LMAO are those clowns counting the number of trucks and holes in the ground and calling that "launchers"?
China Ballistic Missiles and Nuclear Arms Thread
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Seems that way. There are 450 Minuteman III. For PLARF there are what? 300 new silos? Plus existing silos and TELs seems like the right ball park.
Pretty sure they can't figure out which silo is filled and which isn't. Hell until those civilian busy bodies told them Strategic Command didn't even know about those new silos.
Furthermore, even when China has more land-based ICBM launchers than the US, so what?
Significant portions of the American nuclear delivery platforms are air-based (B-52, B-1, B-2 strategic bombers plus nuclear-capable fighters) and sea-based (Ohio-class SSBNs). Those (land-based) Minuteman 3 missile silos are take up the smallest portion of the US nuclear triad anyway.
escobar
Brigadier
US Secretary of Defense Llyod "Raytheon-sponsored" Austin already warned that Russia (and China) are expanding and modernizing their (respective) nuclear arsenal in December last year:
That means Washington DC already got its perfect casus belli to also expand and modernize their own nuclear arsenal. The second nuclear arms race between US-NATO and Russia-China has pretty much become a certainty at this point.
Right now, what's left for China to do would be to (preferably work with Russia + perhaps Iran & Pakistan as well, and) wore the US-led NATO out in this new nuclear arms race.
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I totally agree. Those clowns (who still call themselves journalists) deliberately put aside US air-based and sea-based nukes. Well it is about comparative advantage in military sense. SSNs and SSBNs have long been China's weakness, so relying on sea-based nukes doesn't make sense for China. Should a nuclear war ever break out, the USN already knows where the 094s are located given how noisy they are (especially the first batch). This is not to say that there won't be remarkable improvements for 096, but at present, China's must reliable nukes are those launched from DF-41s, which is a proven technology and can be mass produced/stockpiled. The H-6Ns should be capable, but they only carry one missile under their bellies compared to 20 from B-52s. The H-6Ns also have shorter range compared to the B-52s and B-1Bs. It will take at least another decade (2035) before there are significant number of H-20s to match the B-21s, B-52s, B-1Bs, and B-2s. Finally, air-based nukes are inherently use or lose weapons because airfields are usually the first counter-force targets for adversaries.
Not surprising at all given that they count empty silos as launchers but they are not completely wrong.
China has around 16 ± 2 mobile ICBM brigades and they would have 192 ± 24 launchers if each one of brigades is equipped with 12 launchers.
| Mobile TEL Brigade | Silo Field | DF-5 Series | Total | |
| Number | 16 ± 2 | 3 | 4 | 23 ± 2 |
| Launchers | 192 ± 24 | 320 | 48 ± 2 | 560 ± 26 |
240 launchers if not counting empty silos and 560 if counting them.
A few in Fujian... those cunning Chicoms, passing silos off as villages, and complete with dirty laundry! Really really cunning.
Wait... did the TEL ICBM launchers count include missiles that are at least 5000 kilometers of range?
Because as far as I'm concerned, China classifies ICBMs as over 8000 kilometers, while the US classifies ICBMs as over 5000 kilometers only.
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