052C/052D Class Destroyers
- Thread starter Jeff Head
- Start date
asif iqbal
Lieutenant General
Nice D1 finally launched
Hope they get faster
Hope they get faster
asif iqbal
Lieutenant General
lcloo
Captain
171 and 173 have been spotted in Zhanjiang. This confirms that the two 052D in Sanya base are 172 and 174.
So 174 is indeed the one in the photo #22211. Now we have six 052C and three 052D.
Does dalian D1 differ in any way from others?
For the PLAN, the pace of 052C and 052D Comstruction means an enormously fast increase in demand for very highly skilled personnel, both to actually man these ships, also to maintain them. There were no ships of remotely similar capability in the Chinese navy before. In addition, these ships also enormously magnifies the tactical possibilities for Chinese navy, with attendant requirement for rapid development, evaluation, implementation, and evolution of operating doctrine and logistic practices, which effects the entire structure of the navy.
Is there any discussion regarding how that is being done, and how well it is being done?
For the PLAN, the pace of 052C and 052D Comstruction means an enormously fast increase in demand for very highly skilled personnel, both to actually man these ships, also to maintain them. There were no ships of remotely similar capability in the Chinese navy before. In addition, these ships also enormously magnifies the tactical possibilities for Chinese navy, with attendant requirement for rapid development, evaluation, implementation, and evolution of operating doctrine and logistic practices, which effects the entire structure of the navy.
Is there any discussion regarding how that is being done, and how well it is being done?
It was launched without the main gun (also looks like it may lack its bow VLS, strangely enough) and it looks like it's at a slightly lower level of completion overall.
But it doesn't look like there are going to be any meaningful differences in the final ship versus those of JN, at least at this early stage.
This has been discussed and considered, but we have no idea on how well they are progressing so we can only make guesses at best.
That said, it's worth keeping in mind that the mass production of 052C/D was also preceded by mass production and commissioning of 054A, which in many ways was just as much of an advancement over older frigates as 052C/D are over older destroyers.
More importantly, the Chinese Navy has also had many years between the commissioning of the first two 052Cs in the early/mid 2000s and the subsequent mass production of the last four 052Cs and the current 052Ds, to allow crews of the ships to gain experience and to provide more institutional knowledge for the Navy overall. Not to mention the Navy would likely have also built up institutional knowledge from the oldest 051s, to the more modern 052s with western subsystems as well as the 051B with some domestic subsystems, to the more capable 052Bs in turn with Russian subsystems and more capable air defence in the naval Shtil, then with the 051Cs featuring S-300F, and then finally with the initial two 052Cs which they had many years to play with in the hiatus of 052C production.... so it isn't like they're exactly leaping crews from 051s to 052Ds immediately.
What is likely, is that they may transfer certain officers and enlisted personnel who have had experience serving on relatively modern ships for a few years such as 054As, 052Bs, 051Cs, Sovs (depending on fleet), and bump them up to crew 052Ds, and their spaces in those ships will be filled by elements of personnel from even older ships such as 051s destroyers and 053 frigates that are being retired.
That way, personnel who served on the oldest ships which are being decommissioned will jump to more capable ships in the form of 054As, 052Bs, 051Cs, Sovs, etc where they can have some remaining experienced crew to support their upskilling but where the jump is not as great as leaping to 052D, whereas some of the crew from those same 054As, 052Bs, 051Cs, Sovs, etc are in turn bumped upwards to the crew the newest 052Ds.
edit: so I imagine the newest 052D crews will have a proportion of experienced officers, NCOs and enlisted personnel from older ships... but also some new greenhorns as well, who on paper may be inexperienced, but we should also remember that they will likely have come through the Navy's most recent (and therefore likely to be more advanced and more comprehensive compared to older curriculum) education and training curriculum.
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As for logistics, doctrine and implementation for the Navy overall, if the Navy has learned the lessons in commissioning their large numbers of 054As then that would likely serve them well in mass commissioning 052Ds.
I also do not see what about the 052Ds will necessarily cause additional strain on logistics of the Navy, beyond the expected needs to support a more advanced warship in greater numbers (which again, was also a challenge for the mass commissioning of 054As as well).
The 052D also has the benefit of leveraging a number of major mature subsystems, from CIWS, to main propulsion, to even using a radar which is a derivative of one that has been in service for years. The Navy also has over a decade of experience with VLS as well, and the additional gain in tactical flexibility offered by 052D will be learned with each new weapons system which is integrated with the new VLS, but let's remember the additional capabilities which 054A and 052C originally brought would have promoted equally game changing capabilities then.
Therefore, I'd posit that the Navy's recent experience in mass commissioning 054As as well as their deliberately evolutionary nature of developing new destroyer capabilities (as well as leveraging mature subsystems where possible) in the early to mid 2000s and then the hiatus on constructing 052Cs would serve them quite well in the mass commissioning of 052Ds and learning how to operate them effectively.
Certainly, I would be quite confident in asserting that the Navy would find its mass commissioning of new 052Ds far more difficult if they had not had the opportunity to first work out the kinks of fielding a new advanced combatant with new capabilities en masse in the form of 054A, and the Navy would also likely have found mass commissioning and operation of 052Ds difficult if they had not first been given many years to work on operating the lone pair of 052Cs first, before embarking on true mass production and commissioning.
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Question -- why do you believe 174 will go to the ESF?
I think the current consensus is that 174 will go to SSF. It, along with 172, 173 and 175 will make up the first full 052D destroyer squadron (or division) for the Navy, probably as part of 9th destroyer flotilla of SSF.
After all, ESF right now has two destroyer flotillas each with a destroyer squadron/division of four 052Cs (for 6th desflot) and four Sovremennys (for 3rd desflot), both of which are relatively modern, whereas SSF still has some older 051s left, so it makes sense for the new 052Ds to go to SSF.
Also, for this part:
IMHO, the somewhat later commissioning of Changsha may be less to do with any "modifications" but more that Kunming was likely commissioned early but at a lower state of crew readiness, whereas Changsha was commissioned "later" but likely may have had a better trained crew with greater operating capability of the actual ship during when it was commissioned.
For instance, the first two 052Cs were also commissioned fairly early after they were launched as well, while the last four 052Cs took almost twice as long to go from launch to commissioning. So it may simply be that the Navy is willing to have initial ships enter "service" earlier with a crew which is less experienced with the ship, while more willing for later ships to enter service with more delay but with more experience and capability at commissioning.
plawolf
Lieutenant General
We have to remember that the 052C and 052D represents a massive qualitative leap over the preceding types.
The first crews were the pioneers.
Those ships were commissioned earlier because the teaching syllabus was largely blank for them. They would have had the manufactures manuals about individual systems and subsystems, but in terms of integrated operations, procedures, tactics etc, they had to pretty much learn that on the job.
In effect, they had to write the textbook as they went along.
As the accumulated knowledge base grew, the training time also lengthened. Subsequent crews were able to benefit from the experience and knowledge gained by the first crews, but that also meant more time spent learning before they had absorbed and mastered all the knowledge and skills deemed necessary before they are considered ready to be let loose upon the waves.
You would expect the first ships of the class to be launched fairly quickly, with the next few crews taking progressively longer as they build up a standard training syllabus, at which point you will see the launch to commission times stabilise, and even start to shrink again as training is streamlined and started earlier and earlier during the training of new crews.
The 052C run was too short for this trend to show, and would be the most extreme because of how big the step up in technology and capabilities were. The 052D and 055 classes will likely go through a similar pattern, but it should be far less extreme for them.
The first crews were the pioneers.
Those ships were commissioned earlier because the teaching syllabus was largely blank for them. They would have had the manufactures manuals about individual systems and subsystems, but in terms of integrated operations, procedures, tactics etc, they had to pretty much learn that on the job.
In effect, they had to write the textbook as they went along.
As the accumulated knowledge base grew, the training time also lengthened. Subsequent crews were able to benefit from the experience and knowledge gained by the first crews, but that also meant more time spent learning before they had absorbed and mastered all the knowledge and skills deemed necessary before they are considered ready to be let loose upon the waves.
You would expect the first ships of the class to be launched fairly quickly, with the next few crews taking progressively longer as they build up a standard training syllabus, at which point you will see the launch to commission times stabilise, and even start to shrink again as training is streamlined and started earlier and earlier during the training of new crews.
The 052C run was too short for this trend to show, and would be the most extreme because of how big the step up in technology and capabilities were. The 052D and 055 classes will likely go through a similar pattern, but it should be far less extreme for them.
Yes, what I didn't add in that post was that the 054A class commissioning may serve as a useful basis to project future 052D commissioning patterns.
Initial ships may be commissioned rapidly for the crews to rapidly build up knowledge on how to operate the ship, and then ships immediately following them may be commissioned in a slightly more delayed way as the crews learn from the lessons of the crews of the initial ships... and eventually that delay for new ships will shrink as the Navy streamlines its training for new crews of later ships.
edit: that said, I think it is worth mentioning that this pattern of commissioning for new ship classes may not only occur for ships with a massive qualitative leap in capability. That is to say, I think even future classes of ships which may be lower in capability compared to other in service ships may still exhibit this pattern of commissioning to a degree... even if they are using mature subsystems.
I think it just makes a lot of sense for all ships of a new class to undergo that pattern, where initial ships of a class are commissioned "early" where crews can learn how to fully operate the ship, and then those lessons are applied to crews of successive ships of the class thus causing a "delay" in commissioning, and then eventually causing that delay to shrink as the Navy streamlines its training of crews for that class.
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