054B/new generation frigate

[AndrewS]

I have been thinking about the limited improvement of 054B. Is it a problem? I think no, along with many here. It is a solid iterative improvement over 054A. It is a strong design competitive with the best world has to offer. Some frigates carry bigger missiles, but that is not going to make them superior to 054B at doing what a frigate should be doing. So the problem was never it is a bad ship, it just feels rather lacking of a leap by China standard.

It improves on 054A but how much value the improvement is in question. The radar system improved quite a bit, but ultimate how much it translate to effectiveness is in question. A battleship with twice the armor is not twice as good if it sink equally fast to a torpedo bomber. Will 054B's much better radar lead to much better effectiveness? Hard to say but maybe not. It is still almost as vulnerable to air strikes. The radar improved because the tech improved, and we update the existing design. This is very much a iterative improvement. Which is to say the goal was never to impress, but to just build a similar ship with current tech standard. Even though the ship look very different which may give impression of a leap like F-4 to F-15, it is more of equivalent to J-11 to J-16.

It looks like the Type-054B has AESA radars with steerable beams.
That should be a significant improvement, particularly against stealthy or sea skimming missiles.

If it also has additional electricity generation for future laser weapons, along with other minor improvements, I'm not sure there is anything else major you would want to add.

Reflecting on this reveals a fundamental issue of Chinese naval development:
China has caught up to west, the low effort catch up improvements are over. We can no longer expect leaps like in the past. Merely having similar design with updated tech will never impress us or change dynamic of naval warfare. There needs to be drastic innovation like in the air force. Like J-20 to J-36. This requires risk taking and innovation, something navy seem less interested in.

Because end of the day China do not have to risk innovate over enemy, it is happy to just scale up its undersized navy. Why risk delaying a program with ambitious undertaking when number is still the priority? China is the biggest trading nation. It deserves the a navy as large as its share of global maritime trade. With that in mind, the current navy is tiny. Impressive looking yes, but severely undersized. And this may be why they care less about one upping the opponents, scaling up number at comparable quality remain the priority. I am afraid we have to dial down our expectations in general from now on.

The Type-054A cost around $300? Million

If the Type-054B costs a bit more, that is still really affordable for what you get, so they can continuing producing them in large numbers.

 

[tphuang]

Sure seems to me like you've invented a role for the 54B, decided that its (unclear) capabilities were not fit for purpose, and wrote if off on your own. The radar upgrades on their own make it worth producing over the 54A IMO. What the 54A had was and is miserably outdated for modern combat, the 54B's new radar at least should give it a fighting chance.

not really. What is the purpose of 054B? It's closer in size to 052D than 054A.

Why can't you just build more 052D if you are just looking for something with better radar?

The most obvious and easiest answer is that crew endurance is the key limiting factor in the 054A design.

If the intended wartime primary role of the 054A/B class is as I summarised, then these ships are not going to expect to see heavy combat on a regular basis. Instead they are adding the most value by being able to maintain a survivable, persistent and unpredictable patrol presence throughout the eastern pacific to keep hostile naval and air forces far from the mainland coast.

As such, magazine depth is not a primary consideration while crew performance becomes more important as it’s about being able to maintain high alertness levels and focus for prolonged periods of time. This is where the existing 054A is showing it’s shortcomings with its well-known lower spec crew comfort and ship facilities provision.

The way I see the 054B is that the PLAN have concluded that the 054A is just about near perfect for their operational needs, with the only area in need of improvement being on the crew comfort side.

While the 054B is indeed significantly larger than the 054A, I’m willing to bet that the price tag difference is at best marginal, and would not be proportional to the displacement change.

Rather than seeing that as the 054B being disappointingly conservative, I would instead say that’s a massive positive in just how well the 054A design met the PLAN’s requirements both in the past and into the foreseeable future.

All of the new fancy systems like IEPS, energy weapons and the like are nice to have, but will come with a significant price tag. So why do you want to massively inflate the prices of your shield fleet to add a load of bells and whistles they don’t really need and are highly unlikely to ever use?

It would be far better to instead invest in such system for future DDGs and CGs that will accompany the carriers. The much larger hull sizes of DDGs and CGs will also make the integration of such next gen systems much easier/cheaper and with fewer opportunity costs.

sure 054A has low crew endurance for 054B. But why do you need crew endurance? You need crew endurance if it's going for long deployment. If you need it to be larger and have long endurance, then part of the requirement has to be escorting a future carrier group. There are significant price to be paid when you don't have sufficient power generation capabilities in the future.

Why would you say IEPS is fancy systems that have "significant price tag"?

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Haixun-176 has fully electric propulsion. If you can afford to put that on a cutter, why can't you afford to put it on 054B?

And recently, we just had the new 20 cylinder 9+MW marine engine developed by CSSC. Why not wait for that. You can do a lot with something around 38MW IEPS propulsion.

Where is the justification that 054B is only marginally more expensive than 054A? It's 50% larger in displacement. It's about the same size as 052C. It's not a small ship.




Is 054B sufficient for future combat as the low end surface combatant of a fleet that would be expected to do more long distance deployment and face drone swarms, low end anti-ship hypersonic missiles and such. If your air defense is just HQ-10 and HQ-16, can you defend against those attack options?

 

[Neurosmith]

The bulk of a warship's cost is tied to its sensors and propulsion, so the 054B being 50 percent larger than the 054A doesn't mean that it is 50 percent more expensive.

So, as long as the 054B's cost isn't too much of a jump from that of the 054A, the PLAN could find justification to pursue it, owing to its improved radar and supposed ASW capability.

 

[Gloire_bb]

not really. What is the purpose of 054B? It's closer in size to 052D than 054A.

Why can't you just build more 052D if you are just looking for something with better radar?

More expensive to procure and run, (likely) higher crew requirements, less suitable for cruiser role, doesn't have comparable space for small craft(manned or not), doesn't have light ASCM(multitool).
052D isn't any superior on its own in backline.

sure 054A has low crew endurance for 054B. But why do you need crew endurance? You need crew endurance if it's going for long deployment. If you need it to be larger and have long endurance, then part of the requirement has to be escorting a future carrier group. There are significant price to be paid when you don't have sufficient power generation capabilities in the future.

It's an escort ship ultimately, doing trade protection/presense/independent operations in areas with affordable risks. In all these missions, time at sea=return of investment.

 

[AndrewS]

not really. What is the purpose of 054B? It's closer in size to 052D than 054A.

Why can't you just build more 052D if you are just looking for something with better radar?

The Type-052D has 4 large AESA radar panels on the side of the ship, designed for long-range radar detection and tracking.

In comparison, the Type-054B has a small 2-sided rotating AESA on the top of the ship. This is still a better radar that what is currently on the Type-054A, and should be better at detecting stealthy and sea-skimming missiles.

sure 054A has low crew endurance for 054B. But why do you need crew endurance? You need crew endurance if it's going for long deployment. If you need it to be larger and have long endurance, then part of the requirement has to be escorting a future carrier group. There are significant price to be paid when you don't have sufficient power generation capabilities in the future.

Again, the number of ASW fast frigates required for carrier groups is going to be very small for the next 10 years. The vast majority of missions will be fine with slower top speeds.

And given a Type-052DL electricity generation increase to 20MW, let's see what the happens with the Type-054B.

Why would you say IEPS is fancy systems that have "significant price tag"?

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Haixun-176 has fully electric propulsion. If you can afford to put that on a cutter, why can't you afford to put it on 054B?

And recently, we just had the new 20 cylinder 9+MW marine engine developed by CSSC. Why not wait for that. You can do a lot with something around 38MW IEPS propulsion.

Where is the justification that 054B is only marginally more expensive than 054A? It's 50% larger in displacement. It's about the same size as 052C. It's not a small ship.

Look at the old estimated cost breakdown for a Type-054A frigate:

Electronics: $102 million
Weapons: $84 million
Labor: $75 million
Hull and equipment: $45 million
Propulsion: $32 million
Miscellaneous costs: $10 million
Total: $348 million

So the hull and equipment, propulsion and labour account for $152 Million, which is 43% of the overall cost.
If the tonnage increases by 50%, my guess is that this portion of the cost will increase less than 30% ($45Mn)

So a Type-054A, built on a 6000 tonne hull (with everything else the same) would be <$393 Mn.
That is only 13% more expensive overall, compared to the tonnage increase of 50%.

Now, these numbers aren't exact, but it does illustrate the point.

Is 054B sufficient for future combat as the low end surface combatant of a fleet that would be expected to do more long distance deployment and face drone swarms, low end anti-ship hypersonic missiles and such. If your air defense is just HQ-10 and HQ-16, can you defend against those attack options?

All current frigates and destroyers would struggle with drone swarms. I don't see that changing until lasers are widespread.

And if we're talking about low-end antiship hypersonic missiles, I think you do need a destroyer with a large AESA radar. That means at least a Type-052D

 

[Wrought]

not really. What is the purpose of 054B? It's closer in size to 052D than 054A.

Why can't you just build more 052D if you are just looking for something with better radar?

052D is also notoriously cramped, much like 054A. These are old hulls, designed many years ago and upgraded many times. And it too is expected to get a larger successor sometime in the next 5-10 years. Replace an old frigate with a new frigate; replace an old destroyer with a new destroyer.

If anything, you should be happy as the new destroyer is more likely to use CODLAG or IEP.

 

[tphuang]

052D is also notoriously cramped, much like 054A. These are old hulls, designed many years ago and upgraded many times. And it too is expected to get a larger successor sometime in the next 5-10 years. Replace an old frigate with a new frigate; replace an old destroyer with a new destroyer.

If anything, you should be happy as the new destroyer is more likely to use CODLAG or IEP.

If you read what I was responding to. The claim was that 054B was justified because it has better radar than 054A. So my point is that if your justification for 054B is the radar, then you might as well get something that's a little larger and have even better than radar.

So far, the arguments I have seen thrown at my suggestions are:
IEPS is new technology and cost too much - Well, they already put it on a cutter, so it can't be that risky or costly. It's also on Type 076, so clearly they have it working for military standard.

054B is already a jump vs 054A in propulsion - So the jump is from about 21MW to 29MW, but the ship has 50% greater displacement and also more powerful radar and higher speed requirement. So you don't really have margin left for things like laser defense or even higher power sensors going forward. And the speed isn't in line with what you would expect for a nuclear carrier.
I think going to 38MW IEPS + battery pack actually would future proof power and speed requirements that you want to explore going forward.

054B has more crew comfort - That certainly matters. However, 054B with its current propulsion does feel maxed out already. On top of that, it does not have enough fire power to defend future threat. Again, are you just going to defend drone swarms & low end ASBMs with HQ-16s and HQ-10? If you intend on this going out on deployment as a major escort for a nuclear carrier or even for a drone carrier like Type 076, it needs to be able to not only handle ASW duties, but also provide protection about future threat environment. If a Type 076 gets close to the shore, it's going to face these drone swarms & low end ASBMs. So you end up having a platform that has more crew comfort but not the fire power to actually properly defend capital ships on those longer deployment.


So fundamentally, why did they not go with something that have IEPS and 20-cylinder diesel engines + large power banks? Longer term, you can put UVLS on there and laser. That way, you can actually pack HHQ-9C in there to defend against lower end ballistic missiles and high supersonic AShM. You can combine laser defense with HQ-10 against sea-skimmers and drone attacks. You can still put long range VLS-torpedoes in there. Get rid of anti-ship missile launchers, just have 48 cell VLS.

 

[Wrought]

So fundamentally, why did they not go with something that have IEPS and 20-cylinder diesel engines + large power banks? Longer term, you can put UVLS on there and laser. That way, you can actually pack HHQ-9C in there to defend against lower end ballistic missiles and high supersonic AShM. You can combine laser defense with HQ-10 against sea-skimmers and drone attacks. You can still put long range VLS-torpedoes in there. Get rid of anti-ship missile launchers, just have 48 cell VLS.

You are asking why an outfit like PLAN, for which we have all long observed to be steady, conservative, and iterative in its approach to procurement, did not opt for a a new ship with IEP, 48 UVLS, and lasers? Really?

I mean, you can grumble about their approach all you want, but nobody should be surprised at this point. 054B is par for the course. And looking at the absolute mess that USN has gotten itself into trying to cram every newfangled gizmo into every hull, my guess is that PLAN is quite satisfied with their design philosophy.

 

[TheWanderWit]

You are asking why an outfit like PLAN, for which we have all long observed to be steady, conservative, and iterative in its approach to procurement, did not opt for a a new ship with IEP, 48 UVLS, and lasers? Really?

I mean, you can grumble about their approach all you want, but nobody should be surprised at this point. 054B is par for the course. And looking at the absolute mess that USN has gotten itself into trying to cram every newfangled gizmo into every hull, my guess is that PLAN is quite satisfied with their design philosophy.

At that point too, it kind of just sounds like a smaller and slightly weaker 052D. I mean, does PLAN FFGs really need lasers too? Or BMD capability? Yes I know, threat profiles are changing. It might be the future for close-in defense, but I think its best for those currently to be for DDGs and other major ships. A 5500-6000 ton, 32-40 UVLS next-gen frigate would be nice and the sweet spot I think for their needs, but assuming they didn't even want to go towards such a path, 054B seems fine to me size and sensor wise. If you really wanted to in terms of armament, I don't see any issue in simply developing new missiles/SAMs for the 054A/B's VLS.

I personally think if you really wanna beef up the armament of the 054A/B everywhere, then:

a. navalizing HQ-16F or developing an entirely new and capable LRSAM for its H/AJK-16 VLS
b. developing a quadpacked MRSAM for the VLS
c. replacing the 8x canisterized YJ-83s for 8x canisterized YJ-15s
d. develop a subsonic LACM to fit in the cells (not really needed but you can)
e. adding a 10-cell HQ-10 launcher to the 054A

I think that's pretty much the most you could do with this vessel (054A/B) in terms of armament.

 

[wuguanhui]

Look at the old estimated cost breakdown for a Type-054A frigate:

Electronics: $102 million
Weapons: $84 million
Labor: $75 million
Hull and equipment: $45 million
Propulsion: $32 million
Miscellaneous costs: $10 million
Total: $348 million

Is there a similar estimate for the 052?