antiterror13
Brigadier
I think what he meant was something that can't be moved ..... I think it is doable
052C/052D Class Destroyers
- Thread starter Jeff Head
- Start date
I think what he meant was something that can't be moved ..... I think it is doable
antiterror13
Brigadier
From the looks of the cutaway, that area is free of machinery spaces. It should be living quarters underneath, along with whatever is needed to support the radar. You can redesign that and move those somewhere else. If you really need the living and storage spaces, you can extend the length of the ship. The block module that comprises the area --- remember the ship is built in blocks and sections, can be made longer with 64 VLS, while the remaining blocks still stay the same.
Type 517 is the radar introduced with the Jiangweis. Its there for anti stealth. Maybe they discovered that old UHF radar can pick up stealthy objects. The reason why its also being discarded is because tracking resolution is not good and the radar is vulnerable to countermeasures. Hence why current anti-stealth radar technology is focused on AESA.
If you look at all those fan drawings of Type 055 and 052E, you will see a black panel radar there on the back that looks like a Thales L. This is either an AESA or phase array, L band or UHF. This isn't drawn out of imagination but is copied from designs that already exist. PLA uses similar radars for land based SAM batteries like on the HQ-9. Its been displayed on models for an export version of the Type 052C/D.
But ... but on the actual Type 055, the Type 517 is gone and there is no replacement to be seen. Not even this SMART-L looking like radar.
This is likely to mean that the Type 346B radars on the Type 055 might be far more powerful and sensitive enough to detect and track LO objects at greater range ---- a good hint that the radars are now using GaN or Gallium Nitride. GaN offers a much higher power burst before voltage breakdown than GaAs (Gallium Arsenide) which is the current material used on AESAs and phase arrays and has 30X the sensitivity. Then mix that long that the 346B radars are even bigger than the 346A radars which in turn are bigger than the 346 radars which in absolute terms when compared to other naval radars is already HUGE. The larger the antenna, the more radio energy it can capture, that is obvious with its capture area, and its also has more elements that can transmit, making it more powerful.
The use of the 055's Type 346B radars on the Type 052X series is something that also needs to be looked into for future versions of the Type 052X.
shen
Senior Member
i don't think Type 517 was installed primarily for anti-stealth. it was just what PLAN had for volume search radar. The 052 Luhu originally had the Sea Eagle for volume search. if i remember correctly, it was L band and adapted from a civilian ATC radar. it proved unreliable in sea service and caused the ship to be top heavy. Type 517 on the other hand was reliable and lightweight.
The original Type 346 radar may not have the software refinement to perform volume search efficiently with multi-beam forming technique. Therefore Type 517 was still necessary as a backup.
I doubt that Type 517 is an L band with dipole elements like that. That's clearly a VHF/UHF antenna or metric wave radar.
The Type 517 does volume search on the Jiangwei class ships, yes. But it is not the primary search radar. The Jiangwei also has the Type 360, which is the smaller rotating antenna on the main mast, and which works on the S-band.
Having an S and an L band doing search is somewhat near redundant, this is not a combination you see often.
What the Luhu had was this.
I believe its called the Type 518. Now this is a real L-band radar.
Originally, the Luhu had:
Type 518 --- L band for air volume search
Type 362 --- X band for air and surface search, small object targeting
After update it had
Type 517 --- metric band for air volume search
Type 360S --- S band for air volume search and track (DDG 113)
Type 363 --- S band for air volume search and track (DDG 112)
Type 364 --- C band for air and surface search
Sea Eagle is the Type 381, or Rice Screen. That's the one on the Type 051B before it got updated.
Its a FRESCAN array, which is electronically steered vertically, while mechanically scanning as it is turned around. It works on C-band.
The original radars on the Type 051B was:
Type 360S --- S band air and sea search
Type 381 --- C band air and sea search.
After update
Type 382 --- S band 3D air and sea search
Type 364 --- C band air and sea search.
For Type 052C and D it would be like
Type 517 --- metric wave air volume search
Type 346 --- S band air and sea search
Type 364 --- C band air and sea search
S-band is the most commonly and preferred use for naval search radar due to being an excellent compromise between volume search and range, and tracking resolution. That is why its the main search radar. The other two radars fill the gaps the S-band cannot cover. The metric wave for even longer ranges and stealthier objects, while the C band Type 364 is also for scanning high resolution objects near the surface of the water. The Type 364 is placed on the highest mast so it has the farthest peer down on the horizon --- this is the radar intended to spot sea skimmers first.
Back up idea is only valid if you have two search radars on the same band, and that means S-band. Type 382, Type 360S or Type 363 would have been a more appropriate back up to the Type 346, and indeed the Type 382 is used for that on the carriers.
But given that the radar choices have different bands, they are used to cover the disadvantages of each other for the widest range of bands possible.
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shen
Senior Member
i think we are having a lost in translation moment here. or perhaps i didn't word it clearly in my earlier post. Of course, Type 517 metric wave "volume air search" radar i referred to in the earlier post. (actually volume air search radar may not be the technically correct term here, which i think referred to a phased array radar optimized for long range air surveillance through the implementation of multi-beams forming technique. long range air surveillance may be the more appropriate terminology for Type 517 and Type 518. ) I think the confusion started with my reference to Sea Eagle, by which I was referring to the original long range search radar on the Luhu pair. That radar was commonly called Hai Ying/ 海鹰 in the early days of Luhu, before we knew the Type designation of the radar. (confusingly FRESCAN Type 381 was referred to as the Sea Eagle in Chinese sourced English language literature at the time. which also translate as 海鹰).
So back to Hai Ying/Type 518, yes that is the L band radar was technically impressive but operationally unreliable (because it was adapted from civilian air traffic radar) and if I remember correctly from reading a story in Merchant Ship magazine years ago, also caused the Luhus to be top heavy both to the heavy physical weight and wind force on its huge antenna. Due to those deficiencies, Type 518 was replaced by the Type 517 during Luhu's midlife upgrade.
Now here is my reasoning, which i'm too tired to type at this time...to be continued tomorrow...maybe
Volume air search is the correct term because this is what long wave search does best. This has completely nothing to do with multibeam forming, and quite on the contrary, this is best done with large sweeps or scans in 360 degrees over a large area, and these sweeps can be done with a mechanical rotating array, or with electronic steering via a fixed array, or a combination where the array electronically scans vertically, but is rotated for horizontal scanning.