How valid do you think this is?
054/A FFG Thread II
- Thread starter tphuang
- Start date
How valid do you think this is?
Lethe
Captain
Translation required.
If the suggestion (interpreted from subsequent comments) is that 054B has been abandoned in favour of larger vessel types, I find that highly unlikely.
antiterror13
Brigadier
well 054B is clearly a Frigate size while 052E (?) is a Destroyer
But it is true in a way that 054B and 052C/D might have some overlap roles and capabilities
That's my opinion as well. Its unlikely.
In the beginning there is always some overlap between the modern frigate and the destroyer, which in turn has some overlap with the cruiser. That never stopped from these distinctive categories happening. Never mind modern Europe, where frigate has become the main warship category larger than a corvette, resulting from budgets the force one surface warship type to do all the jobs from frigate, destroyer and cruiser. This trend is likely coloring Internet opinion among defense watchers.
I can understand the logic of going all out in 052E and 055, but that POV may not be the PLAN's. There is likely some internal number of ship goal to be achieved within a certain time period, sort of like the Trump administration's 355 ship navy. This is why the 054A and 056 were being built and commissioned in a torrid pace. Another is cost stratification, and the PLAN, avoiding mission creep, sticking to large block contracts, manage to keep all these ship categories, within budget and away from each other, in essence keeping the cost of the corvette low enough from the frigate, in turn is low enough from the destroyer, which in turn is low enough from the "large destroyer" aka "cruiser". I do think the 054B may have the potential (if its anything like the fan CGI) to be less radio noisy and ECM resistant than the 052C/D. Even if the Type 346 on the 052C/D has LPI, all the other secondary mechanical radars on the ships --- there is quite a bunch of them --- won't. This is why the 055 consolidates all the functions of these mechanical radars to a few other AESAs, so the whole ship can go radio stealthy with all LPI emissions even with the navigation radars. The 054B might be pointing this way (speculative as per rumored drawings and CGI) although that may ultimately be determined if we see the final ship and see how many mechanical radars are still on board.
We also need to go back that warship building in China, like much in the rest of the world, is also a political subsidy for shipyards. Going all destroyers would limit the subsidies to two shipyards, although there is a third vying for destroyer production after it has been certified for destroyer maintenance and repair. As we know the frigates are being built on entirely different shipyards.
Yes it is a matter of how to best use the available dry dock capacity. Personally if I was the Chinese I would try to convert some of the 056 production facilities to submarine production but I don't know how practical that would be.
The Type 054 is definitively cheaper to build. All it takes is to look at the displacement, powerplants, and max speed. I think it definitive could use a systems upgrade of the VLS to make it common with the destroyers and probably an upgrade of the sensor suite. Then there is IEPS which could allow for silent running if coupled with some kind of battery storage.
The Type 054 is definitively cheaper to build. All it takes is to look at the displacement, powerplants, and max speed. I think it definitive could use a systems upgrade of the VLS to make it common with the destroyers and probably an upgrade of the sensor suite. Then there is IEPS which could allow for silent running if coupled with some kind of battery storage.
antiterror13
Brigadier
agreed, also I'd like to see 054B to be CODAG propulsion instead of just CODAD on 054A
Yead . .also VLS to be UVLS (perhaps only limited to only 7 m) and maybe increase a bit to 48 ... and yes IEPS and .... a pair of HQ-10
My opinion is that it would follow what has become an increasingly common PLAN warship arrangement. Main gun, 32 cell VLS, Type 1130 CIWS, and one HQ-10 launcher in the rear, probably 24 missiles. My bet for the main gun would be the 76mm.
My question with the U-VLS is that are they going to use HQ-16 with those? That's going to be like a kid trying to fit his father's pants. The ship won't be that big an upgrade if its still going to be using HQ-16. Use a new mid range quad packing SAM? Use the HQ-9? For naval use, the HQ-9 is tied with the Type 346 radar, which the 054B isn't likely to be equipping with. Another problem with the HQ-16 vs. the HQ-9 is that the HQ-16 works on X-band, and the HQ-9 on C-band. Their illuminators are not compatible with each other unlike the USN, where you need only an X-band array for both Standards and ESSM. If you are going to use missile targeting illuminators for one, its not going to work on the other. That's why 052C/Ds don't use HQ-16. If 054B uses HQ-9 you give up on HQ-16 and vice versa. Another problem would be where to put the illumination arrays.
For this reason you might want HQ-9 work to on X-band, so you can have the targeting array work on both HQ-16 and HQ-9. Or just bypass entirely, make HQ-9 and HQ-16 work ARH, so no more target illuminating arrays. Being ARH, the missiles would be agnostic to the radars used on the ship. It would mean however, that previous missile batches cannot work on the new ships, and the new missiles for these ships cannot work on the older ships without a software update on the CMS of these older ships. A SARH HQ-9 working on X-band can be theoretically made dual band, to have both C and X-band, so it can be backward compatible to 052C/D, but still work on a ship with the new X-band targeting array, with this ship still able to use HQ-16.
Its going to be very interesting what the PLAN needs to do...
Lethe
Captain
Frigates are needed because numbers are needed. If you go all-in on large ships you end up like USN, running all your ships and crews into the ground and foregoing maintenance, qualifications, etc. because there are not enough hulls to meet requirements.
PLAN's potential adversaries operate large numbers of the world's most advanced submarines. To counter this PLAN needs large numbers of affordable escort vessels with a full suite of ASW capabilities. 054A and 054B are the solution to that problem. 052x is too expensive to fill the ASW bathtub.
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What PLA watchers are suggesting is the PLAN is ending the 4000t tier and staying with just the 6000t and 10000t tiers. Pop3 has no idea if that's actually happening but he notes it's been 6 years since project start and the 054B still hasn't appeared. The 054's first steelcutting occurred only 2 years after project start; the 054A, 1 year; the 075, 4-5 years; 055, 4 years; 002, 5 years.
All these ships took less than 5 years to get from project start to steelcutting while the 054B has taken 6 years with still no sign of steelcutting.
Pop3 offers 4 potential reasons:
- Funds are insufficient. This was a relatively common occurrence thirty years ago but practically impossible today.
- Technological bottleneck. Possibility exists are doesn't seem likely given the PLAN's systemic competence and ample experience with R&D.
- The prolonging of 054A production means the 054B's technological advantage over the 054A, as originally envisioned, has diminished. With the latest 054As' being equipped with many of the PLAN's latest systems originally meant for the 054B, the necessity for 054B reduces.
- A recent reevaluation of the PLAN's desired composition could have concluded the 4000t segment was superfluous. The need for 4000t vessels in the PLAN lineup was decided by an assessment conducted over ten years ago and priorities could have changed since then.