DF-16

China's DF-16 is a road-mobile, two-stage ballistic missile designed for conventional precision strikes against Taiwan and other targets across the western Pacific's first island chain.

Overview

The DF-16, or Dong Feng-16, is a road-mobile ballistic missile operated by the People's Liberation Army Rocket Force (PLARF). The United States designates it CSS-11. The US Department of Defense and CSIS classify the weapon as a short-range ballistic missile, while other publications place it at the boundary between short- and medium-range systems. Its generally reported 800–1,000 km range gives it substantially greater reach than earlier Chinese short-range missiles and places Taiwan, the Ryukyu Islands and US facilities on Okinawa within its conventional strike envelope.

The system combines two-stage solid propulsion with a five-axle transporter-erector-launcher and a reported payload of 500–1,000 kg. Published imagery has shown more than one reentry-body configuration, including finned designs associated with maneuvering-warhead variants. These configurations are intended to improve accuracy and complicate interception, although their demonstrated performance is not publicly established. Claims that the DF-16 can carry nuclear or multiple independently targetable warheads remain unconfirmed; The War Zone instead characterizes the family as intended exclusively for conventional missions.

The DF-16 is understood to be replacing much of the older DF-15 inventory in PLARF brigades. China has not exported the system, and neither its total missile inventory nor its production rate is publicly established.

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