China Ballistic Missiles and Nuclear Arms Thread

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ougoah

Brigadier
Registered Member
The US is ridiculous in their criticism of not only China but anyone else when they see fit. Like they can perform tests, go on illegal wars and invasions, commit REAL human rights violations and atrocities in a scale PRC couldn't imagine of, then have the gall to call others out for small and relatively inoffensive matters like testing nukes in their own country. Last time I checked China and CCP had sovereignty over China. We don't need to like or agree with this but it is as factual as the sun rising from the east. They can shove their complaints over nuclear tests. They just want the right to hold every individual hostage in the world and hold all humans as their slaves (including US citizens), failing that they will complain complain complain and wage unrelenting propaganda warfare.

Nobody in the international community has agreed to stop nuclear tests. Never before despite a lot of talk. This includes USA, UK, and France. One set of rules for the whinging bitches and another set for those they don't like to play with. Pathetic governments and ruling elites. Typical.
 

Rettam Stacf

Junior Member
Registered Member
Russia, France and Britain signed and ratified the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty.

China and the United States have signed but not ratified the treaty.

India and Pakistan have not signed the treaty.

This is just a ploy by the US to pressure China to join the US-Russia arms control talk, which China repeatedly refuse to participate.
 

antiterror13

Brigadier
I hope it's true. I would find it a very reassuring sign that China is serious about expanding its nuclear arsenal.

Actually China doesn't need to do actual blast anymore since mid-90s, all be done by simulation by supercomputers.

China is already has the most supercomputer in the world and already in the top for a few years (only surpassed by the US recently), so comparing China in mid 90s and now is like Earth and Sky, no comparison at all
 

ougoah

Brigadier
Registered Member
Actually China doesn't need to do actual blast anymore since mid-90s, all be done by simulation by supercomputers.

China is already has the most supercomputer in the world and already in the top for a few years (only surpassed by the US recently), so comparing China in mid 90s and now is like Earth and Sky, no comparison at all

Can simulations ever replace actual testing verification? Probably not. I'm sure computers play a major role in advancing the development and testing, certainly speeding things up without requiring the same levels of testing in the past but nothing will replace actual detonations to confirm the simulated behaviour.
 

antiterror13

Brigadier
Can simulations ever replace actual testing verification? Probably not. I'm sure computers play a major role in advancing the development and testing, certainly speeding things up without requiring the same levels of testing in the past but nothing will replace actual detonations to confirm the simulated behaviour.

Absolutely it can. Israel never done any actual testing and who doubt it that Israeli nukes are reliable?

Especially the big 5 already done many many actual tests and have enough data to verify the simulation software

It does work
 

AssassinsMace

Lieutenant General
Well Trump said he was going to unilaterally allow the US to test nukes to confirm they still work. I'm sure this will be used as an excuse to do so just like how he ended the nuke treaty with Russia siting how China was not included as one of the excuses.
 

plawolf

Lieutenant General
Consider the source and timing people. Seismic detection isn’t geo or country limited. If there where detectable nuclear tests being conditioned in China, it would have been detected the world over as soon as it happened.

This nothing more than the American propaganda machine getting so desperate it is making a meme of itself without even realising.
 

ougoah

Brigadier
Registered Member
Consider the source and timing people. Seismic detection isn’t geo or country limited. If there where detectable nuclear tests being conditioned in China, it would have been detected the world over as soon as it happened.

This nothing more than the American propaganda machine getting so desperate it is making a meme of itself without even realising.

A meme of itself that only few will recognise. Effectively still better than making China into a meme that their stooges will forever parrot until the moment they die.
 

Totoro

Major
VIP Professional
Thanks to many contributors things are becoming more reliable in an ongoing process.
I want to add my own recent overview.
The bold entries seems to be confirmed and regarding the type of weapon either confirmed by photo or sat image evidence.
Corrections are welcomed!

The fact that table presents such a wide range of numbers floors me. Out of active, front line units, your list shows 18 brigades that have photographic confirmation of their missile types, and thus their existence. In addition to that, you list 16 more brigades with alleged missile types, but no confirmation. I assume those are units which are mentioned in rumors or newsbits?

And then on top of those, you list further 6 brigades which allegedly exist, as they have a number, but one doesn't even know what missiles they use. Even though for most of them there are also coordinates available. How does one even then know that it's a missile brigade there, if there are no missiles to be seen?

And on top of all that, there's the 67th Base, which basically doesn't have a single known front line missile unit. How do we know that Base even exists and functions? And if it does function, wouldn't that mean that at least 6 more brigades are out there, somewhere, as part of it?

And what are the chances there are further brigades in some Base units or even further whole Bases which we don't know about?

Out of just the brigades with the known or alleged missile types - the list suggests PLA already has or is transitioning to :
3 df11 brigades
2 df15 brigades
3 df16 brigades
1 df17 brigade
2 df10 brigades
7 df21 brigades
5 df26 brigades
7 df31 brigades
3 df5 brigades
2 df41 brigades

But there's also the 6 brigades listed as known, without any missile types known. And the whole 67th Base without a single known brigade. Which might quite plausibly lead to 12 more brigades, in existence, in total. So on top of these 35 "known" brigades, there may be 12 more.

There's almost as much as what we don't know about china's PLARF than it is what we do know.

The low numbers of known df-10 units are also quite suspicious to me. Cruise missiles could very plausibly be fielded in much larger quantities. Also, with so many brigades getting new missiles, it's also plausible the older types may not all be retired but simply handed over to other units. So a lot of the unknown/unconfirmed units may be sporting cruise missiles and/or df-11/df-15.


The 2019 DoD report to US congress estimated roughly 90 ICBMs, 980 to 2110 other ballistic missiles and up to 540 ground launched cruise missiles.

The list of the brigades and missile types from the table, assuming there's 12-18 BM launchers for each non nuclear brigade, and then using same multiplier of launchers to missiles that DoD report used (x1 to x2 for IRBM, x3 to x6 forSRBM and x1 to x3 for MRBM) one can get the following:

54 df11 launchers with 165-330 missiles
36 df15 launchers with 105-210 missiles
36-54 df16 launchers with 110-325 missiles

12-18 df17 launchers with 12-54 missiles

18 (?) df10 launchers with 54-108 missiles

84-126 df21 launchers with 85-380 missiles
90 df26 launchers with 90-160 missiles

56 df31 launchers with 56 missiles
18 df5 launchers with 18 missiles
16 df41 launchers with 16 missiles

The ICBM count actually very precisely matches the DoD report figure.
The IRBMs are also very close, ahead by just a little compared to DoD report.
MRBMs are close, though slightly behind the DoD report. (df21 and df17 assumed here)
and SRBMs are quite a bit behind the DoD report figure, almost by half.

Of course, if we add those 12 brigades that may exist but we simply don't know about them, and lets say split their belongings between older SRBMs and cruise missiles - then the SRBM count goes very close to DoD report estimate as well. And DF10 count goes up, though still lagging behind DoD report figure by more than a half.

I wonder what Sean O'Connor says about the table you've assembled, as well as DoD report numbers. I remember he once said he was working on a piece on PLARF, so he might have some insight as well.
 

Jiang ZeminFanboy

Senior Member
Registered Member
China should have at least 1000 nuclear missiles. Having just minimal deterrent might be not good enough, because it may cause an opportunity in some heads to go with the first strike against China.

But I think China now has more than 260-300 missiles that are given in some reports.
 
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