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Originally Posted by Olefin
I agree completely with you - look at their delivery systems that they had - basically bombers that had very little chance of penetrating Soviet air space and if they Soviets got off their shots first most likely no surviving long range missiles - a few Soviet cities in the Far East might have been within their capabilities but no way do they hit the vital areas around Moscow or Kiev or Leningrad or Baku
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Have to disagree with you.
The Chinese have the DF-4 and DF-5 ICBM.
- DF-4 (from China) can reach to US bases in the Pacific and Alaska, and across all of Europe to the Rhine. It is either launched from a cave or garage, or a silo. There are not many of these.
- DF-5 (from China) can reach anything except for South America. The DF-5 is usually deployed in pairs, in underground tunnels, and are rolled out and fueled before launch. For each missile, there are about a dozen fake tunnel entries (lest someone try to target them before use.
- China also would have had a few Long March 2A or 2C orbital launch vehicles to allow them to drop something anywhere. On the other hand, the facilities capable of launching the Long March are few - and well known.
However, the Chinese have few ICBMs missiles compared to the US or Soviets - a couple dozen DF-5s and fewer DF-4s. Unlike the US & USSR (who stock enough to destroy the other side even if hit first, as well as nukes for tactical (as opposed to strategic) uses, Chinese nukes are meant as a regional deterrent against against other nations with no or few nukes.
Now, having said that, this is not a nuclear force whose use would bring the USSR to its knees. If all survived to strike, the Chinese nuclear force is a fraction of the NATO/USSR exchange - and I doubt all of the Chinese units would have survived long enough to strike back - and some number were used operationally against Russian units in the field.
And that's before we discuss a "robust ABM defense"...
Uncle Ted