052C/052D Class Destroyers

Lethe said:

But that is not the benchmark, because the US Navy only has large destroyers (and some overgrown OPVs). A fleet of 60 destroyers, 60 blue water frigates, and 60 corvettes would deter the daylights out of USN and Japan.

If we acknowledge that China is to become the world's largest economy and therefore will potentially be able to allocate more resources to its Naval and other armed forces than any other nation, the question is what factors will ultimately restrain Chinese military spending and set an effective ceiling on military capabilities. There are many such factors, most of which are themselves subjects for robust discussion that we cannot adequately dispense with here.

One such factor is perceived necessity. Consider that China's economy today is such that exceeding current US military spending is merely a matter of national will and resource allocation. Nonetheless, China's defence spending remains modest. While it is certainly possible to envision futures in which deteriorating great power relations and other factors combine to result in significant increases in Chinese defence spending as a proportion of GDP, such an outcome is far from inevitable. China has an expansive ideology regarding the place of Chinese civilisation, particularly in the Asia-Pacific region, but there is little indication that this extends to the military realm, i.e. that China will seek an America-style "full-spectrum dominance" based upon an ever-expanding conception of national interests. To be sure that is a hypothesis for the long-term, while in the medium-term (let us say to 2035) China will be focused on securing its definite interests in the Asia-Pacific region. I have no doubt that the "physics of power" will result in a gradual expansion and deepening of China's real and perceived interests, but nonetheless I do not believe that China's conception of its interests will ever match America's expansive visions because with China the ideological and historical circumstances are very different. And China's military force structure will reflect this more limited vision.

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The US is planning on approximately 80-90 aegis destroyers plus 50 frigates/lcs.

A chinese fleet with 90 Aegis destroyers plus 60 frigates and 60 corvettes is merely equal to the US+JP fleets. That is a limited vision for China in the Western Pacific.

Full spectrum dominance would be a globe spanning Chinese fleet twice that size, but which is supported by an economy which is also twice the size of the US

Dup

AndrewS said:

The US is planning on approximately 80-90 aegis destroyers plus 50 frigates/lcs.

A chinese fleet with 90 Aegis destroyers plus 60 frigates and 60 corvettes is merely equal to the US+JP fleets. That is not full spectrum dominance

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USN can invent whatever numbers it likes according to the political whims of the day, budgetary realities will tell the real story. The truth is that USN is having serious problems crewing, operating and maintaining even the current fleet (largely because it is top-heavy) and is trying to shunt major acquisition programs (SSBN-X) off into Somebody Else's Budget because they don't fit in USN's. In this context, adding some fifty frigates to the mix (and extra aircraft carriers, death stars, etc.) is a non-starter.

Of course it is possible that USN could receive significant and sustained increases in funding in future, and if that occurs then I would expect Chinese planners to take note and respond accordingly. But that is piling hypotheticals upon hypotheticals and is hardly a reasonable basis for a first-order projection of China's future fleet structure. If you are going down the route of incorporating hypothetical future relational dynamics and their implications for budgets and force structures, the only reasonable summary is that the possibility space is enormous.

Lethe said:

USN can invent whatever numbers it likes according to the political whims of the day, budgetary realities will tell the real story. The truth is that USN is having serious problems crewing, operating and maintaining even the current fleet (largely because it is top-heavy) and is trying to shunt major acquisition programs off into Somebody Else's Budget because they don't fit in USN's. In this context, adding some fifty frigates to the mix (and extra aircraft carriers, death stars, etc.) is a non-starter.

Of course it is possible that USN could receive significant and sustained increases in funding in future, and if that occurs then I would expect Chinese planners to take note and respond accordingly. But that is piling hypotheticals upon hypotheticals and is hardly a reasonable basis for a first-order projection of China's future fleet structure. If you are going to go down the route of incorporating hypothetical future relational dynamics and their implications for budgets and force structures, the only reasonable conclusion is that the possibility space is enormous.

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The possibility space is enormous yes.

But does anyone doubt that the Chinese Navy has a shipbuilding plan?

And would that plan benchmark against the what the US Navy plans to field?

Of course PLAN has a medium-term shipbuilding plan that we are not privy to, but I expect it is less detailed (and more realistic) than USN's published plans.

USN's plans are such as they are because it is a mature fleet where a steady pace of retirements must be matched by new vessels else the fleet will shrink, which is politically unacceptable (and if the fleet is shrinking, the political/institutional need to point to a stable or growing future is even greater). Hence there is a never-ending succession of notional future build rates extending for decades to prevent this from happening and thereby serve the political needs of the military and civilian administration of the day. You can see this with the F-35 program: it is 10 years late and full rate production will be at a rate lower than originally planned, but the total number to be procured remains the same because the alternative (a shrinking USAF) is politically unacceptable. Instead, The Plan says that production will simply be extended by fifteen years or so to make the numbers work. So much for plans.

PLAN doesn't yet have to deal with such problems because it is a rapidly growing fleet, where even the most modest future build rates will exceed retirement rates several-fold. Given that the basic narrative is far more reassuring, i.e. bigger, better, stronger, China can afford to be less precise (and therefore more realistic) about its future plans. For example, there may be a plan to field a new general purpose frigate type in the late 2020s at a notional production rate of 2 units per year, but in practice that could be slowed or accelerated depending on the budgetary circumstances of the moment, which will be informed both by broader economic and political circumstances.

I have read some very interesting arguments from both sides. But none have taken into account the value of having solid military allies. The United States, for all its "Big Navy", still places a very important part of its strategy, on its allies and their capabilities. Japan, a military ally of America, has a powerful Navy. South Korea, another U.S military ally, is yet another who has a powerful Navy. Australia is another, who is steadily building a decent and powerful Navy. A similar strategy in terms of Air Power has been adopted by America, on the European Continent. With the likes of France, Germany, Britain, Spain and Italy having pretty decent Air Force's. Combined, they represent a very potent and serious threat to its adversary. Having a collection of allies with small to medium, yet strong militaries, represents a very capable deterrent. This is not something anyone would take lightly when confronted with actual, full scale war. In other words, America is sufficiently "layered" itself not only by having the most powerful military in the world. But augmented by smaller, but strong miltary partner nations.

What China ought to be doing, is something along the same lines. The Russian Federation understood this (after hard lessons learnt from the 90s) and are steadily building up its alliances. The crucial ingredient in this equation is having a solid ally with you, in strategic regions. You have to have half a dozen of them in the same region. One or two are sufficient, but they have to be truly allies. Undeterred and loyal allies (goes both ways to have a working relationship). As such, and as much as China wouldn't like me saying this. But Vietnam is the key to China reinforcing and consolidating it's position in South China Sea. When China can establish a mutually beneficial relationship with Vietnam, it will be in a far greater position of strength than most. But to have Vietnam as a strong military ally. Well then, that's a game changer for China in that region. The same goes for other regions, like Arabian Sea - Pakistan, Persian Gulf - Iran, Mediterranean Sea - Egypt, Pacific Rim - Indonesia and so on.

That's what China ought to focus on. Granted, this is somewhat they are already doing. But more needs to be done and yet it has to be not just by China. Efforts need to be made by the allies as well. If they truly are serious enough.

imo this discussion about building 50-60 055s over the next 20 years has some sensible reasoning and big blindspots on both sides of the argument.

I personally do not expect the Navy to need quite that many 055s (i.e.: including variants of 055 I assume) over the next 20 years, and while I agree that such a number should definitely not be thrown around as if it is assumed to be going to happen, I also think that at this stage it is yet so unrealistic.

These sort of predictions are always dependent upon extrapolating from past/current trends, into the future. At the moment, 055 production has only really just begun, and we don't know if the rate of production will be sustained, and we don't know how much of the 055's potential required numbers have been fulfilled based on the current 4 confirmed hulls.

It might turn out that the navy will only build 4 hulls initially and take a few years off before ordering some more, which would cause our predictions to be lower. Or the navy might continue building at JNCX and DL at the rate they've been doing into the future, with 8 ships in the first batch. Or, some of the previous rumours about HPLX building 055 might come to fruition and we might see three shipyards building 055s at the same time, causing our predictions to be much higher.

Other factors, like the future growth rate of the chinese economy, and the state of what China's geopolitical/naval ambitions will be, are also not guaranteed to enable a 50-60 055 production run over two decades to work out.

But otoh, 50-60 055s over 20 years is 2.5-3 055s commissioned per year, and while that is on the higher end of the commissioning rate and the higher end of the length of sustained continuous production, I don't think it is pie in the sky unrealistic either, given we are still in the very early stage of tracking 055's production trajectory and it's hard to track where it may go.


So IMO such a prospect should definitely be treated with a lot of caution, but at the same time it shouldn't just be laughed off.
In a couple of years we may have a better picture of current (of the time) 055's production rate and the future production trajectory based on it.

Lethe said:

USN can invent whatever numbers it likes according to the political whims of the day, budgetary realities will tell the real story. The truth is that USN is having serious problems crewing, operating and maintaining even the current fleet ....

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The US is not "inventing" numbers. It has a very solid, open, and well understood acquistion process.

Right now, there are currently 68 Burke Class DDGs launched.

There are 22 AEGIS Ticos cruisers also launched and in commission.

That is not an "invented" number. That is what currently exists and they are all manned....all 90 of those vessels.

In addition to this, there are currently 10 more Bukre class approved and in various stages of construction, from almost ready to launch, through to initial components being purchased.

Another ten are planned beyond that, and depending on how the Burke III does, they may build another 10 after that.

In addition to this, there are two Zumwalts in the water and a third building, and there are now 16 LCS frigates sized vessels launched (eight of each type) and 15 more building. At that point, another 30 new design FFGs will be built.

The US Navy will train and man crews for all of them. It has never run into a shortage of crews in my lifetime, and they used to have almost 200 more ships than they have now.

I expect the US Navy will end up maintaining something on the order of 100 large DDG/CG combatants, and 50 FFG combatants. by the 2025-2030 time frame.

The plan is in place to do so, and the service currently had 92 large and 16 smaller...or close to 110 of those vessels already in place. Expanding that by forty more vessels over the next 15 - 20 years is very achievable.

...and, depending on which party is in power, it may or may not happen.

That is not unusual for the US...it is the way the political process works with the civilian government setting the policy based on input from the military, but also based on the vote of the public. it is then boted into law, and once the laws are voted in, a they are doing now, it is hard for another party to just turn that off.

Possible...but what is more likely os that they would set policy for further down the road that begins to turn things the way they want to see them if they come into power.

Anyhow, this discussion of US building is not really on topic here, other than to compare with what the PLAN is working towards.

I believe the PLAN is capable of building the types of numbers that have been discussed here. But they will be careful and they will ease into it. They have never operated such a large force with all the basing and logistical requirements necessary, whereas, as I said, the US Navy has operated even larger numbers than it is planning on and done so for many decades and has the basing and the logistics down and finely tuned after decades of operational experience.

The PLAN will look to develop that at the same time...and therefore may not build as fast as some would imagine...even though their building capability would allow it. They also need those other components in place to support it.

AndrewS said:

I have actually read the total lifecycle costs for the Arleigh Burke and other weapons systems in a GAO report a few years back.

But let me boil it down to its simplest terms.

In approximately 10 years, China can expect to have an economy which is approximately $40 Trillion USD, up from $23 Trillion USD today. Note that the US is currently at $19 Trillion.

If China continues to spend a modest 2% of GDP on the military, that means China would be spending $800 Billion every year. That compares with the US currently spending $600 Billion per year.

So a very rough method would be to size the Chinese Navy some 30% larger than the equivalent US Navy today.

That would equate to an end-strength of 110 AEGIS destroyers, so China building and maintaining 90 AEGIS destroyers (Type-55 and Type-52) in the next 30 years should be easily attainable.

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Let's not talk about your "rough method", which is just another way of trying to get away with meaningless generalities with no substance behind them. And you having read total life cycle costs for the Burke is meaningless if you cannot give total life cycle costs for 90 055s in the PLAN over the medium to long term, which you obviously cannot even remotely accomplish. You also have no idea of the long term GDP growth of China. For example, you assuming 6.5% growth over the next 10 to 20 years is IMO laughable. If China can stay at 6.5% growth for the next 5 years I will already be impressed. Over the medium to long term GDP will surely slow down to the level of other developed economies. Actually I expect there will be a severe reversal of fortune for the worldwide economy in this timeframe, worse than the Great Recession, but that's another story for another time. In any case you unfortunately for you have no magic ball, and so giving precise estimates of military spending as a percentage of some future GDP is essentially nonsensical.

AndrewS said:

The possibility space is enormous yes.

But does anyone doubt that the Chinese Navy has a shipbuilding plan?

And would that plan benchmark against the what the US Navy plans to field?

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Well there is your problem in a nutshell. First nobody doubts that the PLAN has a "shipbuilding plan". On the other hand, this in no way means that its shipbuilding plan and YOUR shipbuilding plan are the same, or even remotely similar. Second, who says that the PLAN is benchmarking its building plan against the current USN force structure? It clearly is not because if it was, it wouldn't be building 056s and 054As for the last decade or more. It would have been concentrating all its resources on the higher tonnage ships (e.g. 052C/D), just like the USN has until the last few years when it finally realized the error of its ways and is now scrambling for an FFG design. The PLAN has been marching to the beat of its own drum for a long time and I don't expect it to start benchmarking its force structure to that of the USN any time soon, or ever TBH.

Iron Man said:

Let's not talk about your "rough method", which is just another way of trying to get away with meaningless generalities with no substance behind them. And you having read total life cycle costs for the Burke is meaningless if you cannot give total life cycle costs for 90 055s in the PLAN over the medium to long term, which you obviously cannot even remotely accomplish. You also have no idea of the long term GDP growth of China. For example, you assuming 6.5% growth over the next 10 to 20 years is IMO laughable. If China can stay at 6.5% growth for the next 5 years I will already be impressed. Over the medium to long term GDP will surely slow down to the level of other developed economies. Actually I expect there will be a severe reversal of fortune for the worldwide economy in this timeframe, worse than the Great Recession, but that's another story for another time. In any case you unfortunately for you have no magic ball, and so giving precise estimates of military spending as a percentage of some future GDP is essentially nonsensical.


Well there is your problem in a nutshell. First nobody doubts that the PLAN has a "shipbuilding plan". On the other hand, this in no way means that its shipbuilding plan and YOUR shipbuilding plan are the same, or even remotely similar. Second, who says that the PLAN is benchmarking its building plan against the current USN force structure? It clearly is not because if it was, it wouldn't be building 056s and 054As for the last decade or more. It would have been concentrating all its resources on the higher tonnage ships (e.g. 052C/D), just like the USN has until the last few years when it finally realized the error of its ways and is now scrambling for an FFG design. The PLAN has been marching to the beat of its own drum for a long time and I don't expect it to start benchmarking its force structure to that of the USN any time soon, or ever TBH.

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Of course there is no way to know what the actual TCO for the Type-55 is at this point. But we do have a detailed lifetime Total Cost of Ownership analysis for the Arleigh Burke to compare against.

And in the grand view, it is the generality that matters, which goes back to Chinese strategic requirements and capabilities. I'm using the stated GDP growth targets set by the government, along with a modest 2% of GDP being spent on the military. Given the strategic environment is becoming more uncertain, I doubt China will reduce this. If anything, I think Chinese military spending will undergo a modest rise from 2% to 2.5% of GDP. So in 10 years time, that $800 Billion (2%) would actually be $1000 Billion (2.5%) in military spending.

And it's obvious you haven't been keeping up with the economic analyses.

During the last Great recession, the growth gap between China and the US grew even larger. That was primarily because the US government was ideological unable to intervene and make common sense decisions, because it meant government intervening in the market. In comparison, China accelerated its development plans by 5-10 years, taking advantage of the low cost of land/labour/materials during the global recession.

Plus remember even today, China faster-growing economy already has a PPP economic output which is roughly 20% larger than the US. On balance, that already suggests that China will build a larger military in the long-run.

And I say that China is benchmarking against the US Navy, but that does not mean copying the force structure. China's strategic requirements are somewhat different, but one of those will be to build a navy that can exercise maritime superiority within the second island chain.

And that at would require China to at least match the USA in terms of high-end AEGIS type destroyers.

I think we'll just have to agree to disagree on China's long term performance and plans, and let time take its course.