052/052B Class Destroyers

re: PLAN Type 052 Class Destroyer

MwRYum said:

You mean a smaller model that can fit on smaller vessels? The specifications calls for a rig that can handle munition modules that's length from 3.3m to 9m, install on the smaller vessels would not just the problem of different cell arrangement but to the core problem of whether the hull can take them...sure it'd be fine for future boats that can be designed around this specifications, but highly doubt the older - yet still have considerable service life - vessels can take them.

Besides, the meat of this specification is the capability to carry LACM, expanding the mission profiles, so I'm not so sure if it'd worth to retrofit those older vessels with this new VLS, unless for those actually have VLS potential option designed into it in the first place.

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Well the 3.3 meter cells should definitely be able to be fit aboard smaller ships, probably ships as small as a corvette.

I think older destroyers should be able to fit a decent number of the "strike" length VLS (think 052/B, 051C) so even if some do not have the electronics necessary to guide various SAMs, they can still launch the relatively more autonomous LACM or ASW weapons.
That's what the US have did with older spruance DDGs I believe, which were initially equipped with arm launchers like 052B.

Once PLAN have enough 052C/D (and any cruisers) in service for wide area AAW it would make sense for any ships with a decade or more of life in them to be refitted with new VLS, as a bomb truck so to speak, for land attack cruise missiles and ASW weapons. If PLAN implement high levels of CeC then it could even be possible for ships lacking the necessary electronics to fire missiles using other ships' guidance.

Despite this new VLS's potential less than optimal distribution of space, we should still remember it is meant to have the capability to fire AShM, SAM, ASW, LACM and quad packed missiles, all cold or hot launch (so backwards compatible), with the intention for different lengths to be fitted to various sized ships. It is a revolutionary (for PLAN) development though it will be a slow transition as we wait for more ships to be equipped with it, but once implemented it could dramatically expand the PLAN's capability.



I see some similarities with 052D and this new VLS compared with ticonderogas and Mk-41, that both were designed initially with different missile launch systems initially (052C with fixed revolver, ticos with twin arm launchers), and were then redesigned and built with the new VLS, which while they could operate well aboard the new ship (otherwise they wouldn't have installed them in the first place), the beam of the ship made it slightly less than optimal. The USN went with the wider beam, smaller displacement burke, fitting lesser number of VLS compared to tico but still having a ship "designed around" the Mk 41. I feel like the PLAN do so as well but go the other way and develop a larger, wider clean sheet cruiser type ship in due time.

It's also interesting to see that the USN is considering flight iii burkes to fill as their future cruisers, so not dissimilar the cold war spruance DDGs being developed into the tico cruisers we see today. Full circle, almost.

re: PLAN Type 052 Class Destroyer

Bltizo said:

Despite this new VLS's potential less than optimal distribution of space, we should still remember it is meant to have the capability to fire AShM, SAM, ASW, LACM and quad packed missiles, all cold or hot launch (so backwards compatible), with the intention for different lengths to be fitted to various sized ships.

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ALL of this except cold launch is achievable with hot launch systems, and for a smaller volume. Backwards compatibility with the cold launch HQ-9 is unnecessary unless the PLAN is unable to develop a new missile or modify the HQ-9 for hot launch, either of which I think would be easy for the PLAN to achieve at this point. And as I said, a 120km range missile is not a big deal these days, nothing to write home about. Certainly nothing to build a future VLS around. Perhaps politics is at play here. Perhaps some other inscrutable reason unknown to me. AFAIK no other navy uses CCL. The USN experimented with it, but instead we have Mk 57 going into the DDX and more Mk 41's going into the Flight III AB's. That should tell you something.

re: PLAN Type 052 Class Destroyer

Bltizo said:

I see some similarities with 052D and this new VLS compared with ticonderogas and Mk-41, that both were designed initially with different missile launch systems initially (052C with fixed revolver, ticos with twin arm launchers), and were then redesigned and built with the new VLS, which while they could operate well aboard the new ship (otherwise they wouldn't have installed them in the first place), the beam of the ship made it slightly less than optimal. The USN went with the wider beam, smaller displacement burke, fitting lesser number of VLS compared to tico but still having a ship "designed around" the Mk 41. I feel like the PLAN do so as well but go the other way and develop a larger, wider clean sheet cruiser type ship in due time.

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There is nothing about the beam of either the Tico or the 052C that makes fitting Mk 41-sized VLS modules "less than optimal". Where did you get this information from? The Tico can fit 2x4 modules in the front no problem. The 052C can either fit 2x3 or 2x4 modules in the front no problem. The CCL modules are what the 052D has problems fitting, not the Mk 41 modules.

re: PLAN Type 052 Class Destroyer

if that document clearly states only 8-cell modules as a basis for new vls - yet at the same time it mentions how the system was designed for ships of various sizes, i am becoming to doubt the source of the whole document. that is not to say that certain things mentioned in the document are not going to be correct, but perhaps we are reading some stuff wrong.

That is just incredibly silly, the whole concept. If one is going to be as wasteful to have self-sufficient cells, then the only alleviating quality about the whole concept is that it allows for modules more tailored to specific ships or even specific parts of a ship. But fixing that to a huge-ass 8 cell module is just wasteful beyond belief. USN went with bigger cells in mk57 system (not as big as ones alleged in the document) and they decided it was better to make the base a 4-cell module. So to go with even a bit bigger cells and stick to 8 cells seems to go against the current. there must be a reason. why?

If the document is to be believed, it means two kinds of cells would fit in the 850mm wide container. one would be for cold launch, presumably almost as wide as the container itself. (important to note that it would still be wider than s300 launch canister!) the other would be the hot launch cell with its exhaust. when one deducts the exhaust area, the missile hold would probably be no more than 0.5 by 0.5, barely for a sm-2 (and hq16) and very likely not suitable for requirements of a booster. Not because of width but because of volume of exhaust plumes which a booster makes, and which are denser than the rocket engine on the missile itself, which is more tailored for long flight and not a short, powerful boost.

btw, i searched for various images on GE, both of tico and of 052c and upon averageing out the figures from three different ships each - i got this: 171,9 meters length for tico (for precision reference) and its vls is 7,3 by 9,1 meters.
for 052c i got 155,1 meter (to compare with usually written figures for it) and itd vls is 8,1 by 10,7 meters. However, due to slanted missiles inside 052c, that width needs to be corrected by substracting 1,1 meters. So in the end we are left with 7 by 10,7 meters.

four cell module would be okay for such area, one could work nicely and arrange a decent loadout. but an eight cell module seems just ill tailored for such area. Even if the 8-cell module is super compact, and we're talking about perhaps/surely unrealistic 4 by 2,5 meter block - it is still impossible either to fit 2 modules perpendicularry or 3 modules longitudinally to the ship.

One could, in theory, fit 4 modules perpendicularly and then, next to them, two more modules longitudinally. but i've never seen such a layout on any ship. ever. plus, the images seem to disprove that. however fuzzy they are, they do seem to suggest an uniform layout.

And the fishy thing about it all are the images. We had two images showing the vls in context of the ship, so we know its forward VLS. the sketch-filter one and the one taken from the rear of ship, above it and showing a fuzzy block for the vls. however, even if it was fuzzy, that image clearly shows a line in the middle, longitudinally, separating the otherwise fuzzy blocks.

Then we have the sketched image. even if one assumes there are 4 longitudinally positioned modules, the perspective disaproves it. On the side of the vls one can see individual cell lids. one can count them, 4, then 4 more in another block. if we take the length of one lid and then use that same line over the width of the vls area - we will manage to fit 4 of such lines. that so 4 by (4+4) is 32, right? No. because from this angle, it is impossible that the width is not compressed. it should be well compressed, like when i showed how compressed it was on 054a pics from 2007., where one could "clearly see" 16 cells, but later we found out there are 32, and it only seemed there were 16 because of the angle.

Also, when we take into account those cropped images of launchers, clearly without any exhaust, with lids of two opposing cells touching each other - it is clear that from any sort of distance and from a shallow angle or due to fuzzy image - those two lids touching each other could very easely seem like a single lid on some images.

But that sort of arrangement - 4 by 2 blocks longitudinally - has its own problems on 052c, especially when coupled with data from that document about new vls. so in reality - i don't know what to think anymore.

re: PLAN Type 052 Class Destroyer

They made it that big is because for the LACM option - in section 3.1 of the specification calls for land attack mission option, which translate into LACM - if you remember how big the CJ-10 canister then it ain't that surprising.

re: PLAN Type 052 Class Destroyer

Mysterre said:

Then I hope by the time 054B arrives, some quad-packable missiles are also ready to be deployed, because the front will certainly not fit more than two 2x4 CCL modules. OTOH that would make 64 quad-packed medium ranged SAM's, double the capability of the 054A. Quite respectable for a frigate. Though I would have preferred a long-range capability in addition so that there is some backup for the destroyers in the long range air defense layer. Perhaps the middle of the ship will be deep enough to accommodate 9mm length cells. That would allow 8 cells for long range air defense missiles and/or CY-X VLA, while the 8 outer cells could be shorter and would be devoted to 32 MR missiles.

I also agree with engineer that there is no reason a new version of the HQ-9 could not be hot-launched. It's mainly a matter of software. The way I see it, the only reason to demand this capability is to be able to launch current generation HQ-9's.

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I'm afraid that it may not be possible to accommodate 9m canisters in a 7m module (what 054B most likely to use), as the article described it there will be three sizes of 8-cell modules, the 7m and 9m models will have internal structures to support smaller canisters, so the overall size of the module is dictated by the longest canister it can house. OTOH if you only put 16 cell in front of 054B both modules will be right on the center line where the deck is the deepest, despite being larger VLS I think they may be able to fit the 9m modules there. I do agree about the quad pack matter, I think at the moment the only viable option is the HQ17 which IMO is not adequate, I hope something based on the PL12D is in the pipeline.

re: PLAN Type 052 Class Destroyer

something like sea ceptor would be quite adequate and could perhaps fit as a quad pack. with its 160mm diameter, folding fins would definitely enable a very compact missile - so four in a 400*400mm storage space should be doable, perhaps even 500*500. (the rest should be reserved for exhaust)

pl12 and other missiles of such a class may be harder to pull of in quad arrangement, as they are 200mm thick, have proportionally bigger fins, so even if the fins are somehow folded we may be looking at 300*300 or at least 250*250 mm storage area. And I just don't know if there is going to be enough room for that. But then again, perhaps a quad-packed canister is again completely different than s single cell canister. Meaning, since a quad packed canister will only launch one relatively small missile at one time, it may require less of exhaust than a single hq16 requires. Meaning a hypothetical pl12 quad canister will have thinner exhaust area and larger launch area than a hq16 canister.

another trouble is, however, that if 850mm includes the exhaust and cold launch peripherals, then by that logic the length dimensions should include them as well. so 3,3 meters isnt really 3,3 meter long missile and then we fall behind the sea ceptor length and are probably unable to reach its 25 km range. I seriously hope then that another variant of vls module, one meter longer, will become available within 10 or so years. Either that or the notional future pl12 would have to be quad packed in 7 meter long modules, which again seems like a waste.

Sylver launcher family seems to get the canister lengths much more right.

re: PLAN Type 052 Class Destroyer

Totoro said:

another trouble is, however, that if 850mm includes the exhaust and cold launch peripherals, then by that logic the length dimensions should include them as well. so 3,3 meters isnt really 3,3 meter long missile and then we fall behind the sea ceptor length and are probably unable to reach its 25 km range. I seriously hope then that another variant of vls module, one meter longer, will become available within 10 or so years. Either that or the notional future pl12 would have to be quad packed in 7 meter long modules, which again seems like a waste.

Sylver launcher family seems to get the canister lengths much more right.

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My opinion is, this isn't really a problem. If there is a requirement to accomodate a 3.3m missile, it wouldn't be difficult to slightly extend the module to 3.6m, for example, in the design. So, it's really a question of requirement, specifically the length of the SR missile that is planned to be used.

re: PLAN Type 052 Class Destroyer

Bltizo said:

Well the 3.3 meter cells should definitely be able to be fit aboard smaller ships, probably ships as small as a corvette.

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That's what I was thinking. I know the 3.3 meter cells won't be able to accommodate all the types of missiles CN is fielding but a corvette never has all the same toys as a destroyer would. If a 3.3 meter cell can fit in a corvette, that would be provide more commonality in hardware. Besides, wouldn't that help with a smaller vessel's center of gravity compared to having box launchers at the top of the ship? Also, a VLS would give a missile the ability to head in any direction once it clears the ship vs a box launcher that's usually aimed in one particular direction.

re: PLAN Type 052 Class Destroyer

hmmwv said:

I'm afraid that it may not be possible to accommodate 9m canisters in a 7m module (what 054B most likely to use), as the article described it there will be three sizes of 8-cell modules, the 7m and 9m models will have internal structures to support smaller canisters, so the overall size of the module is dictated by the longest canister it can house. OTOH if you only put 16 cell in front of 054B both modules will be right on the center line where the deck is the deepest, despite being larger VLS I think they may be able to fit the 9m modules there. I do agree about the quad pack matter, I think at the moment the only viable option is the HQ17 which IMO is not adequate, I hope something based on the PL12D is in the pipeline.

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Well the reason hot launch system cannot accommodate cells of different lengths is because of the shared venting. Of course, this is not a problem with CCL systems so I don't see a problem with mixing different length cells. Only minimal structural modifications to structural supports would be needed, and the benefits would be large.

joshuatree said:

That's what I was thinking. I know the 3.3 meter cells won't be able to accommodate all the types of missiles CN is fielding but a corvette never has all the same toys as a destroyer would. If a 3.3 meter cell can fit in a corvette, that would be provide more commonality in hardware. Besides, wouldn't that help with a smaller vessel's center of gravity compared to having box launchers at the top of the ship? Also, a VLS would give a missile the ability to head in any direction once it clears the ship vs a box launcher that's usually aimed in one particular direction.

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I'm not sure there is a need for VLS in the 056. If the PLAN feels more air defense missiles are needed, the obvious solution is to switch to a larger HQ-10 launcher. The 056 probably doesn't have the draft for anything larger than 3.3m cells, so any other missile types are out.