Internally the ship is maxed out and making the hull even longer than the DL may effect propulsion/energy requirements. However, I wonder if they could add a mk-29 like external launchers for the new quad pack missiles.
052C/052D Class Destroyers
- Thread starter Jeff Head
- Start date
Internally the ship is maxed out and making the hull even longer than the DL may effect propulsion/energy requirements. However, I wonder if they could add a mk-29 like external launchers for the new quad pack missiles.
055: GT25000 X 4
052D: GT25000 X 2
Cost of the two ships isn't primarily with the engines but on the other systems. 052D still uses two diesel engines and a more complex gearbox to deal with two different kinds of engines.
The cost difference of the two lies in the electrronics and sensors of the two ships. AESAs are extremely expensive and the bigger they are, the more elements they have, the costlier they are. The one on the 055 looks bigger than the one on the 052D, which alone takes the cake of being the largest AESAs ever put into naval service until the 055. To add to that it has two sets of AESAs, smaller set is set on the integrated mast. The small set is also very costly, the elements and modules are smaller and denser, with the array set on the much smaller X-band while the large one is on the S-band. To add to this, the datalinks, the ECM and part of the ESM appear to be in a phase array. The 052D on the other hand, only has its main search radars as AESA and every other radar it has, are mechanical.
Then you have the cost of the extra VLS.
While it all adds up, I would think the biggest chunk of the price difference would fall on the electronics and sensors.
The problem of creating a mini 055, is that the smaller ship will still retain much of the cost of the 055 due to having a similar electronics and sensor set, even if we lets say, use the smaller array on the 052D. So the resulting ship will end up costing considerably more than the 052D. In terms of the ship cost per VLS, and cost of electronics, combat data systems and sensors to service per VLS, it may not be competitive.
If all these electronics is the fixed cost of the ship, your variable costs would be the number of VLS. It might even be more economical to go the other way around, making a bigger ship, with more VLS, while still retaining the same electronics package.
True.
Today, CODAG with two gas turbines and two diesel engines, like on the 052C/D, is a frigate powerplant: Navanta F100 series frigate, Admiral Gorshkov class, even Admiral Grigorovich class.
Actually 052C/D displacement class is now a frigate size, matched by the likes of the Type 26.
Burke sized 055 would still cost nearly as much as the 055 due the fixed costs of the electronics.
Instead of focusing on the cost of the ship, its better to focus on things like what is the cost to support each VLS and each missile behind it (cost of supporting electronic package / missile). Here, it likely goes to the bigger ships.
Previously, I came up with a 16%-25% difference in cost from a Type-052D versus the same systems on a Type-055 sized hull.
The current Type-055 has a different systems fitout and costs 6 Billion RMB
If you extrapolate the 16%-25% cost differential, then a smaller Type-052 sized version will come in at 4.8-5.2 Billion RMB
With that sort of cost differential, it doesn't seem worth producing a smaller version.
So my guess is that future production will move the Type-055 and Type-054B as the hi-low mix for blue-water surface combatants.
Plus there's still 31 Type-052C/Ds available.
That is more than enough to provide a balanced fleet structure for the next 15 years.
On the topic of complex gearboxes...
052C/D should be CODOG, which is simpler than CODAG which requires a more complex gearbox.
055's propulsion arrangement is of course, COGAG, but it isn't COGAG in the same way that Burkes or Ticos are -- it uses Cross Connection Gear (CCG) arrangement, which is somewhat more complex.