052C/052D Class Destroyers

Bltizo said:

Wait, what?

Let's do a quick review:

• 056 is 1400 tons full load, with 4 AShM, 1 76mm gun, 1x8 missile CIWS SAM, 2x30mm autocannon
• 054A is slightly over 4000 tons full load, with 32 VLS and 8 AShM, 1 76mm gun, 2x30mm CIWS
• 052C is estimated to be 7000 tons full load, with 48 VLS and 8 AShM, 1 100mm gun, 2x30mm CIWS
• 052D is estimated to be 7500-8000 tons full load with 64 VLS, 1 130mm gun, 1x30mm CIWS and 1x24 missile CIWS SAM

So if we compare each displacement class with its international peers:

• 056: The only similar ships in displacement to 056 is the Sigma class 9113, which features 8 AShMs, 1 76mm gun, 2x4 CIWS SAM, and 2x30mm autocannons -- and 9113 is actually 200 tons heavier than 056. Even the German K130 corvette is 1840 tons full displacement, so 400 tons heavier than the 056 and its "extra armament" relative to 056 is two 21 cell RAM launchers. The Russian Stereguschy class features more advanced CIWS, more AShM and VLS, a 100mm gun, but remember it is over 2000 tons full displacement.
• 054A: Surface combatants in the world which are 4000+ tons displacement include OHP, Formidable/La Fayette class, Talwar class. 054A compares favourably to all of them in armament. Yes, 054A's VLS is limited to HHQ-16 and VLASROC and are unable to quad pack SAMs like ESSM, but that's a limitation of its VLS rather than something we can attribute to the ship itself.
• 052C/D: the only modern ship classes that sits comfortably in this weight class would be Type 45 and Horizon (sovremenny can be included if you want, but it's far from a modern ship). Burkes and their derivatives are at least 1000 tons heavier, while Eurofrigates are up to 1000 tons lighter. And 052C/D again compare quite favourably to Type 45 and Horizon in armament as well. 052C has the same number of VLS and AShM total as Horizon, while Type 45 is equipped for but not with Harpoons. 052D of course has more VLS than the total VLS+AShM count for both Horizon and Type 45.

So really I'm not sure why you believe that PLAN ships have less armament than their counter parts of the same displacement. In fact PLAN surface combatants hold different displacement categories compared to the USN's major surface combatants. Their current destroyers are 7000-8000 ton full rather than 9000+ ton full for Burkes. Similarly, 056s are 1400 tons and 054As 4000+ tons which do not correspond with the LCS's full displacement of 3000 tons

And finally, like tphuang said, armament alone does not determine the combat capability of a ship. The quality of weapons, the sensors, and combat management system are all as important as the number of missiles or variety of CIWS which is carried.

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For the same reasons cited why armaments are not the only things that matter is why I conclude the PLAN ships are relatively underarmed. Ships are not designed to be exact equivalents so designs have to be compared roughly "up" or "down", their performance will be affected by other factors in the navy they are serving with, as well as their mission and operational environment including likely opponents. So I will have to agree to disagree.

PanAsian said:

For the same reasons cited why armaments are not the only things that matter is why I conclude the PLAN ships are relatively underarmed. Ships are not designed to be exact equivalents so designs have to be compared roughly "up" or "down", their performance will be affected by other factors in the navy they are serving with, as well as their mission and operational environment including likely opponents. So I will have to agree to disagree.

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Uh, no you were quite specific in saying you thought PLAN ships were underarmed for their weight class.
You were quite specific in saying "PLAN ships tend to have fewer CIWS', SAM's, or multi-purpose missile/VLS count".

I've demonstrated that isn't the case, and now are you bringing in other factors? I would appreciate elaboration on what those other factors are.

Or are you just trying to say PLAN ships tend to be smaller and thus proportionally less well armed than their peers? Such as 052C/D being smaller than Burke, or 054A being smaller than FREMM? If that is the case, I should remind you that such comparisons of armament across different weight classes are illogical.

Bltizo said:

Uh, no you were quite specific in saying you thought PLAN ships were underarmed for their weight class.
You were quite specific in saying "PLAN ships tend to have fewer CIWS', SAM's, or multi-purpose missile/VLS count".

I've demonstrated that isn't the case, and now are you bringing in other factors? I would appreciate elaboration on what those other factors are.

Or are you just trying to say PLAN ships tend to be smaller and thus proportionally less well armed than their peers? Such as 052C/D being smaller than Burke, or 054A being smaller than FREMM? If that is the case, I should remind you that such comparisons of armament across different weight classes are illogical.

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If you read all three paragraphs in my earlier post instead of latching on to just the first paragraph you will see that I mentioned finances, air power, geography, potential US involvement, technology, training, and total numbers of ships.

Ships are designed to fulfill a mission in an operational environment rather than to fit into a particular weight class. Classes are just for organizing information and getting technical in negotiations. I mentioned similar displacements to make the comparisons more "fair" but it is absolutely logical to compare even a 053H3 to a Zumwalt if they will be likely to encounter each other on two sides of a conflict, but I am not going that far.

For example I will compare a 056 to a Gepard. There is a 500 ton difference between a 1400 ton 056 and a 1900 ton Gepard, you might say that's too much of a difference and I would say not. They will likely encounter each other in the opening phase of a possible conflict, even a surprise shootout, so I would say that the 056 is short 4 anti-ship missiles, 12 SAM's, and its two auto cannons are probably not as good a defense as the two proper CIWS on the Gepard.

PanAsian said:

If you read all three paragraphs in my earlier post instead of latching on to just the first paragraph you will see that I mentioned finances, air power, geography, potential US involvement, technology, training, and total numbers of ships.

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Yes I have read your entire post, and my point regarding your first paragraph remains the same.
The way you phrased your post made armament per displacement class to be a separate issue to training, technology, naval air power (by the way I don't dispute training and technology as something the PLAN needs to catch up in. They've made significant advances and have reached parity in many areas of technology IMO but they have yet to be world leaders in all areas).

More importantly, you were specific in saying "If we compare ships of similar displacement, PLAN ships from corvettes on up are usually underarmed in some manner compared to ones serving with any number of navies"
You didn't leave much room for interpretation there. I see below that you compare Gepard with 056, so I'll discuss this part below.

Ships are designed to fulfill a mission in an operational environment rather than to fit into a particular weight class. Classes are just for organizing information and getting technical in negotiations. I mentioned similar displacements to make the comparisons more "fair" but it is absolutely logical to compare even a 053H3 to a Zumwalt if they will be likely to encounter each other on two sides of a conflict, but I am not going that far.

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Okay, I see that you are looking at things on a holistic navy versus navy level rather than a ship X versus ship Y of equal displacement matter.
I can appreciate that.
But in that sense, I have to say that your initial post was confusing in regards to what you actually meant by "If we compare ships of similar displacement, PLAN ships from corvettes on up are usually underarmed in some manner compared to ones serving with any number of navies"...

If you are looking at a navy versus navy, or even military versus military level, then looking at how one single ship of class compares with a single ship of another class is redundant.
It becomes a question of numbers, training, integration rather than how one single ship class fares against another. I acknowledge that you mention training in your original post, but you do not mention numbers -- which is just as important.

I'll elaborate this in the next part of my post

For example I will compare a 056 to a Gepard. There is a 500 ton difference between a 1400 ton 056 and a 1900 ton Gepard, you might say that's too much of a difference and I would say not. They will likely encounter each other in the opening phase of a possible conflict, even a surprise shootout, so I would say that the 056 is short 4 anti-ship missiles, 12 SAM's, and its two auto cannons are probably not as good a defense as the two proper CIWS on the Gepard.

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Again, the problem with your line of thinking is you're not looking at numbers and naval fleet structure.
Yes, the Gepard, say of the Vietamnese navy is more powerful than 056 on a one to one basis.
But VPAN only has four ships in service, with another two ordered.
PLAN has nineteen 056s in service with likely dozens more planned. More importantly, the 1900 ton Gepards are the largest surface combatants of the VPAN, and they only have 4 (soon to be 6) of them. Therefore does it make sense to compare a single Gepard versus a single 056 and say "056 is smaller and less well armed"?? Especially when you've said that you are intending to compare one navy versus another??

Using another example: the PLAN's 052C/Ds are smaller and thus proportionally less well armed than JMSDF Kongos/Atagos and ROKN Sejongs, but there will also be more 052C/Ds produced! So is it fair or useful to look at them on a one to one basis? Obviously not. Same goes for comparing 052C/D to USN Burkes. USN Burkes are obviously bigger and better armed, and there are more of them as well, meaning a one on one comparison between ships doesn't tell the full story.

Similarly, if the PLAN produces 055 and it is 13,000 tons, with 128 VLS, 3 sets of phased array radars, etc etc, will it be fair to compare it with a 9000 ton 96 VLS Burke on a one to one basis? Of course not, because the USN will have much more Burkes than the PLAN will likely produce 055.

Finally, to use your 053H versus Zumwalt example, say if navy X has 1 Zumwalt class DDG and navy Y has 100 053Hs, is it useful to compare 053H versus Zumwalt on a single ship versus single ship basis? Similar to your example, mine is wildly exaggerated, but it illustrates my point.

What I'm saying is that if you wanted to talk about the overall state of the Chinese Navy versus JMSDF or ROKN or even USN, comparing how a single 052C/D or whatever compares to a Kongo/Atago/Sejong/Burke/Ticonderoga is not useful.
It rapidly becomes a much more difficult question that involves other things like training, integration, software, satellites and C4ISR, number of surface combatants, roping in other ships like carriers, AORs, submarines, aircraft from MPA to fighters, strikers, bombers, tankers, AEW&C, SIGINT, EW, and in China's case would logically include land based missile forces of 2nd artillery, and land based aircraft from PLAAF and PLANAF.....

In other words, if you want to see how two navies compare, your first paragraph (that so meticulously specifies the judgement of ships of similar displacement or even similar class) becomes virtually redundant, unless you are envisioning specific and very unlikely confrontational scenarios of a single ship versus a single other....


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By the way, yes I do contend that 056 versus Gepard is still an unfair comparison if one is only using "displacement" as the common base. I understand now that you you mean "similar ship classes of opposing navies in the region" as a valid base to compare from, in which case okay, that works. But in that case, I hope you appreciate that your first paragraph in your original post was also misleading and incorrect given you did not specify comparing Chinese ships to similar ship classes of opposing navies but emphasized comparing ships of similar displacement instead.

nemo said:

@Blitzo
I do note that your examples are European ships. PLAN ships do compare well against European ships, but they are not the ships that PLAN need to match against. It's illustrative that all nations that has ships with 90+ VLS cells are bordering Pacific, and neighboring China.

While the capability of ships do not wholly depend on the number of VLS cells, it does play a big part in it. While the capability of ships to handle saturation attack may be roughly equal, the sustaining power of the PLAN ships is less simply due to that PLAN ships are going to use up their missiles earlier.

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Like I've said to Panasian, his original post did not specify comparing ships of similar class in the region, but rather based on displacement.
In my post I compared PLAN ships to European ships because those are the only ships that met the displacement criteria. E.g.: Burkes, Atago, Sejong are too big to be fairly compared with 052C/D while ships like Hobart are too small.

I see now that he meant comparing ships of a similar class in the region rather than focusing on displacement. I would dispute the usefulness of such a comparison given displacement is a much fairer base to judge from if one is interested in an objective single ship capability comparison, but Panasian also desired to compare how the Chinese Navy compared overall with other navies in which case one also needs to consider the numbers of each ship class produced as well

I should also add a caveat that in a navy versus navy comparison, the total number of ships may not be that useful.

For instance, in a SCS contingency China won't be have all of its 056s in the area. More likely, during a crisis it will only rely on SSF ships which will include destroyers, frigates, and 056 corvettes. Vietnam on the other hand may be able to deploy all of its 4-6 Gepards to the area given the closer proximity of Vietnam to the site of dispute but also because it has less commitments of its navy elsewhere.

In a larger scale westpac contingency involving say, the US and China, it is similarly inaccurate to envision the USN deploying all of its 90 odd burke/ticos to the western pacific. Rather it will likely just be the forward deployed pacific elements possibly drawing on other home based pacific ships as well. But the PLAN OTOH will be able to deploy a greater fraction of its 052C/Ds into the westpac theater because it has homeports closer to the theater but also because it has fewer international commitments where 052C/Ds are caught up in.

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Mods, could the last few posts be moved somewhere else, maybe here? https://www.sinodefenceforum.com/plan-vessel-inventory.t5376/page-14

I'd also like to say that these posts are not a "versus" discussion per se which is obviously discouraged by the forum but more of a discussion regarding PLAN order of battle.

Dalian

A.Man said:

View attachment 12662
Dalian

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I'm really confused here. That looks more like a ski-jump carrier deck (like Liaoning) than a type 052D. Somebody help me please!

Holy smokey I think what I believe here is a carrier under construction !!!

I almost dropped my phone !!

That's not where the DDG sits !!