052C/052D Class Destroyers

Max Demian · Oct 9, 2020

Tam said:
Why be concerned? That's PLAN business. Plus it will be what it is...if the hull design has no future, it will see a graceful retirement instead of being hacked and patched for a life beyond its years.

They’ve commited themselves to at least 25 ships of this variant. What do you think their design life is?

This isn't like in the US shipbuilding industry where these seems to be a loss in ability and confidence in all new ship designing and building, that you're continually patching old designs or importing existing designs from different sources.

What you describe can be more attributed to the USN’s lack of clear requirements and long-term strategy. It’s very hard to build a class of ships if the customer keeps changing his mind about the ship’s mission. The technical problems occured because the USN demanded a ridiculous number of new and unproven technologies, but did not provide the funding to properly test them before they were integrated to the ships under construction.

The Chinese shipbuilding industry is young and has huge wealth of young engineers --- the average age of the design team for the 055 is said to be only between 30 to 40 years old, with the leader said to be around 36. They are more than happy for every new opportunity, to dream, design, and breed new warships into reality, and would be less eager to continually patch up and upgrade older designs.

That’s very romantic, but as an engineer I can assure you that most companies with a legacy of successful products invest non-trivial resources into maintaining and upgrading legacy systems. Isn’t the 052 class a patched up and upgraded design dating back to the late 90’s?

Max Demian · Oct 9, 2020

AndrewS said:
I struggle to see why a few knots of speed make any appreciable difference to the real world performance of the Type-052D.

PLAN went from a 31kt Type 051B, to a 30kt Type 052B, to a 29kt Type 052C, to a 26-27kt(?) Type 052D.

As someone who likes to play sub sims, each knot less of target top speed lets me fire torpedoes from a larger and safer distance.

A carrier that’s launching jet aircraft needs at least 27kts to ensure sufficient wind, even with catapults, per US doctrine. Will the Type 052D be able to keep up?

It also risks slowing down the entire CSG rapid deployment to theatre. Type 055 has a top speed of at least 32kts. The Type 003 carrier might steam as fast as 37kts.

Tam · Oct 9, 2020

Max Demian said:
They’ve commited themselves to at least 25 ships of this variant. What do you think their design life is?

This is based on perfecting a platform first introduced in 1994, and that amounts to a total of 35 ships from the very first ship that entered service. So I would think that the platform has enjoyed a full glass.

What you describe can be more attributed to the USN’s lack of clear requirements and long-term strategy. It’s very hard to build a class of ships if the customer keeps changing his mind about the ship’s mission. The technical problems occured because the USN demanded a ridiculous number of new and unproven technologies, but did not provide the funding to properly test them before they were integrated to the ships under construction.

I would say you got problems deeper than that. The shipyard is just the top of a pyramid of contractors and subcontractors whose scale of business isn't going to survive on defense contracts alone. Once these members start disappearing, there goes the maker of this component, this valve, this gear, this thing here and that, and before you know it, you have less choices, less people designing and making these things properly, then you no longer the ability to make this component within specs, or locally, or you have to import it, or cut corners. The rot begins from the bottom.

That’s very romantic, but as an engineer I can assure you that most companies with a legacy of successful products invest non-trivial resources into maintaining and upgrading legacy systems. Isn’t the 052 class a patched up and upgraded design dating back to the late 90’s?

That's exactly what it is, and that's why it has to go when the time comes.

I can also assure you that if you stick to a core business of simply maintaining and upgrading legacy systems, you will also put yourself into a position of getting disrupted.

AndrewS · Oct 9, 2020

Max Demian said:
PLAN went from a 31kt Type 051B, to a 30kt Type 052B, to a 29kt Type 052C, to a 26-27kt(?) Type 052D.

As someone who likes to play sub sims, each knot less of target top speed lets me fire torpedoes from a larger and safer distance.

Look at existing at the Mark 48 torpedo, which has a speed of 55knots and a range of 38km.

A difference of 29knots to 27knots for a destroyer means a closing speed of 28 knots instead of 26 knots.
That only works out to a couple of km difference.

A submarine already has to get pretty close to its target anyway.

A carrier that’s launching jet aircraft needs at least 27kts to ensure sufficient wind, even with catapults, per US doctrine. Will the Type 052D be able to keep up?

It also risks slowing down the entire CSG rapid deployment to theatre. Type 055 has a top speed of at least 32kts. The Type 003 carrier might steam as fast as 37kts.

It's the Type-055 which needs to keep up, and has 4 gas turbines for this.

The Type-052D can afford to be a little slower as it is on the outer layers of the CSG formation.

The Chinese Navy operates conventional carriers which means they will rapidly run out of fuel at full speed.

Max Demian · Oct 9, 2020

AndrewS said:
Look at existing at the Mark 48 torpedo, which has a speed of 55knots and a range of 38km.

A difference of 29knots to 27knots for a destroyer means a closing speed of 28 knots instead of 26 knots.
That only works out to a couple of km difference.

A submarine already has to get pretty close to its target anyway.

Even a single kilometer could be a matter of life and death.

Taking your figures for Mk48 and a closing speed of 29 knots, gives a max firing range of 20,036m against a Type 052D in a tail chase.

Just for comparison, a DDG-51 has a top speed of 35kt. In a tail chase, the Mk48 would have to be fired from 13,364m at most.
Freedom class LCS have a top speed of 50kts, so you would have to fire from 3,455m at most, in a tail chase.

Of course, all ships would be conducting evasive maneuvers, so the max range of the torpedoes would be lower than the above figures.

The above scenario is not actually indicative of how a wire guided torpedo may be used. If the submarine is positioned in such a way that the ships are closing on its position, it can fire torpedoes head-on against the fleet and have them run at only 20kts or so. A slow running torpedo will be quieter and more difficult to detect. By taking advantage of a higher relative closing speed and longer torpedo range at lower speeds, the submarine reduces the probability of a torpedo launch detection and thereby improves its survival chances. With this tactic, beyond the horizon kills against surface targets are entirely possible.

gelgoog · Oct 9, 2020

Like I said it is pointless to dream about a much larger displacement Type 052D in the near future. They would need to add more gas turbines to it like the Burke class has. That would increase costs significantly and if you are going to use four gas turbines you might as well build more Type 055s. The Chinese need better marine gas turbine engines and they don't have them. There is only so much room for improvement in the QC-280s. They should be aiming to get a next generation marine gas turbine engine to enable these sorts of ships.
A lot of US aligned designs are using the Rolls Royce MT30 including the most modern Japanese and South Korean frigates. Such an engine is outside the scope of current Chinese or Russian gas turbine technology and AFAIK there are no programs to build such engines.

AndrewS · Oct 9, 2020

Max Demian said:
Even a single kilometer could be a matter of life and death.

Taking your figures for Mk48 and a closing speed of 29 knots, gives a max firing range of 20,036m against a Type 052D in a tail chase.

Just for comparison, a DDG-51 has a top speed of 35kt. In a tail chase, the Mk48 would have to be fired from 13,364m at most.
Freedom class LCS have a top speed of 50kts, so you would have to fire from 3,455m at most, in a tail chase.

Of course, all ships would be conducting evasive maneuvers, so the max range of the torpedoes would be lower than the above figures.

The above scenario is not actually indicative of how a wire guided torpedo may be used. If the submarine is positioned in such a way that the ships are closing on its position, it can fire torpedoes head-on against the fleet and have them run at only 20kts or so. A slow running torpedo will be quieter and more difficult to detect. By taking advantage of a higher relative closing speed and longer torpedo range at lower speeds, the submarine reduces the probability of a torpedo launch detection and thereby improves its survival chances. With this tactic, beyond the horizon kills against surface targets are entirely possible.

For a warship, everything could be a matter of life or death.

But remember that the primary mission is to provide long range air defence for other units.
And that there are frigates which form the ASW screen.

Max Demian · Oct 10, 2020

AndrewS said:
Plus I don't see any point in upgrading current ships to IEPS in order to support much larger electricity requirements.
They can still operate fine with the VLS as the primary weapon system for long-range missiles.

I never said they ought to be upgraded to IEPS configuration. I sincerely doubt that's even cost efficient as it would constitute a total overhaul.

My concern was that with no spare growth left in the hull, it will be difficult to install larger electric generators on 52Ds should future requirements call for a more powerful radar. At this point in time, DEWs are at a maturity point where they can augment CIWS, and that's about it. But that's not the main reason why a new class of ships should have an all electric or hybrid drive.

IEPS enables a much improved acoustic profile, which is critical for ASW platforms. It significantly improves fuel efficiency, which increases fleet mobility and decreases their vulnerability. If combined with azipods, it improves the propulsive efficiency of prime movers. It significantly improves the "hit points" of a ship. Finally, it is well suited for future growth in electrical demands of sensor and weapon systems.

My second concern with the 052s in general are their clustered engineering spaces. One hit amidships, and all propulsion is at risk of being taken out of action. The Japanese were much more wiser in that regard with their smaller Akizuki and Asahi destroyers. The USN's upcoming Constellation class frigate has a very substantial separation in engineering spaces. Something to watch for in upcoming PLAN designs.

tamsen_ikard · Oct 10, 2020

Tam said:
They stopped at 25, although for the sake of expediency they might still order a few more as a possibility. The switch is toward the 055 itself. There is a pause now after an aggressive 5 year build program but we may start to see something come out in the months or two that can determine if the 052X program is continued or not.

Why is that? The main purpose of a destroyer is Air defence and anti-ship, anti-surface warfare, They are basically a missile carrier with radars attached for sensing. They need better missiles and better radar and perhaps drones. There is no need for Electric drives. If they can build one with low cost then fine but not the most priority compared to having strong missile defense.

AndrewS · Oct 10, 2020

Max Demian said:
I never said they ought to be upgraded to IEPS configuration. I sincerely doubt that's even cost efficient as it would constitute a total overhaul.

My concern was that with no spare growth left in the hull, it will be difficult to install larger electric generators on 52Ds should future requirements call for a more powerful radar. At this point in time, DEWs are at a maturity point where they can augment CIWS, and that's about it. But that's not the main reason why a new class of ships should have an all electric or hybrid drive.

IEPS enables a much improved acoustic profile, which is critical for ASW platforms. It significantly improves fuel efficiency, which increases fleet mobility and decreases their vulnerability. If combined with azipods, it improves the propulsive efficiency of prime movers. It significantly improves the "hit points" of a ship. Finally, it is well suited for future growth in electrical demands of sensor and weapon systems.

My second concern with the 052s in general are their clustered engineering spaces. One hit amidships, and all propulsion is at risk of being taken out of action. The Japanese were much more wiser in that regard with their smaller Akizuki and Asahi destroyers. The USN's upcoming Constellation class frigate has a very substantial separation in engineering spaces. Something to watch for in upcoming PLAN designs.

And why would you want to install a larger more powerful radar in a Type-052D?
I don't see that many scenarios where it is actually useful.

Plus the Type-055 does have a lot of spare electricity generation, if required.

And given the numbers of Type-055 likely to become available, I don't see any pressing need for the Type-052D radars to be upgraded.

052C/052D Class Destroyers

Max Demian

Junior Member

Max Demian

Junior Member

Tam

Brigadier

AndrewS

Brigadier

Max Demian

Junior Member

gelgoog

Lieutenant General

AndrewS

Brigadier

Max Demian

Junior Member

tamsen_ikard

Junior Member

AndrewS

Brigadier