052/052B Class Destroyers

pkj said:

But given that it's 10+ DDG hulls that still have good service lives, it seems (to a layman like me) to be a bit short-sighted to not make the extra investment to bring them up to something closer to the new 054B standard instead of the older 054A.

Thanks for all the responses. I will not post any more questions on this topic

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If they're going through an MLU, that typically means that they have already gone through half of their service life.

Is it worth the additional cost to bring them up to Type-054B standard, or is it better to use a new hull?

They can run the production lines for the Type-054A sensor and weapons loadout out for a bit longer, given this will be at minimal cost and they'll be stopping production soon anyway.

Remember for ASW work against submarines, you want to use the smallest and least valuable ship you can.

pkj said:

Especially when PLAN has stopped building 054As and is building more modern 054Bs

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Who said that China has stopped building 054A(G)s? Just take a look at Hudong-Zhonghua's new site on Changxin Island.

We are looking at 10 or more new 054AGs joining the PLAN in the next couple of years.

pkj said:

I do not know the weight/pwr of the new 2-faced AESA vs the old 2-faced 382. But this does not seem like an engineering barrier that PLAN can't overcome if they wanted to make the investment.

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Engineering barriers certainly are heavily involved, because trying to make those DDGs into the 054B-standard essentially means having to dismantle and rebuild much of the superstructure, alongside the need to revamp the entire power generation and distribution systems onboard to support those modifications. That comes with tons and tons of new engineering work which has to be done in order to make that happen.

It's definitely not as easy as taking off and putting on pieces of a LEGO model.

pkj said:

But given that it's 10+ DDG hulls that still have good service lives, it seems (to a layman like me) to be a bit short-sighted to not make the extra investment to bring them up to something closer to the new 054B standard instead of the older 054A.

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The oldest DDG class before the 052Cs that's still in active service (i.e. 052s) only has around 10 years of active service lives left in them. Why bother upgrading them to the 054B-standard when they are about to be retired soon anyways?

The same applies with all the other DDG classes in the category. In fact, the newest DDG class before the 052Cs (i.e. 051Cs) has around 20 years of service lives left - They are pretty much halfway through their lifespans anyway.

Here is just a simple reply to those who said the MLU is not neccessary or unbright or unimpressive by the looks.

MLU inlvoved a lot of work on things we do not see by just looking at the ship, i.e. the brain, eyes and ears of the warship. It is far more important than those impressive huge array of out-size weapons and guns. Russian cruiser Moskva was very impressive with its weapons, but it was half blind, half deaf and was not able to think fast. And it went down to bottom of the sea...

MLU made an old man young again, move fast and more alert.