A couple things to note: HHQ-16s and HHQ-9s have complementary but obviously not identical roles, so the presence of the 052C/D and the 055 in the CBG would not necessarily mean that the 054A/+ could load less HHQ-16s. Naval commanders may also want the flexibility of not having to make the 054A return to base to take on more or less CY-5s (or whatever ASW missile) to change to a different mission. My personal guess is minimum 4, maximum 8 for a random 054A ASW missile loadout. The other thing to consider is that we don't know the range of PLAN's ASW missile(s). The USN has never really considered their VLA to be an offensive ASW weapon given its limited max range of 20ish km. If an enemy sub is suddenly located inside 20km range of your ship, you are already in trouble, and you are almost certainly the prey rather than the hunter in this scenario. A larger VL ASW missile, with something in the range of 55-65km, would be far more ideal to serve in an offensive role, especially as it could make it out to the first sonar convergence zone at that distance. If a PLAN ASW missile has a longer range, I would expect more of them to be carried due to their utility and potential to be used offensively. As for speed, most subsonic missiles (and airliners for example) fly at mach 0.8 to 0.85 because above that speed air resistance and thus drag increases exponentially until you break the sound barrier, which means going at (e.g.) mach 0.95 is a massive waste of fuel for little gain in speed and time to target compared to mach 0.85. OTOH a mach 0.85 missile takes 3.5 minutes to cover a 60km distance, by which time a sub especially moving at a fast speed may be able to escape the attack, as it could have traveled as far as 3.5km from the initial point of contact (at ~33knots), which would put it at the outer edge or past the outer edge of a torpedo's search range. For me an ideal VL ASW missile would be supersonic with a range of ~60km; this would be an impressive ASW weapon that could be used offensively.
054/A FFG Thread II
- Thread starter tphuang
- Start date
a post from jobjed a while back translated a post from pop3, where he said that Yu-8 (aka 054A's VLA weapon) had a range greater than 50km
https://www.sinodefenceforum.com/plan-type-054-ffg-thread-ii.t4149/page-359#post-489129
https://www.sinodefenceforum.com/plan-type-054-ffg-thread-ii.t4149/page-359#post-489129
If that's the case the PLAN must either have or are expecting a big leap in sonar and/or co-operative engagement capability, 50km is like twice the range of other missiles of its type. Alternatively the weapon is designed to take out the sub after it's launched torps removing the detection issue and where the to target speed and range of the missile comes into play.
This can be directed by a helicopter or MP aircraft. Considering that the on board helicopter may not carry a lot of torpedoes, okay, maybe one or two only, the helo should call for a Yu-8 shot from the VLS, or even the Yu-11 from the slanted canisters
That's the co-operative engagement piece I mentioned, although most MP aircraft carry their own torpedoes so shouldn't need to cue a missile from a passing frigate, just use MAD for a broad sweep, drop sonar buoys to fine tune any contacts then drop torpedoes. In such a scenario you would expect the Frigate to close in to the target not just lob missiles in from afar. Furthermore, if the Z-9 can loft a couple of torpedoes then it's already at 50% of the speculated 4 missile load out of the VLS. Hence the advertised range is intriguing.