Tweet
The power of nuclear weapons make it very easy to destroy any country in the world. The nuclear war strategy of all major powers is to ensure the mutual destruction. China is not excluded. Since US and Russia are so scared of that their nuclear arsenals will be knocked out by enemy's first strike, or in such a desire of initiating the first strike, they simply increase the nuclear weapon stock in desperation. And most of these weapons are not for attacking enemy directly, just make the number big so the leftover from the first strike can still kill the enemy.
For Chinese, they are scared too, but they can't afford to join the nuclear race, due to technical and economic reasons. Chinese nuclear development started from Russian transfered, far less advanced technologies, although they made fast progress from that baseline. Russian didn't tell Chinese everything, so when they began to develop more advanced stuffs, they ran into difficulties. Assisstance is both magic and mistake, which will help you and mislead you at same time.
From official sources, China tested its first missle in 1960, fired the first battle MRBM, DF-2 in 1964, first IRBM, DF-4 in 1971, and all of them were liquid fueled. The decision was made in Mar, 1965 to develop liquid fuel ICBM, but not succeeded until 1980, when DF-5 was tested successfully. The long time shows how many problems they encounted, part of reason was due to the chaos in Mao's last years. Their main problem in developing ICBM should be in missle guidance and vehicle re-entry areas, since the longer the range, the bigger the error and higher the speed. And they had to solve the problem themselves.
China established the fire on warning mechanism in 1984, and in 1987 Deng declared that China obtained the second strike capability. This may be due to the tunnel networks were basically completed at this time and missles in service should be all liquid fuel based.
As for solid fuel missle, from official sources we know the research began in 1956, and the official development started in 1962, there were no any help from Russia in this field. Chinese encounted lots of technical problems in propellant, but by 1966, they managed to cast a 5 foot diameter solid fuel engin and made it work. Decision was made in Mar, 1967 to develop the solid fuel strategic missles, but not one design even came onto the paper until 1978. After 1980, development accelerated fast, and technical breakthrough was achieved in 1984. Most technical difficulties in manufacture, storage, transporation, launch, quidance control were overcome and whole integrated system were tested in success in Apr/May of 1984. Due to the achievement, this year Chinese military decided all their future strategic nuclear missles should be solid fuel based.
In May, 1985, China's first solid fuel mobile MRBM DF-21 was tested, improved version was tested in May, 1987. Same year in Sep, first solid fuel SLBM was tested successfully.
Unofficial sources said DF31/DF41 series solid fuel ICBM started their development in 1986, which sounds reasonable, regarding the technology progress at that time. The first DF31 picture appeared from a US spy stellite photo in 1993(I saw it before), since then more and more photos emerged, and it came public in 1999. For China 10 year seems quite long to develop a solid fuel ICBM, because all the technologies were available. Maybe its development waited for the MIRV progress. China launched 3 satellites from a single rocket in 1981, and repeated it for many times later. It is said that its first MIRV test was performed in 1986, which is never confirmed. But we know China conducted may times small yield nuclear tests, their last one has the yield less than 5,000 ton TNT, which may prove their progress.
From the above, we can conclude that China didn't have any ICBM before 1980. Since then to early 1990s, very limited number liquid fuel ICBMs may be deployed, because China's liquid fuel ICBM is a long due program. Shortly after China succedded in developing it, its solid fuel missle technology became muture, so it was quite unnecessary to deploy them in large-scale. In 1970s and 1980s, Soviet Union is China's main enemy, and Chinese DF3/DF4 can cover most of part of Soviet land, eliminated the need to make large number of DF5 family.
10-30 is quite a reasonable number of Chinese deployed ICBMs before middle of 1990s. With the DF31 series development completed, this number will be increased quickly to meet China's nuclear war strategy.
For Chinese, they are scared too, but they can't afford to join the nuclear race, due to technical and economic reasons. Chinese nuclear development started from Russian transfered, far less advanced technologies, although they made fast progress from that baseline. Russian didn't tell Chinese everything, so when they began to develop more advanced stuffs, they ran into difficulties. Assisstance is both magic and mistake, which will help you and mislead you at same time.
From official sources, China tested its first missle in 1960, fired the first battle MRBM, DF-2 in 1964, first IRBM, DF-4 in 1971, and all of them were liquid fueled. The decision was made in Mar, 1965 to develop liquid fuel ICBM, but not succeeded until 1980, when DF-5 was tested successfully. The long time shows how many problems they encounted, part of reason was due to the chaos in Mao's last years. Their main problem in developing ICBM should be in missle guidance and vehicle re-entry areas, since the longer the range, the bigger the error and higher the speed. And they had to solve the problem themselves.
China established the fire on warning mechanism in 1984, and in 1987 Deng declared that China obtained the second strike capability. This may be due to the tunnel networks were basically completed at this time and missles in service should be all liquid fuel based.
As for solid fuel missle, from official sources we know the research began in 1956, and the official development started in 1962, there were no any help from Russia in this field. Chinese encounted lots of technical problems in propellant, but by 1966, they managed to cast a 5 foot diameter solid fuel engin and made it work. Decision was made in Mar, 1967 to develop the solid fuel strategic missles, but not one design even came onto the paper until 1978. After 1980, development accelerated fast, and technical breakthrough was achieved in 1984. Most technical difficulties in manufacture, storage, transporation, launch, quidance control were overcome and whole integrated system were tested in success in Apr/May of 1984. Due to the achievement, this year Chinese military decided all their future strategic nuclear missles should be solid fuel based.
In May, 1985, China's first solid fuel mobile MRBM DF-21 was tested, improved version was tested in May, 1987. Same year in Sep, first solid fuel SLBM was tested successfully.
Unofficial sources said DF31/DF41 series solid fuel ICBM started their development in 1986, which sounds reasonable, regarding the technology progress at that time. The first DF31 picture appeared from a US spy stellite photo in 1993(I saw it before), since then more and more photos emerged, and it came public in 1999. For China 10 year seems quite long to develop a solid fuel ICBM, because all the technologies were available. Maybe its development waited for the MIRV progress. China launched 3 satellites from a single rocket in 1981, and repeated it for many times later. It is said that its first MIRV test was performed in 1986, which is never confirmed. But we know China conducted may times small yield nuclear tests, their last one has the yield less than 5,000 ton TNT, which may prove their progress.
From the above, we can conclude that China didn't have any ICBM before 1980. Since then to early 1990s, very limited number liquid fuel ICBMs may be deployed, because China's liquid fuel ICBM is a long due program. Shortly after China succedded in developing it, its solid fuel missle technology became muture, so it was quite unnecessary to deploy them in large-scale. In 1970s and 1980s, Soviet Union is China's main enemy, and Chinese DF3/DF4 can cover most of part of Soviet land, eliminated the need to make large number of DF5 family.
10-30 is quite a reasonable number of Chinese deployed ICBMs before middle of 1990s. With the DF31 series development completed, this number will be increased quickly to meet China's nuclear war strategy.
Comment