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China The Military

China Confirms New Hypersonic Nuclear Missile On 70th Anniversary (aljazeera.com) 187

hackingbear writes: In a large military parade led by President Xi Jinping to mark the 70th anniversary of the founding of the People's Republic, China's military has shown off a new hypersonic ballistic nuclear missile believed capable of breaching all existing anti-missile shields deployed by the United States and its allies. The DF-17, as the new missile is known, uses hypersonic glide vehicle technology also permits it to fly on a highly manoeuvrable trajectory, at extremely fast speed, at a much lower altitude just before delivering its warhead, defeating attempts to detect and intercept the weapon. The DF-17 is believed to be the first of its kind to reach operation status. In addition to DF-17, China also showed off a number of new weapons including the first official revealing of DF-41 intercontinental ballistic missile, with a reach of between 12,000 and 15,000 kilometers (7,400-9,320 miles), reportedly the longest in the world.
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China Confirms New Hypersonic Nuclear Missile On 70th Anniversary

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  • Great (Score:3, Insightful)

    by twocows ( 1216842 ) on Tuesday October 01, 2019 @02:07PM (#59258082)
    Because that's not terrifying
    • It's not especially terrifying because existing missiles can already get "through" the "missile shield", at least some of the time, and there's more than enough missiles out there to get in already. Nukes aren't stopped by SDI, they're stopped by MAD.

  • First strike weapon (Score:4, Interesting)

    by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday October 01, 2019 @02:12PM (#59258116)

    This is a first strike weapon and it's use should be considered accordingly. This is not a defensive weapon and has no place is a civilized world. It should be policy to respond to any launch of this weapon with our own nuclear arsenal.

    • by RightSaidFred99 ( 874576 ) on Tuesday October 01, 2019 @02:26PM (#59258204)

      Umm.. duh? I would assume that anyone who launches a nuke at us will get a response from our own arsenal. That's kind of how these things work.

      And it's not just offensive, it's part of a MAD policy. If your enemy thinks he can't knock down your missiles he's less likely to attack you. It's perfectly valid and not just first strike.

      • by Nidi62 ( 1525137 )

        And it's not just offensive, it's part of a MAD policy. If your enemy thinks he can't knock down your missiles he's less likely to attack you. It's perfectly valid and not just first strike.

        Or he just tries to put his own missiles so close to you that he can pull off his own first strike before you have a chance to react and launch your own.

        • That only works if they can be sure that they'll knock out all C&C and be able to keep it offline. For a good percentage of countries with nukes, that's not a safe gamble, and thus MAD still works.

          For the US and Russian in particular, this is not an effective strategy. For other countries it might be, but only if they don't have allies who are also nuclear capable. So....North Korea.

          • by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

            The US, UK and France all have submarine launched nuclear ICBMs. There are missile shields but they can't guarantee to get all the warheads. So MAD is preserved.

            This is a tactical weapon. It can take a conventional warhead, but for things like ships it's hard to guide such a fast missile to a moving target so a tactical nuke can be used instead.

            Russia already has them, and worse. India may have them, or will soon. The US is certainly developing them. Can't put that genie back in the bottle.

            • If you compare the speed of a ship to the speed of a missile, the ship represents a stationary target. And yet, a high speed warhead still has a hard time hitting it because the ocean is large and electronic counter-measures are a thing. Even a "tactical" nuke is going to have a hard time sinking an aircraft carrier. You'd have to use a full-size one, and what good is it? The whole world still burns down.

              The US spent over 20 years developing similar technology, and didn't actually build it.

              The Chinese are n

        • That's why we have ballistic missile submarines.

          It's pretty fucking tough for a well equipped peer navy to track them, let alone track them well enough to neutralize them.

          I'd wager the Chinese basically have no defense against that.

          • Is it possible for a US nuclear sub commander to launch missiles if he credibly believes that the US has been attacked? If not, then the subs aren't such a deterrence.
            • I'd wager that the crew is somehow authorized to do so without the need for any kind of launch codes from Washington.

              • It has widely been reported that all the US launch codes are all-zeros.

                Numerous Presidents have reportedly attempted to correct this matter, but none have succeeded.

                The military maintains the ability to fight. Being at the top of the chain of command isn't always good enough to get orders all the way to the bottom where they would finally be executed.

                It is part of the job of the nuclear submarines to avenge the nation if we're hit with a successful first strike, so don't expect actual "launch codes" that th

            • Clearly, you didn't you watch "Crimson Tide"?

              Despite having served in the Navy, I am not familiar with the launch protocols of subs as I was surface navy. Our ship was not nuke-capable (either to carry or launch).

              However, I would think that if a sub loses contact with C&C on all channels, that bad thing would surely follow.

            • I'm pretty sure I've read that there is a process for SSBNs to self-launch missiles. It's obviously convoluted to prevent accidental or rogue launches.

              I suspect there's some kind of system that won't decrypt local launch codes unless it fails some consecutive days of affirmative contact with command, and I'm also sure it requires active participation of several senior crew members.

              It wouldn't make sense to have a leg of the nuclear triad neutered by loss of remote command authority.

            • Is it possible for a US nuclear sub commander to launch missiles if he credibly believes that the US has been attacked?

              As a former submariner on one of those boats...

              Yes.

          • The Chinese have made claims to track our Pacific submarines with sensors on their commercial fleet of ships.
            • Sounds like a great system for tracking where we want them to think our submarines are.

              It isn't like you can do that at a distance.

              I don't doubt that there is a true story nearby, where they have some sort of sensor data from ships that they believe was a submarine. But it isn't the same thing.

          • by spth ( 5126797 )

            Yes. But China was not that successful in building their own ballistic missile submarines.

            This DF-17, when combined with the DF-ZF gives them the deterrent that they want against the US and Russia. It will give them confidence that no one will interfere if they do other countries what Russia did to the Ukraine.

          • Comment removed based on user account deletion
        • And it's not just offensive, it's part of a MAD policy. If your enemy thinks he can't knock down your missiles he's less likely to attack you. It's perfectly valid and not just first strike.

          Or he just tries to put his own missiles so close to you that he can pull off his own first strike before you have a chance to react and launch your own.

          That's silly, we have stealth bombers and of course we could pull off a first strike before anybody launched anything. But it is a silly checkbox statement; they still launch their counter-strike, the world still burns the same. If the US was going to do a nuclear first strike it would have happened in the 1950s.

    • by Nidi62 ( 1525137 )

      This is a first strike weapon and it's use should be considered accordingly. This is not a defensive weapon and has no place is a civilized world. It should be policy to respond to any launch of this weapon with our own nuclear arsenal.

      That's....kind of why people are worried about technology like this. It makes it harder to determine, in the case of a launch, if it was a real launch or accidental (and less time to communicate if accidental), and also makes it harder to defend against. If you know you can defend against a nuclear attack you might not launch your own because you don't want a nuclear war or to destroy half the planet, but if you know you can't defend against it then fuck it, launch them sumbitches, we're dead anyway. Big

      • Big, slow, dumb, single warhead missiles are much "safer" than small, fast, MRV-carrying missiles that can fly at low altitudes.

        You mean safer for the enemy, which, I do not think is a good quality for a weapon.

        If the enemy can defend against your nuclear attack, then it's like you do not have nuclear weapons at all, what's stopping them from invading your country?
        I agree about the time in case the launch is an accident - a faster missile leaves less time to react. However, I do not see the development stopping, unless there is some sort of international agreement to not have defenses against the "fastest acceptable" missiles.

        • Big, slow, dumb, single warhead missiles are much "safer" than small, fast, MRV-carrying missiles that can fly at low altitudes.

          You mean safer for the enemy, which, I do not think is a good quality for a weapon.

          Wait, you're commenting on this and you never even heard of MAD? Durrrrrr

          Safer for the enemy is not distinguishable from safer for you, or safer for Switzerland, or safer for your mom.

    • This is a first strike weapon

      Technically true but even it will not be fast enough to knock out US missiles before they could be launched. So that would just allow China to be the "winner" for all of a few minutes before the retaliatory strike wiped them out too and the rest of the world died more slowly under a radioactive cloud of a nuclear winter. Nobody can win a global, nuclear war and even those not taking part will lose.

      • and the rest of the world died more slowly under a radioactive cloud of a nuclear winter

        Don't be such a downer, Russia would be launching too, even if the French wuss out it is still going to be pretty good international coverage.

  • by Guyle ( 79593 ) on Tuesday October 01, 2019 @02:14PM (#59258140)
    I feel like we're living in a Tom Clancy novel now.
    • "Clown World" by Tom Clancy
      • I'm pretty sure that the Trump Presidency is what led up to the fall of the US government before SnowCrash, just remember to save your Kongbucks

    • I feel like we're living in a Tom Clancy novel now.

      I suspect the current events in America was co-written by Carl Hiaasen. Tom Clancy wrote the part about Chinese nukes, Hiaasen wrote in some of the parts about the politicians getting elected in the West recently.

    • Welcome back to the surface.

      No, it was already like this before you went down there. You simply forgot.

  • But the climate! (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Calydor ( 739835 ) on Tuesday October 01, 2019 @02:15PM (#59258142)

    While China showcases these weapons of mass destruction, remember that the bag of chips you're eating is literally killing the planet!

  • Tarrif (Score:5, Funny)

    by stephelton ( 967650 ) on Tuesday October 01, 2019 @02:16PM (#59258150)
    If we can't intercept them, we can at least tariff them..
  • History really does repeat itself.
  • by lordofshadows ( 6157906 ) on Tuesday October 01, 2019 @02:20PM (#59258174)
    Funded by all the Chinese junk you've purchased over the years
    • You mean the Chinese junk that our esteemed political class let flood into the country while dressing themselves with the flag and holding 10k per plate dinners for the robber barons?

      Yeah, some of us saw this coming and were called racist xenophobes for pointing it out.

  • Who cares (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Njovich ( 553857 ) on Tuesday October 01, 2019 @02:38PM (#59258266)

    Submarine launched missiles have been so capable for so long that anything else is close to irrelevant.

    • Yeah I was just thinking that in a nuclear war the only missiles that really matter are the submarine launched ones because they really cannot be pre-targeted. Presumably this is what North Korea is thinking too. But maybe they have variants of these missiles for their submarines too. Whatever. Ultimately it's hard to say who would 'win' in an all out nuclear war. The more interesting question is whether there would be anyone who would not lose. Unless the Chinese have also developed a 100% effective ICBM d

    • by spth ( 5126797 )

      China is still quite lacking in their ballistic missile submarine fleet.

      The DF-17 + DF-ZF can fill a similar role when launched from mainland China. The DF-ZF glider makes it very hard to intercept, the DF-17 gives it long range. The mobile launchers make it a second-strike cpability.

    • by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

      The nuclear angle is a red herring. These are designed to deliver conventional weapons and smaller tactical nukes.

      China has submarines and ICBMs. What it doesn't have is a powerful modern navy with a large fleet of aircraft carriers. These are highly effective against large ships and protect Chinese airspace.

      • The nuclear angle is a red herring. These are designed to deliver conventional weapons and smaller tactical nukes.

        They're not the first and won't be the last to realise that's a terrible idea. Both the USA and USSR (probably now Russia, I don't know if they've repeated the loop) realised that their ICBMs could equally well deliver conventional warheads and looked at dual mode unstoppable delivery platforms.

        Both backed away because by the time you fire an unstoppable potentially nuclear warhead, there's a go

  • Comment removed (Score:5, Informative)

    by account_deleted ( 4530225 ) on Tuesday October 01, 2019 @02:49PM (#59258324)
    Comment removed based on user account deletion
    • by Altus ( 1034 )

      yeah for the absolutely insane amount of money we spend on defense we really don't end up with a lot to show for it.

      Maybe.... just maybe... it has something to do the the "cost plus" contracts we keep giving out to a few companies to light huge bonfires of cash while they develop lousy tech.

      • It's not as if the US suddenly lost its deterrence suddenly. Just its ability to force China and Russia into an arms race. The US can't get its first strike capacity anymore the pressure for an arms race has decreased, despite the , what was it again ,1 trillion budget for new nukes which Obama approved.

    • Pretty much the same can be said about the m16. Sure, it doesn't have the stopping power of an ak47 and costs a lot more, but it has a much longer effective range and fires more accurately.

    • Anyone who sinks a US aircraft carrier had better be prepared for full on war. I don't think even China would risk that. Ultimately it is manufacturing capacity that wins real wars though and that is where China is king. So I am not sure anyone can actually win a war against China. They can out-manufacture ANYONE at least as things are currently.

      The US, UK, Germany, Japan, and Korea can still out-tech them, but we can't beat them at manufacturing. Of course as soon as one side launches nukes the war is basi

      • All China has to do is wait the US out. It doesn't need to do something as rash as use nukes.

        The US and the world market is massive house of cards waiting for the stabilizing effects of the petrodollar to wane completely.

        For China, it will have the infrastructure, the manufacturing base and the knowledge economy that comes with it, millions of men who will never have wives, and a highly censored society with no civil liberties. The perfect tool for conquest. Would the US really risk nuking China to prevent

      • Comment removed based on user account deletion
    • a plane that after 14 years has yet to be used more than twice by the US.

      The best use of a weapons system is never to need to use it. Of all the complaints about the F35, "we didn't get into a peer conflict where it was deployed" seems the most absurd.

  • Can't we please just rip off the bandage and get this over with already? You know it's going to happen
  • Mao murdered or caused the death of over 30mil Chinese people, due to starvation and oppression. Xi wants to be Mao2, but wants to beat the record for total murdered.

Technological progress has merely provided us with more efficient means for going backwards. -- Aldous Huxley

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