All very true...........but I think members are missing the point!
i.e Why 'commission' a ship when it was clear the ship was not fully ready, and tested?...........this has not been the case with other vessels, I mean 'commissioniong a ship is just a statement, and does not apply to its testing of systems or crew readiness............I think there was more to this than people realise.........I think there was a political issue to this as well, in that the 'Kunming' was commissioned at least 6 months earlier than anyone expected.
The Chinese Navy could of carried on testing and evaluating the ship in further sea trials before being made active!
If ship commissionings were all due to political/PR then why not commission all ships early? No, there must be a tangible reason they commissioned the first 052D early, the same reason they commissioned the first two 052Cs relatively early as well.
I think a possible reason is that formally commissioning a ship may more permanently allocate a ship to its designated fleet base and crew, letting it participate in closer to operational and realistic situations by naval crew who will actually man the ship class. That early use as they learn the ropes of the ship will provide a variety of feedback, manuals, courses for crews of subsequent 052Ds to benefit from. Also, feedback from the early commissioning crew may provide feedback for the shipyard to possibly to modify, streamline or pay attention to minor details of subsequent ships of the class during fitting out and trials.
By contrast if they did not commission the first 052D or first two 052Cs early, then they could technically still test a lot of the ship's functions and subsystems prior to actual commissioning but I think it will also have many shipyard crew in addition to naval crew, rather than having a vast majority of naval crew instead. And having a shipyard heavy crew during trials means they can't station the ship at a naval base for long duration either given shipyard crew are civilians and live close to the shipyards where they work at anyway, rather than a naval base hundreds of kilometers away.
So in that sense I think an early commissioning of initial ships or ship of a class does make sense as it allows a more vigorous shakedown and provides a more rapid learning curve by naval crew in a more realistic operational manner to provide feedback for a more leisurely and standardized commissioning pace and level of readiness for subsequent ships of the class.
I would also bet that the crew of the first 052D also have a higher proportion of officers and enlisted sailors experienced with other advanced ship classes like 052C or 054A, meaning they may also be able to learn the ropes of a new ship class the fastest as well.
I think another contributing factor for why subsequent ships may commission slower is because the crews may be less experienced with advanced ships... however I think the majority reason is also that subsequent ships also commission with a higher level of operational readiness capability compared to the first ship of a class.
