China is securely covered with a strategic shield
Since the creation of its own nuclear weapons The military-political leadership of China considered ballistic missiles (BR) as the most effective and reliable means of delivering them to the target. In nuclear planning, the main preference was given to the missile forces, which are considered the main instrument for deterring aggression against the PRC. The PLA Missile Forces is the new name for the Second Artillery Corps, which they received on December 31 2015. At the same time, their status was raised. From a separate kind of PLA, they were transferred to an independent type of the armed forces of the PRC. As Chinese military experts note, these changes reflect the primary importance of the PLA Missile Forces in restraining aggressive inclinations from likely opponents, the main of which are unequivocally called the United States.The composition of these troops still included both strategic and operational and operational-tactical missile systems.
Politically, the missile forces are designed to deter potential adversaries from carrying out a large-scale attack on the PRC with the use of weapons of mass destruction (WMD) or high-precision conventional weapons. On the military side, their main task is to inflict attacks on enemy targets in conjunction with the use of nuclear or conventional high-precision weapons (WTO) in conjunction with naval strategic nuclear forces and long-range aviation. They also have one of the main roles in the missile attack warning system (SPRN), the constant monitoring and control of near-Earth space, the destruction of enemy spacecraft and BR, the conduct of space reconnaissance, and the functioning of a multi-level information and communication network and communication systems , control, reconnaissance, target designation and computer systems.
CONTROL SYSTEM AND DEGREE OF BATTLE READINESS
In the course of the reform of the state defense system carried out in the PRC, the system of command and control of the Armed Forces, including the PLA Rocket Forces, was significantly changed. The latter were removed from subordination to the PLA General Staff and became directly subordinate to the Central Military Council (PRC) of the PRC. As a result, by reducing the excess link in the vertical structure of command and control of troops, the time taken to pass orders issued by the Central Military District of the People's Republic of China is reduced. If earlier these orders were sent via special communication channels to the appropriate department of the PLA General Staff, now they immediately go to the headquarters of the Missile Forces. It should be emphasized that the prerogative of issuing an order for the combat use of the Missile Forces, as well as for bringing them to the appropriate level of combat readiness, belongs exclusively to the Central Military District of China as the main control body of the country's defense system. This order specifies specific targets for launching missile strikes, their coordinates, the launch time of the missiles for each formation, the intervals of launches for each calculation. Instructions are given on the routes of movement of mobile ground-based missile systems (PGRK) to areas of dispersion after they launch rockets.
The system of bringing the Missile Forces into various degrees of combat readiness as a result of the reform, apparently, has not been changed. There are three of them, as before. The third degree involves the implementation of the planned daily activities of the troops, their personnel, the usual mode of training, training, classes. The second degree of the combat readiness of the PLA Missile Forces is announced in the event that the PRC of the PRC receives information about the possibility of a potential enemy using nuclear weapons or a conventional WTO. It requires that the BR calculations be ready for launch. Mobile ground-based missile systems and command and control systems must be ready for advancement to their positional areas and deployment in prearranged underground shelters.
The highest degree of combat readiness of the Rocket Forces is the first. Upon receipt of the order of the PRC of the People's Republic of China on bringing them to the first stage of readiness, calculations of missile systems must be deployed and be fully prepared for the immediate implementation of missile launches upon receipt of the order of the PRC PRC on their use. After the launch of the missiles, the mobile launchers and the systems serving them are dispersed and await reconnaissance on the results of the strikes.
CONCEPT OF APPLICATION
The Chinese military-political leadership believes that China, as a great power of the modern world, should have a full-fledged triad of nuclear forces, supplemented by high-precision means of destruction in the usual equipment. In quantitative and qualitative terms, this potential must maintain a certain amount of primarily nuclear weapons in a state of combat sufficient to inflict unacceptable damage to the aggressor in a retaliatory strike, that is, after the enemy’s massive use of nuclear or high-precision weapons on objects in the PRC. Due to the still rather low effectiveness of the missile attack warning system (information means for detecting missile launches), their tracking systems, targeting means of destruction, as well as the means of attacking missiles and their military units, the use of PLA Rocket Forces is planned only in retaliation.
Such a retaliatory strike should almost simultaneously involve all of China’s nuclear weapons survivors after such a sudden disarming strike - intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs), submarine ballistic missiles (SLBMs), land-based, sea-based and long-range cruise missiles. Intermediate, medium and short-range ballistic missiles must be deployed across the territory of East Asian states, where military bases and enemy facilities are located.
Due to the unevenness of the components of the triad of nuclear forces that currently exist in the PRC, the main role in the retaliatory strike of retribution is assigned to the PLA Missile Forces. The main objectives of such a retaliatory strike are the following: to suppress the enemy’s will to continue military operations, to disorganize the system of his state and military control; make it impossible or substantially complicate the conduct of an adversary of any military operations; maximally weaken its economic and military-industrial potential necessary to continue the war.
All this ultimately must convince the political leadership of the enemy that it is impossible to win the war and force him to abandon its further continuation.
At the same time, the main political task of the Chinese nuclear potential remains to deter a potential adversary from direct aggression against the PRC using both weapons of mass destruction and high-precision weapons of destruction in conventional equipment.
Chinese experts believe that the threat of the use of China’s nuclear potential could force the enemy to abandon the use of nuclear weapons in the course of unfavorable military operations with conventional weapons.
With the creation of a highly effective missile attack warning system (EWS), Chinese experts do not rule out the use of nuclear weapons in a counter-strike. Some Chinese experts in the discussion plan raise the question of the legitimacy of a preemptive strike against targets in the enemy’s territory when they receive intelligence information about an impending attack on China with large-scale use of nuclear or high-precision weapons in conventional equipment.
SELECTING RESPONSE PURPOSE GOALS
In the interests of causing unacceptable damage to the enemy by a substantially reduced outfit of nuclear weapons that survived a sudden disarming strike by the latter, a set of targets is determined to be the first to be defeated in a retaliatory strike. These include: the political and economic centers of the enemy, including major cities. It is believed that nuclear strikes against megacities, which will lead to a massive death of their inhabitants and the destruction of urban infrastructure, will help break the morale of the population and undermine their will to continue the war. Among the priority objectives are also the most important for the life of the state infrastructure, which ensure its ability to wage war.A special place in the list of targets subject to primary destruction is occupied by potentially dangerous objects, namely: chemical enterprises, nuclear power plants, reservoirs, hydroelectric power plants, dams, oil and gas storages. The destruction of such objects many times increases the scale of destruction and leads to even greater casualties among the population.
With the US deploying a global missile defense system capable of neutralizing the potential of China’s nuclear-missile weapons remaining in operational capability after a sudden disarming attack, the main targets of this system are also included in the number of immediate retaliatory targets.
In the context of the implementation of measures to increase the military stability of China’s nuclear forces, indicated in the documents and materials constituting its nuclear doctrine, the PRC focuses on the deployment of mobile missile systems. Every year in the PLA Rocket Forces grouping, the number of mobile ground-based missile complexes of new modifications increases. Already in the short term, combat missile complexes (BZHRK) are expected to enter into service with the Rocket Forces. According to the American edition of the Washington Free Beacon, citing the US intelligence services, 5 December 2015, the Chinese Armed Forces conducted a test launch of the Dongfeng-41 ICBM from a mobile railway installation.
Chinese experts are paying serious attention to the problem of enhancing the security of rocket complexes, both in terms of increasing their combat resistance to the effects of nuclear explosion factors, and from the position of increasing secrecy for space reconnaissance of a potential enemy. There are underground tunnels or specially equipped mine workings and natural caves, including those in which during the liberation struggle against the Japanese aggressors, there were underground tunnels or specially equipped mine workings and natural caves in permanently deployed areas (at points of permanent dislocation). assembly of aircraft and other weapons. In such underground shelters are placed boxes for PGRK and service systems.
Work is underway to enhance the security of mine launchers, and for this purpose the transport and launch containers for ICBMs are being improved. The reinforced road system available in the Missile Forces, which is designed for the movement (transportation) of super-heavy equipment, includes railroad tracks from the locations of the missile forces (their units) to their positional areas, equipped with special shelters disguised as civilian objects. Many railway lines are duplicated. The method of movement (transportation) of rocket systems is selected depending on the state of the road network after the enemy has used a nuclear or conventional high-precision weapon.
With the adoption of combat railway missile systems (BZHRK), which are currently in the testing phase, the railways of the PRC Rocket Forces will be connected to the country's common railway network, which will allow them, under the guise of ordinary civilian freight trains, to move throughout China. imperceptible to enemy space intelligence.
Great importance is attached to the questions of operational camouflage and measures to mislead the potential enemy. The objects of the PLA Missile Forces, the positional areas of ballistic missiles and the ways of advancement to them are disguised as civilians. During the exercise, the rocket complexes move at night, the radio silence mode is observed, the radar and other electronic means are turned off, the operation of which can be opened by means of space reconnaissance of a potential enemy.
Serious measures are also being taken to increase the reliability of protecting the facilities of the PLA Rocket Forces against enemy sabotage groups. Both optical-electronic means and technical equipment of the security and intelligence units are being improved, robotic security systems and unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) are being introduced.
In China, R & D is actively conducted to create new and improve the already available means of overcoming missile defense. This issue has received the most serious attention when developing new missile systems. Chinese experts believe that the most promising areas in solving the problem of overcoming missile defense are: reducing the upper (active) segment of the flight trajectory of ICBMs; an increase in the number of separable warheads of individual guidance (MIRVIH); the creation of new types of military equipment with a difficult to predict flight path; equipping warheads with false warheads and electronic countermeasure equipment; the use of various reflectors that impede the detection of ICBMs or their combat units.
In all these areas, China has achieved very impressive success. One of the latest and most significant achievements in this area is the creation of a super-high-speed apparatus ("glider") WU-14 in the People's Republic of China, the successful test of which was conducted over the territory of the country 9 January 2014. According to American experts, it is launched by an intercontinental ballistic missile, then it is separated and continues to fly in the planning mode at an altitude of approximately 100 km from the surface of the earth. On the way to the target, the hypersonic “glider” maneuvers in near-earth space at speeds that are almost 10 times the speed of sound, that is, approximately 11 000 km / h (according to other data, 8 to 12 Mach) radar. As American experts note, the promising US missile defense system is designed to intercept targets flying at speeds up to 5 Mach. That is, WU-14 can confidently overcome the American missile defense system, while remaining invulnerable.
COMPOSITION OF PLAH ROCKET TROOPS
According to the London International Institute for Strategic Studies, the PLA Missile Forces at the end of 2015 was armed with just 458 ballistic missiles.
Of these, 66 intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs), namely: DF-4 (CSS-3) - 10 units; DF-5A (CSS-4 Mod 2) - 20 units; DF-31 (CSS-9 Mod 1) - 12 units; DF-31A (CSS-9 Mod 2) - 24 units Medium-range missiles 134 units, namely: DF-16 (CSS-11) - 12 units; DF-21 / DF-21A (CSS-5 Mod 1 / 2) - 80 unit; DF-21C (CSS-5 Mod 3) - 36 units; DF-21D Anti-Ship Ballistic Missiles (CSS-5 Mod 5) - 6 units. 252 short-range ballistic missiles, including: DF-11A / M-11A (CSS-7 Mod 2) - 108 units; DF-15M-9 (CSS-6) - 144 units DH-10-54 units ground-based cruise missiles
According to the US intelligence community, there are about 75 – 100 intercontinental ballistic missiles, including DF-5A (CSS-4 Mod 2) and DF-5B (CSS-4 Mod 2) mine-based, in service with the PLA Missile Forces; DF-31 (CSS-9 Mod 1) and DS-31A (CSS-9 Mod 2) mobile ground-based missile systems with a solid-propellant intercontinental ballistic missile and DF-4 intermediate-range ballistic missiles (CSS-3). This arsenal is complemented by the DF-21 (CSS-5 Mod 6) PGRK with a medium-range solid-fuel ballistic missile.
DF-5 (CSS-4) is an intercontinental silo-based liquid fuel rocket. This rocket is the first of the line of Chinese intercontinental ballistic missiles. It has been in service with the PLA Missile Forces since 1981. The launch weight of the DF-5 (CSS-4) is 183 t. It is equipped with a single nuclear warhead weighing 3900 kg and a power 1 – 3 Mt, and the range of the specified ICBM is 12 thousand km. This ICBM is the first in the arsenal of Chinese nuclear weapons that can hit targets throughout the United States. The inertial guidance system provides it with sufficient accuracy for a nuclear warhead of such power. Circular Probable Deviation (CVD) is 800 m. Subsequent modification of the specified MBF DF-5A (CSS-4) is equipped with a missile defense system. It has higher accuracy and increased range. Its KVO is 300 m, and the range with a warhead weighing 3200 kg reaches 13 thousand km. A part of this type of MBR is equipped with 4 – 6 detachable self-guided head units (MNR) with power of 150 – 300 кт each.
On the basis of the DF-5 ICBM, the Long March launch vehicle -2С was developed, which was widely used in the process of implementing the PRC space program. The DF-5 and DF-5A missiles are routinely removed from service, and they are replaced by the mobile DF-31 / DF-31А (CSS-9 Mod 1 / CSS-9 Mod 2). In the short term, part of the DF-5 MBR is expected to be replaced by the super heavy combat railway missile systems (BZHRK) DF-41 (CSS-X-10) with a 2500 kg weight unit and a range of 12 – 15 thousand km. Under test. DF-31 - the first Chinese solid-fuel three-stage mobile intercontinental missile (8 000 km). It is equipped with a single head weighing 1050 kg and power 1 Mt. In the modification of the DF-31A, the rocket has a longer range compared to the base version, reaching 11 700 km, which allows it to hit any point in the United States. It is equipped with 3 – 4 RGCH IN weighing up to 1750 kg.
The Mobile Launcher (PU) of the DF-31A MBR is an improved copy of the SS of the Soviet SS-20 mobile ballistic missile on the chassis of the Minsk Automobile Plant (MAZ). This chassis has a number of advantages compared to the Chinese development platform used in the basic modification of the DF-31, namely, it allows you to travel on unpaved dirt roads, which significantly increases the mobility of the missile system, has a greater capacity and stability.
The arsenal of Chinese ICBMs is complemented by DF-4 intermediate-range ballistic missiles (CSS-3). A rocket of this type is equipped with a single 2200 kg warhead and has a range of 4750 km.
Chinese specialists pay particular attention to the development of high-precision weapons systems in conventional equipment. These are ballistic and cruise missiles capable of delivering pinpoint strikes against small and well-protected targets. Currently, the PLA has already adopted a whole series of ballistic and cruise missiles in conventional equipment. In the zone of their reach are US military bases in Japan, including Okinawa, and South Korea. The mobile high-precision medium-range DF-26 mobile missile troops recently adopted by the PLA Missile Forces are capable of striking targets of the American base on the island of Guam.
Of particular note is the fact that Chinese developers managed to create mobile precision ballistic missiles DF-21D and DF-26, which have no analogs in the world today, specially designed to destroy large surface ships, including aircraft carriers. DF-21D missiles entered service with the PLA Missile Forces and are already deployed in combat positions. Their range of destruction of marine and ground small targets reaches 2000 km. More effective missiles of this class, the DF-26, began to enter service. In the future, these missiles are supposed to be equipped with hypersonic combat units. In such equipment, the rocket can cross the American missile defense system and hit sea and coastal targets at a distance of up to 4000 km. For DF-21D, China is developing a split warhead with individual guidance units. One rocket can hit not one, but two or three ships or small ground targets. In addition to satellites, long-range over-the-horizon radar will be used for sustained targeting. High-precision ballistic missiles pose a serious threat to the US carrier strike groups (AUG) in the western part of the Pacific Ocean.
EXPERTS SPEND ON EVALUATION
Some Russian and foreign experts question the estimates of the number of Chinese nuclear missiles in the annual issues of the London International Institute for Strategic Studies (IISS), the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI) and the reports of the US Department of Defense to Congress. In particular, this point of view is held by such famous Russian experts as Alexander Khramchikhin and Alexei Arbatov. The latter, in an interview published on the pages of the weekly Arguments and Facts, argues that it is possible to speak with confidence only about 300 with small warheads that are visible from satellites on land and sea. But according to some estimates, in fact, China already has more 1000 warheads. The Chinese dug huge tunnels thousands of kilometers long in the central regions of the country (!), This was done by the “second artillery” building battalion, as they called their Strategic Missile Forces. So, in these tunnels can be hidden tens or hundreds of mobile rocket launchers, which can not be seen from space.
In our opinion, these doubts, confirmed by quite weighty arguments, are difficult to dispute. China really possesses a powerful potential for the production of both the nuclear materials necessary for the creation of nuclear ammunition and their means of delivery. Simple calculations of the capabilities of the PRC for the production of nuclear ammunition and ballistic missiles by years lead to the conclusion that the estimated quantitative composition of the nuclear arsenal of the PRC, based on US space intelligence data, is significantly underestimated. The real amount of China’s nuclear missiles seems to be no longer behind the Russian and American ones. With its scientific, technical and industrial potential, for several years China will be able to catch up with both Russia and the United States both in quantity and quality of nuclear weapons and their means of delivery.
In confirmation of this conclusion, it should be noted that in the conditions of the creation of the United States multi-echelon global missile defense system, such an increase in China’s nuclear weapons looks quite justified. China’s nuclear doctrine, as noted above, implies the use of nuclear missiles, mainly ICBMs, in retaliation after the enemy has launched a massive disarming strike. In this case, the number of surviving nuclear weapons directly depends on their total number. In the presence of 75 – 100 ICBMs after such a strike, the remaining small amount of them can be intercepted by the US global missile defense system. Thus, the deterrence effect of a limited in number Arsenal of nuclear strategic range weapons is minimal.
With the strengthening of its economic and military potential, Beijing is increasingly decisively protecting national interests in the international arena. Anticipating the possibility of harsh resistance to such a course by China from the United States, which under certain conditions does not exclude the provision of forceful pressure on the PRC, including nuclear blackmail, and even a sudden disarming strike with nuclear or conventional high-precision weapons, the Chinese leadership pays serious attention to solving the problem of improvement. their nuclear potential to curb such aggressive inclinations. At the same time, the focus is on expanding opportunities to neutralize the increased threat from the United States in connection with the development of American advanced strategic systems, such as space attack weapons, high-precision weapons and a layered global missile defense system.
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