Report estimates Chinese nuclear stockpile at 350 warheads

Defense News via Yahoo ^ | December 14th, 2020 | Mike Yeo

[M Kehoe]

Hi.

Let’s say for shits and grins that the Chicoms have 350 deliverable nukes to U.S. assets or allies.

Let’s say that none of the Chicom nukes are intercepted by any defenses.

I would guess 10% don’t launch. Another 10% don’t make it on rentry. Another 10% don’t detonate. Guessing here...

Maybe 295 nukes hit thier targets. Don’t know the yields.

It would be horrific, but China would not survive as a civilization...unless Joe and the Ho were in charge.

5.56mm

[montag813]

Humans are such an odd, reckless species. If I ran the Galactic Federation, I wouldn’t want us to join either.

[Mariner]

In 2009, the Office of Naval Intelligence of the United States Navy listed the Type 094 as being slightly noisier than Project 667BDR (NATO reporting name: Delta III) from the late-1970s,[17] some of which were in service through 2015 with the Russian Navy.[

There’s a sonar operator in Pearl Harbor right now listening to all of them once they leave port. The USN has a Virginia class on it’s tail at all times.

When they are able to leave port.

[DCBryan1]

That’s sufficient to eliminate half the US population.

Bullshit. Flawed study. Even the entire Russian arsenal couldn't do that.

Even the loss of every single carrier would not be worth the loss of half the US population..

Defeatists and unrealistic. You need to study up on counter force and counter value targeting strategy and stop watching movies.

[CodeToad]

Just remember, Democrats are the only who have used nuclear weapons.

[Zhang Fei]

[The DOD has a LONG track record of grossly overestimating enemy capabilities, the better to get more money out of Congress...]

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It underestimated them in Korea, Vietnam, Afghanistan and Iraq. It estimates what it needs to get the job done, with a margin of error. That margin is necessary because the enemy is usually pretty good at keeping secrets.

In this case, it’s peaceniks coming up with the smallest numbers they can manage, given that their goal is unilateral American nuclear disarmament. It’s significant because the true number is likely higher, in much the same way that a liberal report of voter fraud will typically be the tip of a very large iceberg.

[Mariner]

“In this case, it’s peaceniks coming up with the smallest numbers they can manage, given that their goal is unilateral American nuclear disarmament. “

Nay.

In this case the “peaceniks” estimate more than the Pentagon.

[DCBryan1]

Pantex Plant could crank out 10 B61s a week with I-40 being VERY busy between Kirkland AFB nuke storage and Pantex.

We have a couple of thousand warheads in reserve (and thankfully Trump upgraded the SRAM and TLAM W69 and W84 warheads recycling.

[shanover]

The “Atomic Scientists” are a bunch of leftist crackpots who put these idiotic “bulletins” out at politically convenient times. This is the year I have lost ALL respect of “science”.

[Seruzawa]

Are there actually any atomic scientists at the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists? What does “Atomic Scientists” even mean?

These are the clowns that put up that stupid doomsday clock.

[Secret Agent Man]

i disagree

if they took all ourncarriers out it proves they are ready to take all of us out

so we hit them with nukes, they’ve alreasy proven they ready to do the insane

[Zhang Fei]

[Defeatists and unrealistic. You need to study up on counter force and counter value targeting strategy and stop watching movies.]

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I’m admittedly a dilettante, but right wing academic journal articles from the 70’s and 80’s are where I’m getting my info from. With nukes, the temptation is to go for a knockout punch, which means a saturation strike on day 1, with a reserve force for anyone who gets any ideas about joining in the fun, as well as for new targets of opportunity within your adversary’s boundaries. We hit China’s missile sites with nukes, they nuke our cities. That was the old calculation before effective hit to kill technology. Today, we can probably intercept the vast majority of their missiles. But if even a handful of the megaton nukes get through, that’s tens of millions of US dead.

I don’t think it’s defeatist to say we’re not going to fight a nuclear war over the loss of a capital ship. In fact I think it’s defeatist to say that the only way we fight China successfully is through a politically impractical nuclear first strike. Ultimately, we need to guard against a Chinese first strike by raising our warhead and missile count. Post Cold War, it was sized for a Russia with 10% our economic heft. China’s at 75% and closing on parity.

[Zhang Fei]

[The Japanese seriously underestimated U.S. resolve. ]

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Japan’s mistakes extended way beyond that. “Defeat your adversaries in detail” is a basic strategic principle. In its over-confidence, Japan decided to fight everyone at the same time. It could have left Pearl Harbor and the Philippines alone, thereby keeping the US neutral, while scarfing up British, Dutch and French possessions in the region. Instead, it dragged the US into the war.

[Lonesome in Massachussets]

The U.S. was embargoing oil to Japan prior to December 7th, 1941, and the Japanese either had to comply with U.S. demands, and accept a humiliating loss of face, or fight. On December 8th, 1941 there was more oil in Hawaii than in Japan. (If the Japanese had attacked oil storage and handling facilities they would have set back the U.S. more than they did by attacking obsolete battleships.)

[Tallguy]

“I would guess 10% don’t launch. Another 10% don’t make it on rentry. Another 10% don’t detonate. Guessing here...”

There’s another factor: fratricide. You have to carefully coordinate a nuclear strike so that the detonations are spaced out in time and distance. If not the first nuke to explode disables the subsequent warheads. The US, and presumably the Soviet Union, figured this out in the mid-60’s because they continually worked the targeting problem. China never had many nukes and even fewer intercontinental deliver options. Purely a 2nd strike arm. Now they have to consider it. Have they?

[Zhang Fei]

[The U.S. was embargoing oil to Japan prior to December 7th, 1941, and the Japanese either had to comply with U.S. demands, and accept a humiliating loss of face, or fight. On December 8th, 1941 there was more oil in Hawaii than in Japan. (If the Japanese had attacked oil storage and handling facilities they would have set back the U.S. more than they did by attacking obsolete battleships.)]

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The Dutch East Indies had all the oil they needed. Even without the oil, they could have muddled through their conquest of China. The Mongols took 60 years. The Manchus took decades. The Japanese were in a hurry because of hubris. Heck - even the Nationalists took almost 30 years to come within striking distance (until this was interrupted by Japanese invasion) of conquering China, and these were technically their ethnic kin.

[Lonesome in Massachussets]

Try this: https://nation.time.com/2012/12/07/pearl-harbor-2-0/

Excerpt:

The “infamy” of December 7, 1941, is deeper than most Americans have ever imagined. The Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor was almost certainly the result of a Soviet plot—“Operation Snow”—carried out by Harry Dexter White, a figure of enormous influence in the Roosevelt administration and a known Soviet spy.

// end excerpt

Harry Dexter White almost certainly deliberately provoked the Pearl Harbor attack to bring the U.S. into the war on the Allies’ side. Stalin probably knew it was going to happen. He withdrew 12 divisions from Siberia along the Manchurian border, Divisions that spearheaded the Soviet counter offensive outside of Moscow on - December 7th, 1941.

White was also behind the “Morgenthau Plan” which was publicized in September 1944, to reduce Germany to an agrarian state after the war. Omar Bradley said the publication of the plan was worth 30 divisions to the Germans. The problem for the Soviets was that the vast majority of Germans preferred to lose to the Western allies rather than the Soviets. In order to give the German soldiers an incentive to resist the Americans and British, Stalin hatched the “Morgenthau Plan”.

[fuente]

There Island carriers must be neutralized...and the ChiComs primary act will be to destroy the carriers and regional facilities to gain air superiority. It will be their PRIMARY attack mode with EWC and cyber.

[Mariner]

China will never achieve air superiority over the US.

Not even in the South China Sea.

Without regard to their planning.

[The Pack Knight]

Exactly. China’s only option vis-a-vis the US is a “minimum deterrence,” countervalue strategy, and all of their work is aimed at maintaining the somewhat shaky credibility of that minimum deterrence.