Weapons

The Next China Military Threat: The World's Biggest Mobile ICBM?

Russia’s RS-28 “Sarmat” ten-ton payload liquid-fueled intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) will be the world’s largest nuclear strike missile when it enters production, as early as 2021. Reportedly it may carry up to fifteen 350 kiloton warheads, or up to twenty-four of the new “Avangard” nuclear-armed Hypersonic Glide Vehicle (HGV) warheads.

But since mid–2017, Chinese sources have revealed details of an even larger twenty-ton payload solid-fuel space-launch vehicle (SLV) that could form the basis for what might become the world’s largest “mobile” ICBM.

In May 2017, the now closed Chinese website ChinaSpaceFlight.com offered the first depiction of the family of solid-fuel SLVs to be offered by the China Aerospace Science and Industry Corporation (CASIC). Seen in this image for the first time was the twenty-ton payload Kuaizhou-21, or KZ-21, and the KZ-21A, which adds two side boosters.

Likely since the middle of the last decade, CASIC had been given the go-ahead by the Chinese government and the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) to develop a line of solid-fuel SLVs. These would compete for domestic and international launch services with the China Aerospace Science and Technology Corporation (CASC), which builds China’s family of Long March liquid-fueled SLVs and ICBMs, and its latest DF-31, DF-31A, and DF-41 mobile solid-fuel ICBMs.