052C/052D Class Destroyers

Tam

Brigadier
Registered Member
Good points on possible designation changes, the need for continued job creation, and possible surge orders for contingency planning.

While the PLAN may well decide to give an IEPS 052 a new class number, we need to remember that China has already been running IEPS on large coast guard cutters for years now.

While it does make sense to suggest that China build a test class before committing to mass production, I am not sure if that is still relavent, since China has not done a similar test phase since the the 052C if memory servers. Even with the 055, the initial build was 4 units at 2 shipyards.

It seems that Chinese naval shipbuilding has reached a point where the PLAN is so confident with the shipyard’s design capabilities that they seem happy to go straight to mass production right off the bat.

Given that the basic 052C/D hull is pretty much as mature as it can be; the Chinese should already have worked out most of the basics of IEPS on its coast guard cutter, and the PLAN ‘new normal’ of going straight to mass production with new ship types, well, I don’t think a serial production IEPS 052C/D based design is that far fetched.

It could well be that the first batch will only have IEPS, with conventional main guns; and that rail guns will only be added to subsequent batches, after the PLAN has verified that IEPS works as expected on a DDG class warship. I think that would be considered conservative by modern PLAN standards.


Do you have any info on the large Chinese cutters running on IEPS? I am very curious.
 

Blitzo

Lieutenant General
Staff member
Super Moderator
Registered Member
For an 052E to make sense, the most important thing to have imo would be IEPS.

Integrated mast would be nice, but hardly game changing. IEPS would allow the mounting of the new rail gun, which alone would make this class worthwhile.

The 052E with IEPS may even be the first PLAN ship to be operational with a railgun, since the next batch of 055s seems years away, and may not have IEPS to effectively support the power needs of the railgun.

The 052 is a far more mature design, so would be better suited as the first to be fitted with IEPS and railguns instead of the much newer 055.

Once they worked out all the bugs with railguns on 052E/Fs, integrating railguns to the 055 would be much simpler and less risky.

Well, I can see a number of small modifications that 052D could benefit from to warrant an 052E designation even if it doesn't have IEPS.

Obviously it would be very nice if an 052D follow on did receive IEPS to allow for future weapons like rail guns, however at this stage I'm not sure if we can expect the 052D follow on to be that much more capable. For all we know it may be more iterative in nature, with a smaller leap in overall capability between 052D vs 052C or even 052C vs 052B.


Of course, the new ship that was recently launched from JN might be more of a "new flight" of 052D than an 052E (it seems like no agreement on its designation exists, let alone characteristics about what its major changes will be apart from the extended flight deck).
 

by78

General
There is no dedicated thread for Navy radar Here is the story of tpe 346 Radar development Interesting
It took them 10 years to develop the radar. With Eng subtitle

If I recall correctly, this is a re-run of the series that was first aired almost a year ago, which was discussed here around that time.
 

by78

General
DDG 175 from a magazine scan.

(1877 x 2048)
41535596180_204dea0d63_k.jpg
 
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