VIGIL CONSILIUMSearch
Context. Not headlines.

Missile / precision strike

Conventional ballistic and cruise missile capability

The land-based conventional missile capability that features in every assessment of the regional balance — recorded here as a broad category only, with no targeting-relevant detail.

Dongfeng / Changjian familiesChinaSuccessive families fielded from the 1990s to the present.

Status as of
2026-07
Last reviewed
2026-07-20

AssessmentLow confidence

Recognition context, not a stat sheet. The catalogue covers major publicly documented systems relevant to the conflicts Vigil covers — not an exhaustive order of battle. No quantities, availability or current allocations are recorded.

The recordWhat this system is, where it comes from, who operates it and which of Vigil’s modules it is relevant to — with the evidence each of those rests on.

FieldedEvidence: Reported
Silhouette · not to scale

Record

FamilyDongfeng / Changjian families
VariantsDF-15; DF-16; DF-17; DF-21; DF-26
OriginChina
ManufacturerChinese state defence industry
EraSuccessive families fielded from the 1990s to the present.
Appears inTaiwan Strait

Conflict relevance

This is the catalogue's single record for this system. It is relevant to the module below; each module's Force Atlas shows how it is used there.

Battlefield role

Long-range conventional strike. This is the capability class most responsible for the shift in regional military assessments over the past two decades, because it complicates the operations of any force in the theatre.

Strengths

Large and diverse inventory across families and ranges, produced by a mature industrial base — widely assessed as the most consequential single element of Chinese military modernisation for this theatre.

Limitations

Entirely untested in conflict. Publicly reported corruption investigations reaching senior levels of the Rocket Force from 2023 raise real questions about readiness and procurement quality that outside analysts cannot resolve. Missile inventories are also finite in ways rarely reflected in popular analysis, and reload and sustainment capacity is not publicly known.

Branch & service operators

Assessed as of2026-07Last reviewed2026-07-20