Posted on 01/31/2017 6:13:38 AM PST by Mariner
China flight tested a new variant of a long-range missile with 10 warheads in what defense officials say represents a dramatic shift in Beijing's strategic nuclear posture.
The flight test of the DF-5C missile was carried out earlier this month using 10 multiple independently targetable reentry vehicles, or MIRVs. The test of the inert warheads was monitored closely by U.S. intelligence agencies, said two officials familiar with reports of the missile test.
The missile was fired from the Taiyuan Space Launch Center in central China and flew to an impact range in the western Chinese desert.
No other details about the test could be learned. Pentagon spokesman Cmdr. Gary Ross suggested in a statement the test was monitored.
"The [Defense Department] routinely monitors Chinese military developments and accounts for PLA capabilities in our defense plans," Ross told the Washington Free Beacon.
The test of a missile with 10 warheads is significant because it indicates the secretive Chinese military is increasing the number of warheads in its arsenal.
Estimates of China's nuclear arsenal for decades put the number of strategic warheads at the relatively low level of around 250 warheads.
(Excerpt) Read more at freebeacon.com ...
Even if we start development today, the first Pershing equivalent would not be deployable until the mid to late 2020s. We also no longer have a validated warhead design that we can put on them any more, thanks to the unilateral cuts Obama made and his destruction of the knowledge base, which had started under Bush.
Put it to you this way - under Bush, it was discovered that we no longer knew how to service the warheads on nuclear Tridents. They had to call in the few, then 80-ish year old engineers still alive that worked on them to come help. Those guys are mostly dead now and the Pershing warheads are reportedly a different design.
There are actually defense systems that can take down a released MIRV on the way down. That’s why the Soviets actually armored theirs and the Russians continue to do so. The catch is that thanks to the Dems, we either built enough to make a difference in a massed attack or sometimes when we did they canned the program.
Could it be infiltrated with C4\Semtex carrying critters?
#DayOfTheMole
With ten warheads you get eggroll.
By the way I am probably one of the very few Freepers who worked around nukes and I'm not scared of them at all.
Weaponized Ebola, return of smallpox, and biological Attack via raccoon roundworm, avian flu, asteroids, and Muslims scare me a lot more.
...a single R-36M UTTKh missile could strike 10 various targets, including large population centers, as well as small military targets, spread over the area of 300,000 square kilometers...
Multiple independently targetable reentry vehicleAccuracy is expressed as circular error probable (CEP). This is simply the radius of the circle that the warhead has a 50 percent chance of falling into when aimed at the center.
Anti-ballistic missileCurrent tactical systems
United States of America
See also: Safeguard Program
United States Navy RIM-161 Standard Missile 3 anti-ballistic missile.In several tests, the U.S. military have demonstrated the feasibility of destroying long and short range ballistic missiles. Combat effectiveness of newer systems against 1950s tactical ballistic missiles seems very high, as the MIM-104 Patriot (PAC-1 and PAC-2) had a 100% success rate in Operation Iraqi Freedom.
The U.S. Navy Aegis combat system uses RIM-161 Standard Missile 3, which hit a target going faster than ICBM warheads.
These systems, as opposed to U.S. GMD system, are not capable of a mid-course intercept of an ICBM.
A new system, scheduled for deployment during 2009, is U.S. Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) system. It has a longer range, but it is not known if it will be able to intercept ICBMs.
Did you not read what I said? The Democrats killed off US systems that would have been capable of killing massed MIRV releases. Google Brilliant Pebbles for just one.
Also, the RIM-161 is capable of knocking down MIRVs after release, on their way down but long before they get into airburst range let alone surface detonation. That’s descent phase, not mid-course. But we still haven’t built enough of them.
“Alas, Babylon.”
The world has changed, Mr. Toad.
Do you really think China wants to invade the US? I don’t.
I know the Chinese. Their people have zero interest in war of any kind. Their leaders, like ours, might, but the people don’t.
1984: “We’ve always been at war with Eurasia.”
No but China wants SE Asia, Japan, Taiwan and PI. That they will take.
“No but China wants SE Asia, Japan, Taiwan and PI. That they will take.”
No, they won’t. They simply don’t have the military capital to pull such a stunt off.
But they will.
They also want that, but they want the world’s wealth. They are making all kinds of strategic investments in the US now (e.g., Hollywood) and they are oriented to prepare and fight for and in the long term.
There history is one of massive empire, and of course the globe has gotten much small in the last couple thousand years:
http://www.historytoday.com/michael-loewe/china%E2%80%99s-first-empire
basing China’s war policy on buying corporations would mean every nation is war nation as all nations buy large corporations. Heck, Japan bought most of Denver in the 1980’s. People claimed they were going to invade the US. Silly then as it is to claim China will do the same.
That’s a longer time than from JFK’s announcement to go to the moon, and man actually landing on the moon.
This is the sad reality of our industrial decay, brain drain and production outsourcing plus environmental lawsuit idiocy. Even without the last, we’d have to set up to make the tools that make the tools that make the tools that make the rockets - that is, unless you think that buying Chinese chips and machinery is a good idea for some reason.
Wonder if they are still using the Cray supercomputers and the Loral missile guidance technology that Clinton allowed them to buy.
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