The DOD report formally identifies the new road-mobile ICBM under development as the DF-41, rumored at least since 1997 to be in development.
The missile might “possibly [be] capable of carrying multiple independently targetable re-entry vehicles (MIRV),” according to DOD. That obviously doesn’t mean that the DF-41 will carry them; the DF-5A has also been assessed for years to be capable of carrying MIRV without ever doing so.
The report lends some support to
the assessment – although not explicitly – that deployment of the DF-31 ICBM has ceased after only 5-10 launchers deployed in a single brigade.
Instead, the focus of the road-mobile ICBM modernization appears to have shifted to the DF-31A ICBM, of which the DOD report predicts that more will be deployed by 2015.
The liquid-fuel DF-3A (CSS-2) IRBM is not mentioned in the 2014 report, an indication that the 3.3-megaton weapon system has finally been retired after 42 years in service. The last DF-3A-equipped Second Artillery brigade – the 810 Brigade north of Dalian in the Liaoning province –
was seen in May 2014 to have been converted to the solid-fuel medium-range DF-21 MRBM.
