Jiaozuo(163) isn't painted the pennant number yet, which is the sign of entering service. By sequence of launching date it's #24.
Guilin(164) is #22 by launching date and #20 by commissioning date.
052C/052D Class Destroyers
- Thread starter Jeff Head
- Start date
Guilin(164) is #22 by launching date and #20 by commissioning date.
For 052D its the bar you see above the bridge where the bridge is sandwiched between the IFF and the main radar. There are four, each above the four radars. For the 052C, its likely to be a bar underneath the panel on top of the array. The array on the 052C is sandwiched between two bars. Traditionally we see a bar in many SAM phase arrays on top of the face which should be the IFF, and that's true with the land based radar station used for the HQ-9. It helps explain why the Type 346 has a look that's a bit taller than wider. In the 346A, the panel has become a perfect square, so the array now has equal dimensions in height and width. This means no more space of the IFF and it has been externalized and moved elsewhere, which can explain the bar on top of the bridge. There are additional IFF equipment on the mast, including two that rotate, along with transponders that look like dipoles.
Should be the blue ones right here on the Shandong with the Type 364 radar (magenta) in between.
Has this been confirmed? What is the source of that infographic that identifies the bars as IFF?
If you examine their dimensions, the ones on Type 052D are significantly narrower than the equivalent bars embedded in the Type 346 radar on the Type 052C destroyer. How do you explain that?
Furthermore, these alleged IFF bars underwent yet another revision on the Type 055, where they've more than doubled in surface compared to the units on Type 052D. They look at least a 1m tall and 4m wide. The comparable US naval IFF, the OE-120B/UPX is way smaller than that. That makes me doubt those are indeed IFF.
Why the need to change the IFF interrogator so severely 3 times in 15 years?
Chinese sources can stem, and often do, from inside sources aka loose lips. Much better than Western sources which is highly speculative and over time, repeatedly wrong, when it comes to predicting and assessing Chinese military development wherein the record for Chinese sources have proven themselves consistently over time.
As for the IFF bars, I have no explanation, you have to ask the designers for that. Why one is longer and the other is shorter, doesn't change that its still an IFF. You also have to note that the bars on the Shandong are also very long.
For that matter, there are similar bars also on the Type 075 and I have seen them marked as IFF.
On the Type 055, what you may see as the whole bar, but its likely the IFF array itself is only at the middle with two large book ends on each side. That's why on top, the design appears to have a shallow U.
How are these bars fundamentally different from the one used on the land based HQ-9 station which you can see on top of the array here?
Why do you think the US equivalent is the be all and end all of comparison? By the way, this is a BAE system. Do you think there is only one way to do things and not a number of others?
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The bars on the Shandong are indeed quite wide. I think they are comparable in size to the ones on Liaoning? Given their role as carrier, I would not be surprised if those are IFF interrogators.
They are surprisingly narrow on the Type 052D. There is certainly space on the front side for wider antennas. Hmm, maybe they ran into EM interference problems with all the other equipment on the bridge roof and had to use a truncated antenna?
The installation on the Type 055 is unusually tall and deep compared to all the other IFF antennas that you've enumerated. It's obviously an outlier. It may be that it is not IFF at all. Perhaps it performs the role of the two-way HQ-9 missile command antenna?That would signify a further departure from the Type 346 and Type 346A radars, which should have those antennas embedded.
The ones on the Liaoning are also wide but not as wide as the Shandong's. The width of the Liaoning's IFF appears the same as the width of the Type 346 radar. The ones on the Shandong seems to just slightly exceed the width of the Type 346A radar. The Type 346A radar looks more square and bigger than the 346 so the Shandong ones should be slightly longer. Factoid: The Admiral Kuznetsov also has a similar IFF bar above its Mars Passat radar.
I don't know why its narrow if it can be considered narrow on the 052D. Perhaps it doesn't need to interrogate as many aircraft as the Shandong, and there are power, weight, electrical infrastructure, EM interference constraints that you do not need the device to be more than the intended mission.
On the 055, those things look too big just for HQ-9 communication. My speculation is that the book ends of the system are for HQ-9 communication, with the bridge between the bookends being the IFF interrogator. There are actually eight bars around the top of the superstructure, the four above the radars are the thick ones, and you got another four in the between. The between ones however are too thin when compared to the Type 346A IFF bars, and furthermore they feature a back end structure whereas the other IFF bars doesn't. The 4th bar is visible from the back of the superstructure. You have the thin set about 12, 3, 6, and 9 o'clock of the ship, and the big thick ones about 45 degrees of each diagonal from the ship's axis. Could this be another radar set or another IFF set?
There's also another set of four panels on the bridge wing of the 055, each again facing from the ship's axis diagonally. Hmm.
The Type 075 also features these bar shaped IFF. You can see three on top of the bridge and the fourth bar behind the dual sided AESA on the second mast.
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