic nuclear forces and part of a build-up that is likely to affect the strategic balance of forces.

China’s nuclear arsenal is estimated to include around 240 very large warheads. That number is expected to increase sharply as the Chinese deploy new multiple-warhead missiles.

The current deployed U.S. strategic warhead arsenal includes 1,642 warheads. All 450 Minuteman III missiles have been modified to no longer carry MIRVs. However, Trident II submarine-launched missiles can carry up to 14 MIRVs per missile.

Additionally, the development of China’s multiple warhead technology was assisted by illegal transfers of technology from U.S. companies during the Clinton administration, according to documents and officials familiar with the issue.

Details of the flight test and the number of dummy warheads used during it could not be learned.

However, the DF-41 has been assessed by the National Air and Space Intelligence Center (NASIC), the intelligence community’s primary missile spy center, as capable of carrying up to 10 warheads.

Pentagon spokesman Lt. Col. Jeff Pool declined to comment on the DF-41 test. “We encourage greater PRC transparency regarding their defense investments and objectives to avoid miscalculation,” Pool said in response to questions about the Chinese missile launch.

China’s government has made no mention of the test, which was carried out at an unknown missile test facility. Past tests of the DF-41 have been carried out at the Wuzhai Missile and Space Testing facility, located about 250 miles southwest of Beijing.

A report made public earlier this month by a congressional China commission stated that the DF-41 will be able to carry up to 10 warheads and is expected to be deployed next year.

“The DF-41, which could be deployed as early as 2015, may carry up to 10 MIRVs, and have a maximum range as far as 7,456 miles, allowing it to target the entire continental United States,” the report said. “In addition, some sources claim China has modified the DF–5 and the DF–31A to be able to carry MIRVs.”

China also conducted a flight test in late September of another long-range missile, called the DF-31B that also could be outfitted to carry MIRVs.

“China could use MIRVs to deliver nuclear warheads on major U.S. cities and military facilities as a means of overwhelming U.S. ballistic missile defenses,” the report by the U.S.-China Economic and Security Review Commission said.

NASIC intelligence analyst Lee Fuell told the commission that China’s mobile MIRV-modified missiles provide greater targeting with fewer missiles and allow for a larger reserve of missiles during a conflict.

“China is likely to employ a blend of these three as MIRVs become available, simultaneously increasing their ability to engage desired targets while holding a greater number of weapons in reserve,” Fuell was quoted as saying in the report.

A classified NASIC report dated Dec. 10, 1996 stated that China developed a “smart dispenser” for launching multiple satellites using technology developed under a contract with Motorola to launch Iridium communications satellites. The technology transfer was approved by the administration of President Bill Clinton.

“An initial NAIC study determined that a minimally-modified [smart dispenser] stage could be used on a ballistic missile as a multiple-reentry vehicle post-boost vehicle” that could be used for multiple warheads “with relatively minor changes.”

In 2000, the State Department fined Lockheed Martin Corp. $13 million for improperly exporting weapons data on the rocket technology used in multiple-warhead missiles

The U.S. data was provided to China’s state-run Great Wall Industries, a missile manufacturer, through a Hong Kong company called Asiasat and used in systems called expendable perigee kick motors—a key element used in MIRV guidance.

The kick motors are used to position a multiple warhead “bus” or stage as part of the targeting process.

The transfers were made under loosened export controls by the Clinton administration beginning in 1993.

Larry Wortzel, a former military intelligence official who specialized on China, said the Chinese military has been working on a MIRV-modified DF-41 for a number of years.

Wortzel said Chinese military research literature has documented work on the DF-41 but the Pentagon “has been reluctant to discuss or confirm these developments.”

“The United States is now threatened with a more deadly and survivable nuclear force that makes our weak ballistic missile defenses less effective,” Wortzel said. “We need to improve our own defenses and modernize our own deterrent force as the Chinese are doing.”

Rick Fisher, a specialist on the Chinese military, said the advent of China’s MIRV capability should mark the end of U.S. efforts to reduce the number of nuclear warheads.

“The Chinese have not and likely will not disclose their nuclear warhead buildup plans, Russia is modernizing its nuclear forces across the board and violating the INF treaty with new classes of missiles, so it would be suicidal for the Washington to pursue a new round of nuclear reductions as is this administration’s preference.”

Fisher, with the International Assessment and Strategy Center, said China may deploy a combination of single-warhead and multiple warhead DF-41s, with the single warhead version carrying a huge “city buster” multi-megaton bombs.

“The beginning of China’s move toward multiple warhead-armed nuclear missiles is proof that today, arms control is failing to increase the security of Americans,” Fisher said. “Instead, it is time to be rebuilding U.S. nuclear warfighting capabilities, to include new mobile ICBMs, new medium range missiles and new tactical nuclear missile systems.”

Georgetown University Professor Phillip Karber has studied China’s nuclear forces and believes its arsenal is far larger than the U.S. intelligence estimate of 240.

“The Chinese development of the DF-41 has been a long term, methodical process,” Karber said. “However, if as we suspect they are going to put a MIRVed version of the missile on both rail and road-mobile launchers, the number of reentry vehicles could grow quite rapidly depending on the number of warheads they end up putting on the missiles.”

The DF-41 was revealed inadvertently by the Chinese government last summer when details, including the fact that it will be a multi-warhead missile, appeared on a provincial government website before being quickly censored and removed.

The Shaanxi provincial government announced June 13 in a progress report on its Environmental Monitoring Center Station that the DF-41 missile was among its projects.

“On-site monitoring for Phase Two of the project’s final environmental assessment and approval of support conditions for the development of the DF-41 strategic missile by the 43rd Institute of the 4th Academy of Aviation Industry Corporation of China (AVIC) was initiated,” the notice said. AVIC is China’s state-owned aerospace and defense conglomerate.

A state-run Global Times report, also later censored and taken offline, quoted a Chinese expert as saying the missile will carry multiple warheads.

The flight test Saturday was the third such test for the new DF-41. The Free Beacon first reported the second flight test of the missile in December 2013. The first flight test was carried out July 24, 2012

After several years of silence on the DF-41, the Pentagon disclosed the existence of the new missile in its latest annual report on the Chinese military, made public in June.

“China also is developing a new road-mobile ICBM known as the Dong Feng-41 (DF-41), possibly capable of carrying multiple independently targetable re-entry vehicles (MIRV),” the report says.

Click to expand...

Hendrik_2000 said:

...

China’s MIRV technology is based on illegally exported U.S. satellite technology transferred during the administration of President Bill Clinton.

Lockheed Martin was fined $13 million in 2000 as part of the illicit exports that China diverted to its MIRV warhead program.

...

Click to expand...

Hendrik_2000 said:

For years the western analyst underestimate the number of Chinese missile and warhead. We know for years that China has the technology to launch MIRV missile. Why they haven't done it is a mystery I guess it has something to do with Deng admonition to " hide the strength an bid the time" But now a new and more assure man on the helm, there is no more need to hide. I always feel that the western analyst is wrong by wide margin. With this successful test of the Mirved missile, it will boost the number of missile dramatically
Beijing says new multi-warhead missile does not change nuclear policy
DF-41
BY: Bill Gertz
December 26, 2014 3:36 pm
China’s People’s Liberation Army on Thursday confirmed that its military conducted a flight test of a new long-range missile that U.S. intelligence agencies say involved the use of simulated multiple warheads.
“China has the legitimate right to conduct scientific tests within its border and these scientific tests are not targeting any country or target,” PLA Sr. Col. Yang Yujun told reporters at a year-end news briefing.
Yang was asked about the flight test of the DF-41 ICBM on Dec. 13 and whether the testing of the missile changed China’s strategic nuclear policy of not being the first to use nuclear weapons in a conflict.
“What needs to be pointed out is that China pursues a nuclear policy of self-defense and its policy of no-first-use of nuclear weapons has not changed,” he said.
The reference to the no-first-use policy by the military spokesman is a tacit admission the missile involved the test of a last stage that carried multiple, independently-targetable reentry vehicles, or MIRVs.
The missile test was first reported by the Washington Free Beacon Dec. 18. Defense officials said the DF-41 was launched from the Wuzhai Missile and Space Test Center, also known as Taiyuan, in central China. The missile landed in an impact zone in a remote region of western China and was closely monitored by U.S. satellite and other electronic monitoring gear.
Military analysts said the test of China’s long-range nuclear missile that can carry up to 10 nuclear warheads increases the strategic threat to the United States. The Pentagon has said the DF-41 will be able to target all of the United States.
China’s state-run Communist Party newspaper Global Times in November 2013 published a provocative article showing the effects of submarine-launched nuclear missile attacks against Seattle and Los Angeles that the article said would kill up to 12 million people. The article was later withdrawn from publication. However, the report revealed China’s plans for nuclear strikes on the United States in a future conflict.
China’s new Jin-class ballistic missile submarines began the first sea patrols this year as predicted by senior Navy officials and the Pentagon’s annual report on the Chinese military, according to defense officials familiar with intelligence reports of the sea patrols.
The nuclear missile submarine patrols also mark a major step forward in China’s large-scale nuclear forces build up that has been carried out largely in secret.
The MIRVed DF-41 missile test also is expected to rekindle the debate in U.S. intelligence circles about the size of China’s nuclear arsenal, initially thought to be limited to around 240 strategic warheads.
The testing of a 10-warhead missile is an indication that the Chinese warhead arsenal is far larger or will rapidly expand as new DF-41s are deployed in the coming years.
A new report by the Georgetown University Asian Arms Control Project reveals that satellite photos have identified a new DF-41 launch complex at the Taiyuan launch center. The imagery is dated April 13, 2014, and is compared with a photo from 2010 of the same location.
The report, dated Dec. 16, states that the DF-41 appears to be based on the Russian design SS-25 road-mobile ICBM but “with Chinese characteristics.”
The DF-41, deployed with either six or 10 MIRVs, as well as DF-31A MIRVed missile will increase the number of warheads in the Chinese strategic arsenal to as many as 600 warheads by 2025, according to the report.
The report also reveals that China’s military is developing new tunneling technology that will permit widening construction of some of the 3,000 miles of underground strategic nuclear facilities. The new tunnels size of 17 meters wide by 10 meters wide will permit adjacent passage of road-mobile DF-31As and DF-41s as well as a possible rail-mobile ICBM variant in a single tunnel, the report said.

A Pentagon spokesman had no immediate comment.
The congressional U.S.-China Economic and Security Review Commission stated in its annual report made public earlier this month that the DF-41 will carry up to 10 warheads and initial deployment of the mobile missile is expected next year.
The DF-41 will “have a maximum range as far as 7,456 miles, allowing it to target the entire continental United States,” the report said. “In addition, some sources claim China has modified the DF–5 and the DF–31A to be able to carry MIRVs.”
The Free Beacon also disclosed in September that China is building new missile labeled the DF-31B that also is expected to be MIRVed.
“China could use MIRVs to deliver nuclear warheads on major U.S. cities and military facilities as a means of overwhelming U.S. ballistic missile defenses,” the commission report said.
China’s MIRV technology is based on illegally exported U.S. satellite technology transferred during the administration of President Bill Clinton.
Lockheed Martin was fined $13 million in 2000 as part of the illicit exports that China diverted to its MIRV warhead program.
Phillip Karber, a Georgetown University professor who is associated with the Asian Arms Control project, said the DF-41 test with multiple warheads is an indication that China’s strategic nuclear arsenal could increase “quite rapidly.”
China inadvertently disclosed the existence of the DF-41 missile last summer when a regional Communist Party web site posted facts about the system, including that it will carry multiple warheads. The posting was removed after it was widely reported.
Yang, the PLA spokesman, also declined to comment when asked if the Chinese government has been asked by the Obama administration to help provide details on the hackers behind the Sony Pictures Entertainment cyber attack and whether the hackers operated from Chinese territory.
“Actually, this is not a question related to the military, and I cannot provide an answer to you here,” he said.
The Justice Department on May 1 indicted five Chinese military hackers who were charged with cyber attacks against U.S. companies.
This entry was posted in National Security and tagged China. Bookmark the permalink.
Share
Tweet
Email
Bill Gertz Email Bill | Full Bio | RSS
Bill Gertz is the senior editor of the Washington Free Beacon.
by Taboola

Click to expand...

Phoenix_Rising said:

Hmmmm…typical US-style report about China's millitary.
1. Everything newly joined PLA arsenal must have parents called "Russian Design" and "Stolen Western Tech". Yes, they are impossible to be the result of Chinese education system which produces 6 million college graduates every year. It is unreasonable for a country whose industry is nearly 30% larger in currency than the US's being capable to build some new weapon.
2. Global Times is the only & the best way to learn what China, CCP, and PLA are about to do. You do not need People's Daily or Light Daily or PLA Newspaper at all! Looking for offensive cotents on a aggressive nationalism newspaper is really difficult.
3. The Chinese hackers must get mentioned in every report. Sigh…

Click to expand...