China's nuclear arsenal perhaps world's largest – up to 10,000 warhead

[LETHALFORCE]

Re: China's nuclear arsenal perhaps world's largest – up to 10,000 war

China has enough material to make almost 1000 warheads if they see need to do so, but the article is crap.

Maybe small ones?

 

[roma]

Re: China's nuclear arsenal perhaps world's largest – up to 10,000 war

Lower level radiation weapons need higher accuracy and advance structure design, better delivery missile, which means more expensive. By the way, its maintenance cost may be even higher! With only around 100 warheads in India's pocket and 250 possesed by china, neither can afford this "pre-emptive nuclear warfare".

im aware of the ( obvious) need for higher accuracy and thus better delivery systems but not of the higher maintenance cost so I
thank you for your info ... it is appreciated

.... i had originally thought that as the generation of electricity via nuke systems is "cheaper" and more convenient eg cleaner as well than conventional methods, thus these qualities would also carry over into the weapons arena .....but apparently not .... :thumb:

arrrrgh ! so india cant afford it ? ....ok !

ah..... alas

 

[LETHALFORCE]

Re: China's nuclear arsenal perhaps world's largest – up to 10,000 war

im aware of the ( obvious) need for higher accuracy and thus better delivery systems but not of the higher maintenance cost so I
thank you for your info ... it is appreciated

.... i had originally thought that as the generation of electricity via nuke systems is "cheaper" and more convenient eg cleaner as well than conventional methods, thus these qualities would also carry over into the weapons arena .....but apparently not .... :thum


arrrrgh ! so india cant afford it ? ....ok !

ah..... alas

It is better to stockpile fissile material then empty warheads. Look at japanese stockpile in graph I posted
No nuclear weapons officially but one of the highest fissile material stockpiles.

 

[Broccoli]

Re: China's nuclear arsenal perhaps world's largest – up to 10,000 war

Maybe small ones?

American W88 and W87 primaries are claimed to be using only 2,5kg of Pu, and that is very small amount of Pu for a primary. Problem is that no one knows for sure if Chinese warhead primaries are made of HEU or Pu, If they use HEU then it means their warhead diameters are large and harder to make small enough to be used as MIRV. Pu is better material to make smaller warheads because you need less of it... that of course means warheads diameter will be smaller and you get more of them inside one missile. HEU is safer (less toxic material) than Pu when you handle warheads in peace time, but it's inferior if you plan to have more than three MIRVs per one ICBM/SLBM.

Bob Peurifoy, a retired Sandia National Laboratories scientist, thinks that now that fewer weapons are needed aboard each missile, uranium offers a viable alternative to plutonium.

According to a calculation Peurifoy provided to the Journal, as much as six times as much uranium and high explosives would be needed for his uranium bomb. With other changes to the weapon, he calculated a 13-inch diameter plutonium primary could be replaced by a uranium alternative about 20 inches in diameter. That would allow three uranium warheads to be carried by a Trident II submarine missile, according to Peurifoy. The missiles now carry eight plutonium warheads.

Jeffrey Lewis "¢ Uranium Reliable Replacement Warhead (URRW)

China halted production of Pu already in 1990s and factories were converted for civilians use, and that means they cannot produce anymore Pu for their bombs. But Chinese are still manufacturing HEU and actually opened another manufacturing facility this year. What if China's latest warheads use HEU primaries instead of Pu? Their first thermonuclear weapons used HEU primaries so it's not unknown primary material for PRC, and early 1990s tests suggested they were able to develop prolate/peanut/watermelon shaped primaries similar found in US made W88 warhead (US weapons use Pu).

If Chinese made a decision to use HEU instead of Pu they have fooled most people and are still manufacturing material for weapons.

 

[Broccoli]

Re: China's nuclear arsenal perhaps world's largest – up to 10,000 war

This suggests that amount of HEU needed for primary could be low as 5kg.
http://www.nrdc.org/nuclear/fissionw/fissionweapons.pdf

 

[Alpha1]

Re: China's nuclear arsenal perhaps world's largest – up to 10,000 war

China has very limited fissile material less than India. This article is total bs

yes India has most Nukes.

 

[Alpha1]

Re: China's nuclear arsenal perhaps world's largest – up to 10,000 war

Bad news for india

 

[CCTV]

Re: China's nuclear arsenal perhaps world's largest – up to 10,000 war

I don't think China has the most nuclear warheads in the world.
I think China has barely enough warheads to over American towns that have more than 50000 population.

PS. The state media HuanQiu said China will increase several times of warhead from now.