New Chinese Nuclear Threat to US

China is for the first time keeping at least one nuclear-armed ballistic missile submarine constantly at sea, according to a Pentagon report - adding pressure on the United States and its allies as they try to counter Beijing's growing military.

The assessment of China's military said China's fleet of six Jin-class ballistic missile submarines were operating "near-continuous" patrols from Hainan Island into the South China Sea. Equipped with a new, longer-range ballistic missile, they can hit the continental United States, analysts say.

The Chinese subs are now being equipped with a third-generation missile, the JL-3, General Anthony Cotton, the commander of the U.S. Strategic Command, told a congressional hearing in March.

With an estimated range of more than 10,000 kilometres (6,214 miles) and carrying multiple warheads, the JL-3 allows China to reach the continental United States from Chinese coastal waters for the first time, the Pentagon report notes.

Timothy Wright, a defence analyst at London's International Institute for Strategic Studies, said U.S. forces could probably cope with the situation now, but would have to commit more assets in the next 10 to 15 years once the stealthier Type-096 patrols begin.

https://www.reuters.com/world/china...itary,continental United States, analysts say.

 

Yea, they only have 7 SSBNs, this is also known as a Type 094. And notice it is staying pretty close to their own shore.

To be honest, this is not all that impressive as the US has 14 Ohio class subs, and sails them all over the world. This to me sounds about as threatening as if the US was to announce they were going to sail an Ohio off the California coast.

And it also is rather telling that as typical, China almost never lets their Navy operate very far out to sea. As if they are either keeping them on a short leash, or they have yet to remove their water wings.

 

Keep ignoring indicators. Keep feeling totally safe. Ignore it if you hear a loud boom. It will mean nothing when your lights go out. And if you start feeling sick and your hair starts falling out... just take two aspirins and go to bed.

 

That their subs are no more of a threat than their silo missiles are?

To be honest, I have been living with this kind of threat over my head for almost 6 decades. I even remember seeing the nuclear missiles just a mile from my house where I grew up. I stopped worrying about them decades ago.

 

I Commanded a nuke Artillery Battery in Germany in the 1980's. It may be a little more real for me.
Yes, the threat has been around a long time. That doesn't do a thing to mitigate the threat NOW.
MAD (Mutually Assured Destruction) has kept the horror away very effectively. MAD is still there. But the situation has changed a bit. Now we have a true madman (Putin) making the threats. And a religious zealot in Iran has his finger on the switch too... a zealot who cares nothing for THIS life... just getting to PARADISE... and killing "infidels" (that's us) is the key for entrance.
Xi is in the mix, but you're probably right about him. I don't see him risking Peking. He's neither a madman nor a religious zealot.

 

But it still makes no difference. If they are in port or 100 miles out to sea, it literally makes no difference as the missiles can hit the US either way. And they are still on the other side of the ocean.

It's not like it was during the Cold War when Soviet subs and nuclear bombers were frequently seen just off our national waters.

 

There are no... or at least very few ICBM's that aren't nuclear. As long as the war remains conventional, long versus short supply lines will govern who wins and who loses. No war was ever won from the air without nukes. It takes a Soldier standing on the ground to determine who owns the land. Unoccupied enemy territory is still... enemy territory.

 

No war was won from the air ever.

Not even WWII in the Pacific. That helped nudge Japan into capitulating, but only after years of hard fighting that led to the loss of almost all of their island holdings. If not for the hard fighting from 1942-1945 where they lost ever major engagement they would never have surrendered.

 

Nukes ended WWII. We were ready to invade Japan at the cost of millions of lives. Nukes ended it before that was needed. I often reflect on that. Those nukes were tiny compared to what we have available today.

 

Nukes didn't end WW2.

If you are interested in learning more about it, this documentary brings an amazingly detailed/historical account of the situation, events, communication and reality on the ground in Japan.

 

The nukes sure did.It was the nukes that forced the mporor to "endure the unendurable" and surrender. We were planning an invasion and the nukes made that invasion unnecessary. Japan was on its knees but nowhere near surrendering. They were planning to fight street to street, house to house. The bombs made that strategy impossible.

 

Guess you didn't watch the video...

le sigh.

 

I am a student of history... not one video. Do you have another video that says Roger Maris forced the French out of IndoChina?

 

Well the video isn't just one dude with an opinion. He brings receipts. If you watched just 2 minutes of the video you would have gotten a taste of the deep dive he does to analyze the situation with transcripts, reports and quotes.

Quotes like;

"It is my opinion that the use of this barbarous weapon at Hiroshima and Nagasaki was of NO MATERIAL ASSISTANCE in our war against Japan. The Japanese were already defeated and ready to surrender because of the effective sea blockade and the successful bombing with conventional weapons." William D Leahy - Fleet Admiral and Chief of Staff to the presidents Roosevelt and Truman.

or

"The Japanese had, in fact, already sued for peace before the atomic age was announced to the world with the destruction of Hiroshima and before the Russian entry into the war. THE ATOMIC BOMB played no decisive part, from a purely military standpoint, in the defeat of Japan." Chester W Nimitz - Fleet Admiral

or how about a little known fellow named Dwight Eisenhower (General at the time)
"The Japanese were ready to surrender and it wasn't necessary to hit them with that awful thing."

Now you could do yourself a service and watch the video as he details what motivated us into using the atomic bombs and why we felt the need to drop it directly ontop of a ****ing hospital surrounded by schools...but if you wanna keep with the claim "we dropped it to force Japan to surrender" That's fine. It's wrong. But w/e.

 

Ok, its obvious that the video is a left wing anti-atomic weapons piece just from your post.
"It is my opinion that the use of this barbarous weapon..." There it is. HIS OPINION that atomic weapons are barbarious...
THAT IS HIS MESSAGE!
"No material assisatnce in our war against Japan"... There it is. An opinion so biased and so unreasoned that he actually thinks that the destruction of two major cities had no influence on the termination of the war.
BAD NUKES! BAD! WORTHLESS!
That video is a modern condemnation of today's nukes. In reality, Japan was still not going to surrender after Hiroshima. Their own nuclear program experience told them that the materials were too difficult to manufacture and the US could only make ONE. They were still fully committed to "KETSU GO", the national commitment to fight to the death defending Japan on its own soil.

When the second bomb hit Nagasaki, it looked like the US might destroy Japan without an invasion and KETSU GO would never have a chance to defend Japan. So the Emporer, decided to "endure the unendurable and suffer the unsufferable". He realized that an invasion would defeat Japan but that Japan and its culture would live on. These new bombs, however, would OBLITERATE Japan.

Nukes have become evil so the actual events of history have been rewritten. Like so much of history is now being rewritten by the wokists.

 

They are quotes from 3 highly ranked officers during the war that were privy to the situation regarding japan. That is their opinion. Furthermore...if you bothered to watch the damn video, it goes though transcripts which details our actual motivation in dropping the ****ing things.

 

Well... you should notify West Point about that video. USMA teaches us that the bombs were the proximate cause of Japan's capitulation... and a whole slew of other lessons to be learned from that which followed.

 

Yes and unfortunately the reality of history the documentation and transcripts of various conversations of those in power detail otherwise.

 

I'll stick with the Academy. The pro and con nuke argument will go on forever like abortion, religion, and so many more moral conflicts.

 

I thought you were a student of history? And here it is a documentary detailing parts of history that happened of which you do not want to know about. I have 3 very prominent officers at the time quoting that they all felt that Japan was ready to surrender BEFORE the nukes were dropped.

You can't erase history or pretend it didn't happen with window dressing or ignorance. Your first clue regarding the motivation of using the bomb is acknowledging that it wasn't dropped on a military target. It was dropped on a hospital, surrounded by schools.

 

No, they did not. They only helped them realize the war was over but it did not "end it".

Tell me, if the US somehow had nukes in 1942 and dropped 2 of them on Doolittle's Raid, do you think Japan would have suddenly surrendered?

By the time the bombs were used, Japan had been driven out of most of their pre-war island possessions. They had been driven out of the Philippines, most of New Guinea, China, Burma, and Okinawa. They were in the process of losing the Dutch East Indies, Manchukuo, and with the Soviets joining in were about to lose a lot more than that.

As I already said, move the bomb up to April 1942 and have Doolittle drop it in his raid. Would that have ended the war? If the answer is no, then the use of the atomic bomb did not end the war. It simply helped give them an excuse to finally end it.

 

For every source you cite, I can cite a source that says differently. Its a political discussion. You are presenting "what ifs" and I am looking at what actually happened.

Your Doolittle Raid question is meaningless. "What ifs" are specious arguments. What if Martians invaded Hoboken? I don't know and I don't care. I deal with facts. Things that actually did happened or are happening.

Yes, by the time the bombs were dropped, Japan was on its knees. Absolutely. But you don't understand their culture. Do you understand the religious patriotism they had? Ever hear of "Kamikaze" or their naval counterparts? The majority of the population shared that dedication. The Emporer barely survived his radio broadcast of "enduring the unendurable". The Army attacked his residence that night.

Nothing short of millions of dead in a full up invasion, or those two nukes, could have made Japan surrender.

My dad was actually on the staff working out the details of the invasion. He would have been part of it.

The choice was about two million dead (from both sides), or use the nukes. The nukes were a much better option.

 

In that I actually do agree.

However, it was not the nukes so much that they had already been severely beaten and had lost almost all of their "empire", including territory they had held for over 100 years.

The nukes were just a part of the decision, but not the only thing. Nukes alone would not have ended the war, and they only worked because they were already on the ropes and looking for a way out.

Nukes in 1942 when they were winning would have been 100% pointless.

 

The Japanese population was ready to die fighting us in the streets... hose to house. Kids were trained in school to do just that and mom and dad helped. They were ready to die.
They wre not looking for a "ay out". They were looking to die for their deity, the Emporer. And millions would have gladly doen so. In ever citya nd town in Japan. As a 21st century American you cannot understand.
They were NOT lloking for a "way out". DEATH BEFORE DISHONOR... a phrase you cannot fathom.
When the nukes meant that nothing would be left... no country... no society... no culture... no nothing... it tiped the scales.
Nukes in 1942? Who knows... probably like Martians in 1943 or time travelers arriving in 1944 or the Lady of Fatima returning in 1945... possibly akin to Ghenghis Khan being rborn with an army of millions in downtown Kenosha... all BS... so who knows. Again... I deal with reality... not drug induced insanity.

 

Leahy was pretty goofy. Before the atomic bombs were dropped, all he had to say about them is "I'm an explosives expert and I assure you those things will never work".

Japan did not sue for peace until after we had dropped atomic bombs on both Hiroshima and Nagasaki (both military targets).

And Nimitz was one of the guys who reacted to Nagasaki by pressing to have the next atomic bomb dropped on Tokyo.

Japan was free to surrender whenever they wanted.

They chose to surrender only after we had nuked them twice.

I am already educated on this matter. We were motivated by a desire to make Japan surrender.

Both atomic bombs were dropped on military targets.

It's not wrong. That is in fact the reason why we dropped the atomic bombs.