Defense News
01/16/2012
Report: Chinese Sub
Test-Launches ICBMs
By Wendell Minnick
TAIPEI - China
test-launched six Julang-2 (JL-2) submarine-launched ballistic missiles (SLBMs)
sometime before the new year from a submarine in the Bohai Sea, according to
reports by a local daily newspaper.
Chinese fishermen near the
test found one of the missile's booster rockets, said the reports in Qilu
Wanbao, a newspaper based in Jinan, Shandong.
Such a capability could
eventually allow China to launch a surprise attack on U.S. cities with
nuclear-tipped ballistic missiles. The tests came as U.S. President Barack
Obama announced plans to pivot U.S. defense strategy toward the Asia-Pacific
region.
If the reports are true,
the JL-2 test launch "shows that China is well advanced toward the
development of a sea-based nuclear deterrent capability," said Sam
Bateman, a submarine specialist at the S. Rajaratnam School of International
Studies at Nanyang Technology University in Singapore. "A fully operational
capability, however, is still some years away, but the Chinese are catching up
rapidly."
The JL-2 is an
intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) based on the land-based Dong Feng 31
(DF-31) ICBM. The test is believed to have been conducted from a new Jin-class
(Type 094) nuclear-powered, ballistic nuclear missile-carrying submarine
(SSBN).
"It is the first time
China has apparently developed a working sea-based nuclear-armed ICBM,"
said Bud Cole, a specialist in Chinese naval capabilities at the National War
College in Washington, D.C. "They have at least three [or] four Jin-class
submarines capable of launching the JL-2, which has the range to reach a good
portion of the U.S."
U.S. analysts report that
the JL-2 has a range of 8,000 kilometers. One Jin submarine can carry 12 JL-2
missiles.
Gary Li, an analyst at
U.K.-based Exclusive Analysis, said if the tests were successful, "this
would mean that China now possesses a proper strategic sea-based nuclear
deterrence force."
Three or four Jin-class submarines
are the minimum needed for nonstop strategic patrols.
Bateman said the
deployment of a sea-based nuclear deterrent would also help spur India to
develop a similar capability.
Sometime in early January,
Chinese fisherman off the coast of Shandong province in northeast China found a
spent first-stage solid-rocket booster for the JL-2, according to the Qilu
Wanbao. Local media reports indicate the booster was brought to shore at
Changdao County, a chain of islands in the Bohai Sea, where it was retrieved by
the military.
The spent booster matched
photos and specifications of the JL-2 booster, right down to its light blue
coloring and guidance rails, Li said.
The Chinese-language
reports indicate the booster was 4 meters long and 2 meters in diameter.
"Printed inside the
casing were the words 'support part' and '-2,'" Li said.
There is little publicly
known about the Jin-class SSBNs, including how silent they are, Li said.
"Chinese subs are
notoriously noisy, and more importantly, how many improvements had been made
since the first generation of nuclear submarines, which suffered from terrible
radiation leakages."
This is one reason the
Chinese navy began relying on diesel-electric submarines for hunter/killer
flotillas, he said.
Command-and-control issues
are still question marks, said Mark Stokes, a China military analyst at the
Project 2049 Institute in Washington.
"Once the system is
operationally available, what People's Liberation Army organization would store
and handle the JL-2 missiles and nuclear warheads that would be deployed on and
launched by Navy submarines?"
One possible answer is
that the Second Artillery Corps would store, transport and load mated missiles
and warheads onto submarines, while the navy would operate and maintain the
vessels themselves.
Future capabilities also
interest Stokes. The defining characteristic of a modern military power is the
capability to neutralize, paralyze or kill with precision and minimal
collateral damage, he said.
"Just imagine the
implications of a future submarine-launched DF-21D anti-ship ballistic missile,
also dubbed the aircraft carrier killer, or a maritime variant of the DH-10
land-attack cruise missile," he said.
China's improved nuclear
deterrence capabilities will force the U.S. to increase military oceanographic
research in and around bastions in the East Asian seas, such as the Bohai Sea
and the South China Sea, where China's SSBNs might be deployed, Bateman said.
"Submarine-launched
nuclear ballistic missiles have the inherent advantage over land-based systems
in that, due to the difficulties of tracking and detecting the launching
platform, they provide an assured second strike capability to respond to a
nuclear attack," Bateman said.
The U.S. traditionally has
had a "triad" approach to launching nuclear-tipped missiles composed
of silo-launched, B-52-launched, and fleet ballistic-launched missiles (FBM),
Cole said. China is adding FBMs to its ICBM land-based component creating a
"dyad" composed of land-launched DF-31s and sea-based JL-2s, he said.
However, land-based ICBMs, such as the DF-31, "are a
lot less expensive and easier to control than sea-based versions," Cole
said. "But apparently Beijing believes having a dyad is worth the
cost."
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