JL-3

The Julang-3, usually written JL-3 and sometimes called the JL-2C, is a Chinese submarine-launched ballistic missile, the third generation of the Julang line of strategic sea-based missiles. GlobalSecurity.org says it was developed on the basis of the land-based DF-41 intercontinental missile and that it outranges the JL-2, with estimates passing 8,000 kilometers and possibly exceeding 10,000, enough in principle to reach the continental United States from Chinese home waters. Reports of its payload disagree: one source suggests five to seven warheads, which the same account treats with skepticism, while others report three warheads of larger yield. The page states that it entered service with the People's Liberation Army Navy in 2016 aboard the Type 094A submarine and may later be carried by the larger Type 096 boats. It also records a first reported test in late November 2018, and notes that earlier press accounts of tests in 2014 conflict with one another, so dates and performance figures here should be read as reported and not as confirmed.