052C/052D Class Destroyers
- Thread starter Jeff Head
- Start date
Tangshanese here
asif iqbal
Lieutenant General
DL should have had 2 hangers for 2 x Z18
Why are ships from Dalian so much slower? I thought the major ship companies have been merged together a while back? Has there been any improvement?
All but one of their ships are going to the 10th Destroyer Division in the North Seas Fleet. The squadron has been operating Ludas handed out from the 1st, and is transitioning straight to 052D from those Ludas. This formation has been taking time doing this transition. Lately at least one of their ships, 120 Chengdu has been exercising with 101 Nanchang, recent examples being live fire and UNREP drills.
121 Qiqihar is likely to have a dual simultaneous commission with 121 Tangshan. Other ships of this formation includes 119 Guiyang. Other ships to come from Dalian going to this formation includes pennant numbers 122, 123, 124 and 125. One Dalian ship, is going to the 2nd Division in the South China Seas as 163 Guilin. It is notable that 119 Guiyang is the first 052D that is completed by Dalian. Outside of 121 Qiqihar, the most completed 052DL among the 052DL currently being outfitted in Dalian is likely to be 163 Guilin.
Not sure of the thought processes involved why one ship each from Dalian and Jiangnan are "exchanged" between the North and the East/South fleets, as Jiangnan is the main supplier to the ESF/SSF while Dalian is to the NSF. 122 Tangshan will be the only 052D in the NSF that is from the Jiangnan other than 117 Xining. I am not sure of the thought process why the 10th is almost all the Dalian 052D except for one ship.
Zibo has been known to be in service for quite a few months now, whats not known is the status for 121,122 and 132 which are quite close being in service.Ok, the stretched variant is definitely in service. Below are screen captures of a TV report on an exercise by the Eastern Theater Command.
I wonder if all future regular 052Ds will also get lengthened during their midlife refit. I would think by then navalised Z20s will be in relative high volume production. And the older models with less capabilities would be used on smaller ships or sold and retired eventually.
plawolf
Lieutenant General
Not necessarily. Remember the Phillipines started referring to the SCS as the ‘West Phillipines Sea’ or some similar BS, and it would be right on form for Australia to jump on that bandwagon.
The news article just had to also point out that it happened in the SCS as a nationalistic flex to show how ‘courageous’ the Aussies are for sticking one up at the ‘evil commie Chinese’ and also to supply pretext for the Australians being there (trade routes) because no one actually uses west Philippines sea or know where it is.