Current Nuclear Weapons Development

The pic I saw of PRC silo placement has them seemingly close together - are the employing the dense pack strategy?
Dense pack is easier to defend with terminal defenses. A 20-barrel 30mm cannon comes to mind.

I agree that it is easier defensively but I don't see how a 30mm cannon would be useful in this context. Presumably a Chinese ABM deployment at the site is in the future.
 
The pic I saw of PRC silo placement has them seemingly close together - are the employing the dense pack strategy?
Dense pack is easier to defend with terminal defenses. A 20-barrel 30mm cannon comes to mind.

I agree that it is easier defensively but I don't see how a 30mm cannon would be useful in this context. Presumably a Chinese ABM deployment at the site is in the future.
It was actually looked at by the US way back in the day using the 30mm Avenger. I (or someone else) posted a picture of it on this site somewhere. I'd read about it years ago and then a picture finally popped up a while back. Phalanx was shooting down 5" dia shells back in the 80s. Hitting a much larger RV doesn't seem impossible (they're not going Mach 20+ by the time they're near ground level).
 
It seems like a particularly difficult target set for a gun. Also I'd think an air burst would soften up any defenses that were that short ranged. On the other hand if it worked at all it would be comparatively cheap compared to ABM missiles.
 
It seems like a particularly difficult target set for a gun. Also I'd think an air burst would soften up any defenses that were that short ranged. On the other hand if it worked at all it would be comparatively cheap compared to ABM missiles.
Even it it worked well enough to require 2 warheads per silo to guarantee a hit it would pay for itself.
 
Even with great economies I don't see any kind of uniqueness from the Chinese or U.S. nuclear weapons, I guess people creating difficult weapons seem more important. Arctic oil projects and Nord Stream 2 among other economic projects cant be overlooked either.
 
Panicking over this development would just encourage Beijing to increase its arsenal more than it already is.
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China hawks have seized on a reportabout new Chinese missile silos
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The revelation that China has been quickly building approximately 119 new hardened silos in the desert of Gansu province is important new information, but it does not support the absurd and exaggerated claims that hawkish analysts have made about Beijing’s arsenal. It appears that China is seeking to increase its arsenal’s survivability in the event of a conflict with the United States, and it is doing so in response to U.S. nuclear modernization and missile defense.
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I been reading this crap for 40 years. No it’s the USs fault. Would love to know who funds this organization the article could have been written by the PLA.
 
Panicking over this development would just encourage Beijing to increase its arsenal more than it already is.
————————————
China hawks have seized on a reportabout new Chinese missile silos
————————————
The revelation that China has been quickly building approximately 119 new hardened silos in the desert of Gansu province is important new information, but it does not support the absurd and exaggerated claims that hawkish analysts have made about Beijing’s arsenal. It appears that China is seeking to increase its arsenal’s survivability in the event of a conflict with the United States, and it is doing so in response to U.S. nuclear modernization and missile defense.
———————————-
I been reading this crap for 40 years. No it’s the USs fault. Would love to know who funds this organization the article could have been written by the PLA.
You can literally Google it and find out who’s funding it. Took me less than 30 seconds.
Easily refutes the hyperbolic nonsense above.
 
Panicking over this development would just encourage Beijing to increase its arsenal more than it already is.
————————————
China hawks have seized on a reportabout new Chinese missile silos
————————————
The revelation that China has been quickly building approximately 119 new hardened silos in the desert of Gansu province is important new information, but it does not support the absurd and exaggerated claims that hawkish analysts have made about Beijing’s arsenal. It appears that China is seeking to increase its arsenal’s survivability in the event of a conflict with the United States, and it is doing so in response to U.S. nuclear modernization and missile defense.
———————————-
I been reading this crap for 40 years. No it’s the USs fault. Would love to know who funds this organization the article could have been written by the PLA.
There's a clue in the site name - RS, pron. aRSe, therefore definitely the CCP.
 
I get the feeling such matters were always up to the top guy anyway, this is just formalising it for the sake of posturing.
 
I've come to the conclusion that Arms Controllers are delusionally insane and the best thing to do is to ignore them.

Semi-Transparency does more for deterrence and preventing (nuclear) war than any arms limitation treaties.

Which is why Trump withdrawing from OPEN SKIES was far more damaging than any possible withdrawal from New START.

IMHO, Open Skies should be reworked into not just allowing overflights, but for each treaty signatory publishing a biannual report on it's strategic capabilities -- we already saw some of this in the earlier Conventional Forces in Europe (CFE) treaties, where the US and USSR basically said "We have x and y amounts of equipment within Europe".

Such reports would also include a general overview of rough counts of what you have, it's rough capabilities and rough expected reliability.

I.e., Yukobtainia has 1,223 nuclear warheads on 102 ICBMs, but rounds it all out to 1,000+ warheads along with rough general CEP estimates and reliability estimates ("probability of destruction of undefended enemy strategic targets is 0.9 or more")

Rather than keeping it all shrouded and mysterious (Israeli nuclear stockpile and current vague Chinese stockpile levels).

See photo for explanation.
 

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The funniest text i read in a while. :D
Q: Hello, John. Russia announced today that it carried out a new successful test of its (inaudible) hypersonic missile. Do you have a reaction? Are you -- is the U.S. concerned about that?

MR. KIRBY: We're certainly aware of President Putin's claims. And while I won't be getting into specifics or providing any kind of an analysis on his claims, it's important to note that Russia's new hypersonic missiles are potentially destabilizing and pose significant risks because they are nuclear capable systems.

By contrast, the United States is developing solely non-nuclear hypersonic strike capabilities. So alongside our NATO allies we remain committed to deterrence while promoting greater stability in the region.

Q: (Inaudible).

MR. KIRBY: Yes, sure.

Q: And why are the Russians developing nuclear capable hypersonic missiles but the United States is not making nuclear --

MR. KIRBY: You'd have to ask Vladimir Putin why he's chosen to go that route. We've chosen as a matter of policy to develop non nuclear hypersonic capabilities and that's -- and that's what we're focused on.

Q: Russians have these nukes, shouldn't the United States?

MR. KIRBY: Lucas, I'm not going to get into a policy debate over what Putin is doing and why he's doing it. That is -- that is for -- the Russians should have to answer for that. That's a great question that somebody should pose to Vladimir Putin in Moscow.

What I can tell you is we're focusing on the non nuclear capabilities of a hypersonic technologies and we're moving out on that.
 
 
When I said right after New START China will build a similar sized force because we’ve made it cheap to be our nuclear equal I was a conspiracy nut.
Whole lot of silos for 260 warheads given that many of them are road mobile or sub-launched. Hmmm....
 
Super heavy type ICBMs, you are thinking? Or just that they have a lot more than 260 strategic warheads.
 
Super heavy type ICBMs, you are thinking? Or just that they have a lot more than 260 strategic warheads.
Definitely the latter but possibly the former too. Missile silos aren't that cheap to just randomly build unless most of them are housing missiles, MIRV'd missiles. START need to finish.
 
Quite likely, though it is still remotely possible that they are planning to put in a few ABM birds of some type in among the ICBMs.
 
Follow up story
To repeat the GBSD better have a large upload potential and we should soon announce that not only are we accelerating the W87-1 warhead upgrade we are announcing the new W94 warhead for beyond 2030 built on a new ultra-efficient warhead production line.
 
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Follow up story
To repeat the GBSD better have a large upload potential and we should soon announce that not only are we accelerating the W87-1 warhead upgrade we are announcing the new W94 warhead for beyond 2030 built on a new ultra-efficient warhead production line.
"Peaceful Rise"
 

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