China Solidifies “Air Leg” of Nuclear Triad Weapons Systems

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By Kris Osborn – President & Editor-In-Chief, Warrior Maven

China is now taking substantial and decided steps forward to solidify the air-leg of a “nuclear triad” with the addition of a nuclear-capable H-6N bomber, according to the Pentagon’s recently released 2021 report on China’s military capability.

 
China is known to operate road-mobile ICBMs and of course arm its Jin-class submarines with JL-2 and emerging JL-3 nuclear capable missiles, yet it is only in recent years, if not months, that the People’s Liberation Army Air Force has resurrected its airborne leg. This quite simply means that China will operate with an ability to hold targets around the world at risk of nuclear attack from the air as well as from the ground and sea.

PLAAF: Airborne Leg of Nuclear Triad

“In October 2019, the PRC signaled the return of the airborne leg of its nuclear triad after the PLAAF publicly revealed the H-6N as its first nuclear-capable air-to-air refuelable bomber,” the Pentagon report, called “Military and Security Developments Involving the People’s Republic of China 2021,” states. “The H-6N features a modified fuselage that allows it to carry externally an air-launched ballistic missile (ALBM) that may be nuclear capable.”

Activating a nuclear-capable bomber such as the longstanding H-6N, soon to be joined by the new stealthy now-in-development H-20 bomber, is a key part of a large-scale Chinese nuclear weapons modernization and expansion campaign. 

ICBMs

This effort, as detailed by the Pentagon report, is placing the People’s Republic of China on track to have “at least 1,000 warheads by 2030, exceeding the pace and size the DoD projected in 2020. This number of warheads will spread across a range of weapons systems to include road-mobile ICBMs with multiple reentry vehicles, submarine-launched nuclear weapons, aircraft and new ground-based ICBMs launched from silos now under construction.