plawolf
Lieutenant General
The original DF5 took two hours to refuel, but modern versions are pre-fuelled and ready to launch thanks to advancements in materials science allowing the development of special membranes.
China Ballistic Missiles and Nuclear Arms Thread
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If it is true, it would be an overkill to START Treaty.
If there's any truth to this then the bottleneck is launchers, not warheads (meaning fissile material availability). That would be interesting if true.
Broccoli
Senior Member
Soviets had that in 1970's.
If they used the same fuel type as today, you don't need any special materials, just stainless steel tanks and fluoropolymer valve seals.
One possibility is that the old DF-5 used nitric acid oxidizer but since the 1990s, LM-2 which is based on DF-5 used N2O4 oxidizer. Nitric acid is corrosive towards steel, but N2O4 is inert to stainless. I've posted on this before. There is no reason to use nitric acid if N2O4 is available.
Alternatively, there were problems in missile silo loading and design.
Yeah but often I can't tell if the people there are just providing their own analysis/making shit up or they actually have good sources, that's why I'm asking if people here know if they've had past success with PLARF/nuke related rumours (I know they've had a good track record with other stuff before). Anyone with an acct can go to the PLARF section and see the poster in question's name but thread contents are restricted to senior members (which I am).
Wrt to the ABM they're saying it's been confirmed (spotted?) around the capital which I haven't heard about. Which doesn't really make sense since it's purported to be a midcourse system but that sounds more like a terminal one like Moscow's A-135.
Also can a certain two members take the juvenile spam to another thread, ffs.
Modern liquid fueled ICBMs can be stored fueled. They need a bit more maintenance and there are extra safety considerations. That's all. I think it makes a lot of sense to have your silo-based missiles liquid fueled.
@Kalec Liquid fuel would mean more payload per missile. It would decrease the number of required missiles. I don't know which one would be cheaper though. But considering that Russia opted for liquid fuel, liquid fuel is likely cheaper for a given number of warheads.
Modern liquid rocket fuel is stable for decades.
Messenger probe (the space probe part) for Mercury missions used the same liquid fuel as DF-5 (N2O4 and 50/50 UDMH/Hydrazine) and it has to be stored for the duration of the mission. Messenger took 10 years. Clearly there's no maintenance possible on a space probe.
Liquid fueled is far more expensive to maintain than solid fueled.
Liquid fuel is deployed sparsely, meaning it needs more cost and personnel on communication instead of unmanned solid fuel launch facility. It is cheaper to deploy ICBMs collectively with terminal defense system to ensure survival rate. TLDR, solid fuel is cheaper to maintain.
Also it is still open to debate whether it is a good thing to increase warhead-missile rate. More warheads on a missile means more warheads to be destroyed in a first strike.
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