Posted on 12/02/2016 7:46:53 PM PST by Mariner
China’s military conducted a salvo of 10 missile flight tests late last month in a show of force during the transition to the Donald Trump administration.
Chinese state media reported Thursday that the simultaneous flight tests of 10 DF-21 intermediate-range ballistic missiles were carried out in China.
The missiles “can destroy U.S. Asia-Pacific bases at any time,” the dispatch from the official Xinhua news agency reported.
The flight tests were disclosed by China Central Television on Nov. 28 and coincide with President-elect Donald Trump’s high-profile announcements of new senior government officials.
Disclosure of the missile salvo launch comes as Trump announced on Thursday that he will nominate retired Marine Corps. Gen. James Mattis as his defense secretary. Mattis is one of the Corps’ most celebrated warfighting generals.
Xinhua reported that the DF-21 is comparable to the U.S. Pershing II intermediate-range missile that used a two-stage rocket and aerodynamic reentry vehicle. The Pershing II was dismantled under the U.S.-Russian INF treaty.
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It would solve both the NORK problem and the delusion by China that the South China Sea is theirs.
Nevertheless, a single Arleigh Burke DDG could have splashed each and every one of these missiles before they released their warheads.
The Pershing nuclear capable missiles were dismantled 27 years ago due to the short range missile treaty with Russia. Now China has discovered this great technology, day late and a dollar short.
The Pershing IIs we scrapped in 1991 without a replacement?
Also, Japan would be very, very unhappy about nukes on their soil.
Actually, they figured out something else to do with them. DF-21s have the capability of being used as a nuclear-tipped ballistic anti-ship missile. They’re carrier-killers.
They put all ten of them in the air at the same time?
yep- all at once-
They claim to OWN —yes —OWN the majority of the south china sea!!
Lost in court- does not care- has THREATENED:
Taiwan
Japan
Vietnam
Philippines
What does barry soetero do?- throw a party!
duuuude... what me worry
sarc
These DF21 IRBMs can also be taken out by land based THAADs.
And when they deploy their ten, we deploy our thousand. Somehow the math does not seem to work out there, XI.
red
We only built six THAAD batteries.
One “Boomer” missle submarine could render Beijing irrelevant.
Six batteries = 9 x 8 x 6 = 432 missiles. That’s a good start. Apparently one battery is stationed in Guam and another in Hawaii (if you believe Wikipedia).
When I retired from aerospace in 2009, I was working on the propulsion side of that program. It works very well.
Yes - but the problem is that we can only protect six areas. Were we to put one battery on Japan and one on Taiwan, we’re going to have to leave two other places uncovered. That’s not necessarily so good.
More importantly, we *still* don’t have effective BMD systems coverage in the continental US itself.
Six batteries are deployed, but I’d bet that more are going to be ordered.
THAAD and Standard SM-3 aren’t intended to intercept ICBMs; they might work but only in restricted scenarios is my guess.
The currently deployed GBI BMD kinda sorta sucks based on what I’ve read from open sources. It was never intended to stop an all-out Chinese attack; only stop a limited strike or “GPALS”, and there would never be enough interceptors to even dent a Russian attack. They’re working on an improved kill vehicle, but it’ll take some years to deploy. Also, I don’t believe that any of these would work against an aggressively maneuvering RV; something that both the Chinese and the Russkis are probably developing.
Six batteries are all that were ordered and the DoD has said they have no interest in any more. More may be ordered under Trump, but as for now, six is all there are. Even if the Trump Administration does buy more there’s quite a lead time on them.
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