China ICBM/SLBM, nuclear arms thread

[toast]

Is this your own finding

I wasn't the first to spot these - a colleague of mine identified them in satellite imagery, after which we held some discussions about the findings.

what makes you think they're ICBM silos?

First, this cluster spans approximately 40 kilometers north-south, containing around 90 uniformly distributed similar structures (the exact count requires verification). If these are indeed silos, their configuration resembles the mountain-shadow concentrated deployment scheme used for the MX missile system.
Second, while I'm familiar with the training silos at Jilantai, these differ completely in both scale and design. I assess these to likely be slide-opening silos - the white-black-white patterns likely represent sliding tracks. All previously observed silos used flip-top mechanisms, though I recall a now-removed painting at the National Museum depicting slide-opening silos.
While I cannot state this with certainty, the scale of this complex suggests this interpretation is plausible. Additional analysis and discussion would be valuable.

 

[ismellcopium]

I wasn't the first to spot these - a colleague of mine identified them in satellite imagery, after which we held some discussions about the findings.

First, this cluster spans approximately 40 kilometers north-south, containing around 90 uniformly distributed similar structures (the exact count requires verification). If these are indeed silos, their configuration resembles the mountain-shadow concentrated deployment scheme used for the MX missile system.
Second, while I'm familiar with the training silos at Jilantai, these differ completely in both scale and design. I assess these to likely be slide-opening silos - the white-black-white patterns likely represent sliding tracks. All previously observed silos used flip-top mechanisms, though I recall a now-removed painting at the National Museum depicting slide-opening silos.
While I cannot state this with certainty, the scale of this complex suggests this interpretation is plausible. Additional analysis and discussion would be valuable.

Interesting. If you're right, this combined with the other 3 fields which had IIRC ~320 silos and ~50 DF-5 silos would well exceed the US's 400 (active) silos. Not sure how I feel about such a silo-heavy force, honestly.

 

[neutralobserver]

Interesting. If you're right, this combined with the other 3 fields which had IIRC ~320 silos and ~50 DF-5 silos would well exceed the US's 400 (active) silos. Not sure how I feel about such a silo-heavy force, honestly.

I would think the numbers are rising for the other delivery methods too. There is a lot of room for growth compared to US/RUSS inventory.

 

[toast]

Interesting. If you're right, this combined with the other 3 fields which had IIRC ~320 silos and ~50 DF-5 silos would well exceed the US's 400 (active) silos. Not sure how I feel about such a silo-heavy force, honestly.

ok，After reviewing higher-resolution satellite imagery, I can confirm these are just reinforced platforms. However, this raises a new operational question: What is the intended purpose for such a large number of platforms? Potential hypotheses include:
1) TEL positions for road-mobile ICBMs？
2) Launch positions for mobile anti-missile systems？

 

[toast]

and seem one in dingxing （

 

[amchan]

I wasn't the first to spot these - a colleague of mine identified them in satellite imagery, after which we held some discussions about the findings.

First, this cluster spans approximately 40 kilometers north-south, containing around 90 uniformly distributed similar structures (the exact count requires verification). If these are indeed silos, their configuration resembles the mountain-shadow concentrated deployment scheme used for the MX missile system.
Second, while I'm familiar with the training silos at Jilantai, these differ completely in both scale and design. I assess these to likely be slide-opening silos - the white-black-white patterns likely represent sliding tracks. All previously observed silos used flip-top mechanisms, though I recall a now-removed painting at the National Museum depicting slide-opening silos.
While I cannot state this with certainty, the scale of this complex suggests this interpretation is plausible. Additional analysis and discussion would be valuable.

Are they actually west or south of a mountain?

 

[ZeEa5KPul]

Having thousands of missiles also gives China rapid ramp up potential of MIRV’ing them later. Indeed, from a Cold War 2.0 grand strategy POV, it makes perfect sense to goad the US into bankruptcy trying to build missile defences against thousands of PLARF ICBMs, only to then rug pull them by revealing those thousands of missiles are all MIRV capable, so it becomes potentially tens of thousands of warheads they now need to defend against. And the beauty of that is that China doesn’t actually need to MIRV every missile. It just needs to demonstrate that it can, and American paranoia will do the rest.

This right here. It's much more important to build up the infrastructure, the personnel, the doctrine, and the missiles. The PLA can always install new MIRV buses on them once the fissile material is available.

 

[toast]

Are they actually west or south of a mountain?

southeast，but now I can confirm there are not silos (