antiterror13
Brigadier
For redundancy reason, I think the 40MW version is for bigger warship with 2 or 3 units of them. I think 2 unit of gas turbine is more desirable than only 1
Next Generation DDG and FFG thread (after 055, 052D, 054B)
- Thread starter ACuriousPLAFan
- Start date
For redundancy reason, I think the 40MW version is for bigger warship with 2 or 3 units of them. I think 2 unit of gas turbine is more desirable than only 1
Just to clarify some things:
For FFGs, having only one medium/high-power marine gas turbine engine is sufficient for CODOG or CODAG propulsion systems. No FFGs need to travel in the high-30s of knots or even 40+ knots of speeds.
(A side note: The Talwar and Nilgiri FFGs (with 2x LM2500 gas turbines per ship) are odd cases which should not be emulated, given the fact where China already has superior options in both gas turbine and diesel/diesel-electric engine domains.)
Meanwhile, for DDGs and CGs, having more than one medium/high-power gas turbine engines is a definite must. Otherwise, there wouldn't be enough power to propel the warships at their required speeds.
Additional mentions:
Back when the 055 DDG's design was finalized, the CGT-25M is the highest power marine gas turbine engine available to the designers. That's why the 055 DDGs needs 4 of them to achieve the necessary speeds (at dash).
But now, with more powerful marine gas turbine engine options becoming available (e.g. CGT-30M, CGT-40M, CGT-50M, QC400 and QC500) alongside technological advancements in marine propulsion systems (e.g. electric motors and IEPS), reducing the number of gas turbine engines per ship becomes the viable path in order to free up more hull spaces for other purposes. This means that going forward, only two medium/high-power marine gas turbine engines would be sufficient for PLAN DDGs and CGs.
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Larger gas turbines are more compact per unit of power and one gas turbine has less parts than two. This means one large gas turbine will be cheaper to manufacture and easier to maintain than two smaller ones.
Modern frigate designs like FREMM and Mogami all seem to be moving this way. The only reason it did not happen with destroyers is lack of engines with enough power.
There is no point in having redundancy on the boost engines since if any of them fails you won't operate at peak velocity. The redundancy is important for the smaller cruise engines.
Modern frigate designs like FREMM and Mogami all seem to be moving this way. The only reason it did not happen with destroyers is lack of engines with enough power.
There is no point in having redundancy on the boost engines since if any of them fails you won't operate at peak velocity. The redundancy is important for the smaller cruise engines.
One large GT solution does not consider the optimal distribution of power demand. Warships need many power levels for various work loads. Type 45's broken-down was due to precisely this reason, GT was too powerful and diesels were too low causing GT to be used more often than expected.
I would not use ships of other navy as a standard to argue for PLAN because those ships may be designed to spend more time in low speed and power even in their combat mode while the single powerful GT is only used for a dash. They could be designed for survilance role. PLAN's frigate may be required to be more active such as defending CV or LHD/LHA. Different profile need different power plant arrangement.
According to a study by Naval Engineering University, the desired power plant composition for a IEPS 4500t frigate is 21MW, 5-8MW and 1-2MW. The total installed power is 42MW. It is made up of two 21MW GT and couple of medium and small GTs (can be diesels too) It's conventional counterpart also demands similar power composition.
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There seems to be a slowdown in development of Naval surface ships compared to other parts of the PLA such as Air and rocket forces and even ground force is coming up with next gen tanks. Type 052D and Type 055 are old designs now. Yes, they are on par with US ships but PLA should be moving forward in ship design and come up with next gen ships with capabilities far more advanced than current ships.
Type 054B is stepping stone test design with terrible armament, So, I won't count it as a truly next gen design. As for LHD and Carriers, I am mainly talking surface combat ships not carriers or LHD which are platform ships for launching planes or helicopters.
I think any of the ships with older diesels like Type 056 and Type 052D will be replaced next. I foresee the Type 052D replacement as I said before. Two of the large new diesels and two of the large new turbines.
But the existence of these much larger gas turbines than I expected might mean a two diesel one gas turbine design will replace Type 052D.
It all depends on what the PLAN decides to do. But I would not be surprised if the replacement for Type 052D is much larger and will directly compete with the Arleigh Burke Flight III in magazine size.
But the existence of these much larger gas turbines than I expected might mean a two diesel one gas turbine design will replace Type 052D.
It all depends on what the PLAN decides to do. But I would not be surprised if the replacement for Type 052D is much larger and will directly compete with the Arleigh Burke Flight III in magazine size.
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In what way is the Type 055 an "old design"? The ship has only been in service for five years now, with the last and most recent commissioning of the eighth ship of the first batch being in late 2022. That's just three years ago. Type 055 is the most capable surface combatant in the world, and I don't believe there are any ships that rival it's capability.
Even things like DDG(X) are kind of late to the point that by the time the first ship enters service in the early 2030s, assuming the program is still even going according to plan, it likely won't have any major inherent advantages over the earliest 055s, which by that time would be undergoing MLUs, as the 055s size gives it lots of room for upgrades, let alone any potential variants of an 055 or a successor potentially existing around that time if the PLAN is planning on that. A 052D successor is likely on the horizon and will pop up in the coming years, but the 055 is still a very new ship and will likely have variants down the line.
Its an old design because it doesn't do anything revolutionary like what PLA is doing with J-36, DF-27 or Next gen unmanned turret tanks. Its just a very conservative normal surface ship that is on par with US, Korean or Japanese DDG designs. A standard ship with AESA and VLS cells, that's it.
A true next gen ship in my opinion will be either high stealth focus similar to zumwalt with also very good armament such as ability to launch hypersonic ASBMs, HQ-19 or HQ-29 level Missile and Air defense capability and something next gen such as laser or rail gun.
If the focus is not on high stealth, then another focus could be integration of drone launching/retrieval. It could be very high displacement such as 20K ton with big VLS cells along with the drone capabilities.
Thus, something beyond capabilities of current destroyers and cruisers from US and other countries.