****** China's Nuclear Arsenal (long) ******

[Yang Zheng]

A very well done.

Hope all these data is true and can be reached by CIA :)

Can some bananas like xiao-lin li, alex lim give their white master a notice?

an12...@anon.penet.fi wrote:
: xiao-lin li (xl...@silver.ucs.indiana.edu) wrote (in 9/95):
: > Hong Kong magzine "The Trend (Dong4 Xiang4)" quoted an internal
: > document of the Chinese Defense Ministry which revealed that
: > China now has a total number of 2350 nuclear warheads in its stock.
: > This number is about 8 times larger than the 300 warheads generally
: > believed in the western media. Among the 2350 warheads, about
: > 550 are battlefield warheads, other 1800 are strategic warheads.
: > It also revealed that the annual production of warheads is about
: > 110-120 in the 1980's and about 140-150 currently.
: >

: Those figures are reasonable. According to "China Built The Bomb"
: (a book published in U.S. during the late-1980's), data from various
: U.S. intelligence agencies showed that, in the mid-1980's, China was
: producing at least 800 kilograms of U-235 and 400 kilograms of Pu-239
: per year:

: 1). Lanzhou Gaseous Diffusion Plant 400kg U-235/year
: 2). Helanshan Centrifuge I 400kg U-235/year
: 3). Helanshan Centrifuge II ???
: 4). Yumen Breeder Reactor 250kg Pu-239/year
: 5). Baotou Breeder Reactor 150kg Pu-239/year
: 6). Guangyuan Breeder Reactor ???

: A typical fission-only nuclear device (N-bomb) in U.S. and Russian
: nuclear arsenals uses an averge of 15 kilograms of U-235 or 5 kilograms
: of Pu-239, with a typical yield in tens of kiloton TNT.

: In fact, a fission nuclear device can be built with just 1.8 kilogram
: of Pu-239 by using the neutron reflection/multiplying technique with
: U-238/Beryllium tamper in addition to the normal implosion technique,
: but the yield will be barely kiloton TNT or ever sub-kiloton TNT.
: However, this will be enough as the fission trigger in the thermonuclear
: device (the so-called "Hydrogen-bomb").

: Except the fission-trigger, the thermonuclear device could be built
: without the additional U-235/Pu-239, just the Lithium6-Deuteride
: fusion core plus the U-238 pusher and U-238 jacket in the normal
: fission-fusion-fission H-bomb, or the fusion core with the Tungsten
: pusher and jacket in the fission-fusion Neutron-bomb.

: Given the amount of fissionable material (U-235/Pu-239) being produced,
: it is very likely that China is making 140-150 nuclear warheads every
: year and has accumulated 2,350 nuclear warheads. However, those are
: just a tiny fraction compared to 30,000+ nuclear warheads each in U.S.
: or Russian nuclear arsenal. Even if the START-II Treaty is implemented
: by 2010, there will still be more than 20,000 nuclear warheads each in
: U.S. or Russian nuclear arsenal. So China will never be able to acquire
: even a comparable level of nuclear arsenal to U.S.'s or Russia's.

: In the discussion about the U.S. military involvement in the Taiwan
: Strait recently, someone shouted "we should nuke the Chinamen/Chinks"
: and "we don't have to worry about China's nuclear weapons since they
: can only reach Hawaii and maybe California". What a callous ignorant
: blood-thirsty racist (he's on the eastern coast)!

: China does have ICBMs which can reach virtually every corner of every
: nuclear power: the SS18-class DF-5 with a range of 8000 miles. It has
: the identical boosters (CZ-2C) used in launching Chinese spy satellites
: which has a launch success rate of 100% (no failure out of 18 launches).
: The failed satellite launch in February used a different CZ-3B rocket
: with 4 strapped-on liquid boosters (the February launch was the first
: flight of CZ-3B).

: China's DF-5 ICBM entered into the service in 1980 after the extensive
: flight tests (at least 5 in 1979). According to the Jane's Strategic
: Weapons, its throw weight is said to be 3200kg, which I think is much
: lower than its actual capacity.

: (The Jane's Strategic Weapons yearbook had been giving totally wrong
: specifications of Chinese missiles until 1991, while China published
: the complete specifications of CZ-2/3 rocket series in 1985, which
: was used in the Jane's Spaceflight Directory. I think the editors
: of Jane's Strategic Weapons are good only at creating rumors about
: China's missile sale. They may have certain motives in doing so,
: I'll deliberate this later).

: According to the Jane's Spaceflight Directory, the 1st-generation
: Chinese spy satellites (FSW-1) weighs about 2500kg, which is launched
: by the same CZ-2C booster (as in the DF-5 ICBM) into the LEO. This is
: quite accurate as China offered to launch the international satellite
: of 2000kg with the CZ-2C booster. The 500kg difference is due to the
: fairing/shroud used to protect the satellite from the aerodynamic force
: during the launch (the FSW-1 spy satellite is recoverable and thus its
: body is hardened for the atmosphere reentry, so no extra fairing/shroud
: is needed during the launch). As a comparison, the French Ariane-4 has
: a longer and wider fairing/shroud weighing 900kg and a 520kg vehicle
: equipment bay (VEB) for the flight control and guidance.

: It is reasonable to assume that the CZ-2C's vehicle equipment bay
: weighs at least 500kg. Together with the 4000kg dry weight of CZ-2C
: second stage rocket motors, at least 7000kg of satellite+VEB+motor
: is accellerated to the 7900m/sec burnout speed needed for the satellite
: launch into the LEO.

: For an 8000-mile-range ICBM, the burnout speed is about 7200m/sec.
: Since the specific impulse of the CZ-2C 2nd-stage rocket motor YF-22
: is rated at 295 second (lower for the venier motor YF-23), for a delta
: V of 700m/sec (7900-7200), it takes just the high school calculus to
: determine that the CZ-2C booster can accelerate at least 8900kg to
: the burnout speed of 7200m/sec, an 1900kg increase in the payload.
: Therefore the 8000-mile DF-5 ICBM should have a throw weight of at
: least 4400kg (2500+1900) for the warhead, in which you could put
: put a 10-megaton thermonuclear device (such as the one on SS-19)
: easily (China's Lop Nor nuclear test site won't be able to handle
: such a monster, probably having to use just scale-up for design).

: In the same Jane's Spaceflight Directory, China offered to launch
: 4 satellites on one CZ-2C. This means its twin DF-5 is also MIRV-
: capable (after all, MIRV is not the hi-tech, just weight-balancing
: and proper-timing of warhead-releasing, if Russia can develop it
: in 1960's, China should have no problems to develop it in 1980's).
: In fact, the DF-5 was probably designed with the MIRV in the mind
: since the CZ-2C's second-stage has 4 venier motors for steering
: and they continue to burn for further 190 seconds after the main
: motor shutoff (this could produce a LARGE footprint for MIRVs).

: For the MIRV-version of DF-5, its throw weight should be reduced
: to 3900kg as the fairing/shroud is needed to protect the MIRVs.
: So it's very likely that DF-5 is carrying six 600kg-weight warheads
: as on the DF-21 IRBM (the twin of JL-1 SLBM). The warhead size (about
: 1.9m x 0.9m) is right for fitting six in the CZ-2C/DF-5 fairing/shroud.

: I think the Jane's Strategic Weapons is wrong again on the yield
: of DF-21 warhead (it says 250-kiloton). The JL-1/DF-21 entered into
: the services in 1982 and all of China's nuclear tests before 1983
: are on the two extreme ends: either 10-50 kiloton (fission weapons)
: or 1-4 megaton (thermonuclear devices). It was until 1990 that China
: conducted a nuclear test in the 200 kiloton range. By the common sense,
: it's very unlikely that China would put a 250-kiloton warhead on DF-21
: without testing it back then (there was not single political/technical
: restriction on testing a medium-yield warhead).

: I think the 600kg warhead on DF-21 is an 1-megaton thermonuclear
: device given the shape and density of the warhead on the picture.
: As a comparison, the W-47 RV on the U.S. Polaris A-1 SLBM (1961)
: weighs 408kg and has a yield of 800-kiloton; the bomb itself weighs
: only 275kg.

: So the 8000-mile DF-5 ICBM is probably carrying six(6) 1-megaton MIRVs.
: Now the question is: how many does China have?

: The number of DF-5s quoted in various publications are always the same
: number throughout the decade: only four(4) DF-5 ICBMs in silo. Does
: anyone ever use the common sense: China conducted AT LEAST seven(7)
: flight tests of DF-5 in 1979-1980 alone, why deploying only four(4)?

: There is a photo on Page 239 of the 1992 Jane's Spaceflight Directory,
: which shows the final assembly workshop for the CZ-2C/DF-5. In the
: photo, there are about nine(9) CZ-2C/DF-5 in the various phases of
: final assembly and the text states that the production rate is about
: 10--12 per year (does it really take 9 months to put ONE rocket through
: the final assembly line??? After all, the liquid-fueled rocket is just
: some aluminum tanks connected with pipelines and combustion chambers).

: It has been fifteen(15) years since the DF-5 entered into the services,
: during which China was mostly under the threat of a Soviet invasion
: (the other Chinese missiles could not reach Soviet European region).
: During the period, there are no more than 30 satellite launches by
: China. So there could be between 120 and 150 DF-5 ICBMs in the
: Chinese arsenals. With six 1-megaton warheads on each of them,
: 700-900 out of 1800 so-called strategic warheads are counted.
: Now the question is: where are those DF-5 ICBMs?

: I think the answer lays in the PLA's bible: the Art of War written
: by the famous military strategist SUN Zi 2300 years ago. One of its
: mottos is: if you can not win a battle, do NOT fight it.

: China knows that the silos can be easily located by satellites and
: its early-warning systems are too primitive, and the launch-on-warning
: could be very dangerous (despite the popular belief in the newsgroups,
: all China's liquid-fueled SSMs are using the same storable propellants
: as in SS-18), plus that silo-hardening is just a losing battle and its
: nuclear submarine technology is generations behind superpowers.

: So China avoids the very vulnerable silo basing deployment of
: strategic ballistic missiles and hides them inside underground
: tunnels/caves in deep canyons/mountains. Those missiles are
: prepared inside the caves and moved outside to launch. In addition,
: the Command-and-Control will be much easier to maintain for this
: kind of deployment.

: Early 1995, China's media reported that a so-called "Great Wall"
: project for the strategic missile force has been completed after
: 10 years of construction in a "famous" mountain range in North China.
: Look at the topographic maps and read the news reports carefully,
: it can be deduced that the underground tunnel network is in the famous
: Tai-Hai Mountain Range between Hebei and Shanxi provinces. According
: to the news reports, "tens of thousands" of Army engineers have spent
: over 10 years there digging tunnels.

: Normally, a company of soldiers (about 100+) can dig about 100 meter
: of tunnel per month (based on the news reports about railroad tunnel
: construction) without using any advanced tunnel drilling machinery.
: So the "tens of thousands" of Army engineers (= hundreds of companies)
: over the 10-year period should be able to construct an underground
: tunnel network of thousands of kilometers(!!!) inside the Tai-Hei
: Mountain Range to hide some of China's strategic missiles. I guess
: it was called the "Great Wall" project not without a reason (the Great
: Wall is at least 5000 kilometers long).

: Like other known mountain ranges housing the underground tunnel
: networks for China's strategic missiles, the Tai-Hei Mountain Range
: has a lot of steep cliffs/canyons with very big elevation change
: over a short distance (between 1000 meters and up to 2000 meters).
: So you can easily dig tunnel networks with over one kilometer thick
: of earth cover in mountain ranges.

: A typical 500-kiloton nuclear warhead in U.S. or Russian arsenals
: can `dig' a big hole (70m deep and 300m wide) on the ground, and
: that's more than enough to destroy a missile silo or even an airport.
: If specially hardened for the earth-penetration purpose, it may
: create a huge crater sphere 200m in diameter underground. Taken into
: account of the rupture zone around the crater and the likely penetration
: depth of warheads, AT LEAST three 500-kiloton warheads will have to
: land on the same spot sequentially in order to penetrate the 1-kilometer
: thick earth cover and destroy the tunnel underneath. Even with the
: monster 20-megeton warhead on the Russia's single-warheaded SS-18, you
: will still have to have two warheads landed on the same spot.

: However, you just destroy less than 300 meter length of tunnel
: using three warheads. If the underground tunnel network under the
: Tai-Hei Mountain Range is just 1000 kilometer long, you need to use
: 10,000 (ten thousand) 500-kiloton warheads in order to make sure
: the tunnel network is completely destroyed, and this is the VERY
: unlikely case in which you know the exact layout of entire tunnel
: network. AND this is just one of several missile sites.

: (China has been digging the underground tunnel in mountains since
: the mid-1960s. There is no hi-tech needed to do it, just dynamite
: and concrete, plus the enthusiastic young soldiers who are never
: in the short supply. And China just happens to have so many huge
: mountain ranges everywhere. So there are other underground tunnel
: networks for the strategic missile force in the central and southern
: China's mountain ranges).

: Even if you can eliminate all of them by using tens of thousand warheads,
: then the problem will be: with so many nuclear warheads detonated
: on the earth surface, so much earth soil will be thrown up into the
: upper atmosphere and spread around the globe in the stratosphere,
: the sun light will be blocked and we will have a real "nuclear
: winter", definitely not a pleasant picture.

: Sorry for using anon-service. But I don't want my boss to know
: I'm wasting his time. Thanks for your understanding.

: MA Tuowen

: Disclaimer: All data in this article are from the open sources
: in libraries. I have no access to the classified material.
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