054/A FFG Thread II

[AndrewS]

You are comparing apples and oranges using parabolic trajectory values to derive range does not give an effective range for AA engagements. Curvature of the earth comes into play, target height comes into play and as the HVP is not powered in flight it's ability to be guided drops with loss of kinetic energy,

True, but with a maximum range of 80km, I would expect effective range to be at least 30km for incoming anti-ship missiles which have limited scope to manoeuvre once within radar horizon range.

A Rheinmetall Rh-120 smooth bore tank gun has a MV of 1,700m/s (~Mach 5 at sea level) and an EFFECTIVE range of 8,000m so your super duper HVP will perform in a similar ballistic manner assuming it can reach the same MV given the underlying gun is rifled

A tank gun round needs kinetic energy to penetrate armour and has to be designed for this. That is most certainly not the case regarding delicate missiles or aircraft.

Barrel wear is an issue otherwise there's no reason for the rate of fire to drop using HVP munitions, the gun's mechanism is the same so the only reason for rate of fire drop is to preserve the barrel, As a barrel wears the gun's ability to fire accurately and consistently diminishes, using differing munitions changes the wear rate so I am sure the lovely arms sales man will suggest a full load out of 'superior' shells at 35x the unit cost just so that the poor sailor doesn't have to worry.

The drop in rate of fire for HVP projectiles isn't directly due to barrel wear, depsite what you think. It's due to the need for the barrel to cool down after a launch, which is to prevent the barrel from overheating. In any case, barrels can be redesigned with better materials, which have already been developed for railgun tech.

And just think about the costs involved. An unguided $1K shell being replaced by a guided $35K version which is 35x more expensive. That is peanuts in the context of incoming $1M anti-ship missiles fired from a Frigate which costs $250M.

It's still worth firing 10 guided shells (worth $0.35M) against an incoming $1M missile.

Once the 8 SSMs on a Type 54A is expended (8 is a lot less than 32) the 76mm becomes it's only means of anti-surface self defence.

You're getting confused.
Who said anything about the Main Gun foregoing its anti-surface role? It can always go back to firing standard rounds if need be.

Your premise is that the Type 54A doesn't have enough VLS cells and CWIS backup for AA defence so it needs to mess around with a perfectly good medium calibre gun so it can fire shells that cost 2 orders of magnitude more to augment it, and that's a good thing!

You're getting confused again.
Who said anything about the current Type-54A not having enough VLS or CIWS for its mission?
What I'm saying is that guided anti-air HVP projectiles look to be very promising in terms of being much better than the HQ-16.
They will be a lot cheaper, more can be definitely carried, and should have enough range to potentially replace the HQ-16 entirely.

But of course, they actually have to develop a working version first and test it out.

 

[hkbc]

True, but with a maximum range of 80km, I would expect effective range to be at least 30km for incoming anti-ship missiles which have limited scope to manoeuvre once within radar horizon range.



A tank gun round needs kinetic energy to penetrate armour and has to be designed for this. That is most certainly not the case regarding delicate missiles or aircraft.



The drop in rate of fire for HVP projectiles isn't directly due to barrel wear, depsite what you think. It's due to the need for the barrel to cool down after a launch, which is to prevent the barrel from overheating. In any case, barrels can be redesigned with better materials, which have already been developed for railgun tech.

And just think about the costs involved. An unguided $1K shell being replaced by a guided $35K version which is 35x more expensive. That is peanuts in the context of incoming $1M anti-ship missiles fired from a Frigate which costs $250M.

It's still worth firing 10 guided shells (worth $0.35M) against an incoming $1M missile.



You're getting confused.
Who said anything about the Main Gun foregoing its anti-surface role? It can always go back to firing standard rounds if need be.



You're getting confused again.
Who said anything about the current Type-54A not having enough VLS or CIWS for its mission?
What I'm saying is that guided anti-air HVP projectiles look to be very promising in terms of being much better than the HQ-16.
They will be a lot cheaper, more can be definitely carried, and should have enough range to potentially replace the HQ-16 entirely.

But of course, they actually have to develop a working version first and test it out.

My last missive on this irrelevant topic,

the Type 054A has a 76mm gun it will not have an effective range of 30km against aerial targets, let alone fast moving sea skimming ones whatever ammunition it uses,Tam has already gone through the engagement scenario so not going to repeat it.

It's not a 5in gun, there isn't the space for a 5in gun or the Chinese equivalent 130mm weapon on a Type 054A. The range and effectiveness numbers you quote are just guesses, so not grounded in fact.

Guided 76mm ammunition (Strales DART) exists for anti air work but it's rated for 5km engagements

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not 30km the same gun (OTO 76/62) can fire VULCANO guided ammunition out to 40km but that's not for anti-air engagements. For completeness and transparency the marketing brochure quotes 8km range. Real weapon, actual numbers. Note: The operational principle, range and effectiveness of the DART guided munition is similar to a Starstreak MANPAD.

5 or 8km is a useful extension to the 3km effective range of the Type 730 CWIS on a Type 054A, but it's not a 30km $1million SAM replacement!

At the last count OTO 76/62's are used by 46 navies, wonder how many of them use guided 76mm munitions for AA work, if it is a cost effective replacement for expensive SAMs, why wouldn't they?

Let's look at 2 Navies that happen to have almost identical destroyers.The Horizon destroyers (joint French/Italian destroyer design) of the French and Italian Navies both have OTO 76/62 guns as their primary gun armament, however, only the Italian ones uses Strales DART the French ones uses Sadral Mistral SAMs (a MANPAD derived system) instead, this should give an indication of where a guided munition 76mm weapon fits in the AA hierarchy.

So maybe you should be taking this HVP wonder weapon to the Type 052D/055 threads because they have 130mm guns and will be able to fire larger shells with more range. But wait those vessels address the cost problem with HHQ-10 lightweight SAMs guess the PLA Navy officer corps have the "let's not use a $1million dollar SAM" issue covered without resorting to 'promising' weapons.

 

[Tam]

So there is definitely a place for a 5inch naval guns to field guided anti-air shells for medium-range area air defence.
And potentially to replace medium-ranged SAMs if the advantages are great enough.
Hence my comment that this may be contributing to the delay of a Type-54 successor, because everyone is still trying to figure the actual capabilities/sizes and how best to deploy.

I don't think guns are reasons for delay on 054B. I simply think the PLAN's plate on the ship is currently full now, with 30 ships, and they have previously neglected 052D for fast deployment of 054A and 056. But now the 052D is trying to catch up in the pause with the 054B. You still have upgrades to the four Project 956, the two 054 and the two 052B, that adds another 8 ships that are like quasi-054A.

I do think the H/PJ-26 might be an effective AA system on its own, but it does not displace MRSAM and rather, supplements it. I think the current H/PJ-26 supplements the range between the HQ-16 and the engagement range of the Type 1130 CIWS. It might be the reason why the 054A is not in any rush for some kind of quad packed smaller SAM to fill the layer between the Type 1130 and the HQ-16. The gun might also be the reason why the Type 056 only needs to carry 8 HQ-10s. The gun is the Type 056's primary air defense.

With regards to the Type 054A successor, I think there are so many complex issues involved, many questions needed to be asked.

Can a Type 054A/P be a more cost effective alternative and successor?
Are you still going to use HQ-16, or use HQ-9 instead or some other MRSAM successor?
What's your radar layout going to be? Use the "Lantern" radar? Integrated mast like on the Type 055?
Still use the 76mm H/PJ-26? Go to the 130mm H/PJ-38 instead? What about adding the H/PJ-17 guns?
One hanger? Two hanger?

Foreign competition may require revising your previous plans and upping your game. FFG(X), the British, Australian and Canadian frigate programs, new Talwar II frigates, Hyundai and Damen selling frigates to SEA nations.

I think the only thing that seems to be resolved might be the use of IEP. But the rest of the ship is a lot of questions.

So many questions, so many issues, so many factors that are not there before. Maybe long term plans laid before needed revising. PLAN needs to think its next frigate design through and through.

 

[gelgoog]

I don't think guns are reasons for delay on 054B. I simply think the PLAN's plate on the ship is currently full now, with 30 ships, and they have previously neglected 052D for fast deployment of 054A and 056. But now the 052D is trying to catch up in the pause with the 054B. You still have upgrades to the four Project 956, the two 054 and the two 052B, that adds another 8 ships that are like quasi-054A.
...

I don't think so. The shipyards which build the 052D are not the same shipyards which have built the 054A AFAIK. One is the same shipyard which builds the LPDs however. So it might either be in a deep retooling at this moment, perhaps to expand construction of other large vessels like LHDs, or it might be that they need to expand dry dock capacity. I do not have information on those particular shipyard's activities, but, other modern frigates like FREMM do have more displacement than the Type 054A. So it might be that the Type 054B or whatever follows the Type 054A will be larger. Those shipyards might also be building ships for the Chinese Coast Guard or be occupied with civilian transport vessel construction. Like LNG tankers or something like that. Which they have manufactured before.

If the FREMM provides any indication, a new Chinese frigate could be larger and have a gas turbine engine with electric driver motors in a CODLAG configuration. This would provide the ships with more speed to better catch up with faster vessels like a cruiser.

With regards to the Type 054A successor, I think there are so many complex issues involved, many questions needed to be asked.

Can a Type 054A/P be a more cost effective alternative and successor?
Are you still going to use HQ-16, or use HQ-9 instead or some other MRSAM successor?
What's your radar layout going to be? Use the "Lantern" radar? Integrated mast like on the Type 055?
Still use the 76mm H/PJ-26? Go to the 130mm H/PJ-38 instead? What about adding the H/PJ-17 guns?
One hanger? Two hanger?
...

I think the only thing that seems to be resolved might be the use of IEP. But the rest of the ship is a lot of questions.
...

The HQ-16 is based on the Russian Buk. The Russians have been replacing the Buk with the Vityaz (S-350E) on most of their more recent ships. It can fire the 9M96E2 missile which has a 120 km range and Mach 5.3 top speed. The Chinese naval HHQ-16 reportedly has a range of 75 km which is little over half that. The South Koreans also have access to the Vityaz missile system technology which they use with their own electronics. The FREMM has the Aster-30 with 120 km range. So I think anything less than that is probably a bad idea. I would point at specs for an anti-air missile system with 120-150 km range at Mach 4.5+.

I would go with the 130mm gun for commonality but the 100mm gun is also a possibility. I think the 76mm gun would be underpowered at this time. Look at the Italian FREMM-class or the South Korean Daegu-class frigate. I think it will use an integrated mast. If the frigate is on the smaller side, which is a possibility, since unlike the Europeans, China isn't into one size fits all frigates, it will likely only have one helicopter hangar.

 

[kurutoga]

the 054a assembly line should be used to build ships for Pakistan at this moment I think

 

[Tam]

I don't think so. The shipyards which build the 052D are not the same shipyards which have built the 054A AFAIK. One is the same shipyard which builds the LPDs however. So it might either be in a deep retooling at this moment, perhaps to expand construction of other large vessels like LHDs, or it might be that they need to expand dry dock capacity. I do not have information on those particular shipyard's activities, but, other modern frigates like FREMM do have more displacement than the Type 054A. So it might be that the Type 054B or whatever follows the Type 054A will be larger. Those shipyards might also be building ships for the Chinese Coast Guard or be occupied with civilian transport vessel construction. Like LNG tankers or something like that. Which they have manufactured before.

If the FREMM provides any indication, a new Chinese frigate could be larger and have a gas turbine engine with electric driver motors in a CODLAG configuration. This would provide the ships with more speed to better catch up with faster vessels like a cruiser.

These CSSC shipyards are more flexible. They can afford not building warships because they can build other things. But those two shipyards in Dalian, the ones building four destroyers at the same time and the one handling the carriers, they seem a bit more specialized to me, or have become so despite their origins.

The HQ-16 is based on the Russian Buk. The Russians have been replacing the Buk with the Vityaz (S-350E) on most of their more recent ships. It can fire the 9M96E2 missile which has a 120 km range and Mach 5.3 top speed. The Chinese naval HHQ-16 reportedly has a range of 75 km which is little over half that. The South Koreans also have access to the Vityaz missile system technology which they use with their own electronics. The FREMM has the Aster-30 with 120 km range. So I think anything less than that is probably a bad idea. I would point at specs for an anti-air missile system with 120-150 km range at Mach 4.5+.

HQ-16 missile range maybe limited by the radar range of the Front Domes that supply CWI for its SARH seeker. Probably about 75km max. Even if the missile can fly double of that range, there won't be anything to shine targets once it reaches there. If you switch the head to a ARH seeker, you remove the dependency chain, and likely see better range as a result. I thought the Russians are planning upgrade the Buk to active seekers after the Buk M3. Buk M3 shows the Russians are not about to give up Buk for S-350 Vityaz.

Buk M3.

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The Buk and the HQ-16 systems, in the land systems, have evolved completely apart, as the Chinese don't use anywhere like this set up.

However, when you consider giving up the Buk for something else, the Buk has a fairly large warhead of 70kg, so that gives a strong punch and take down splash. The 9M96 only has 22kg and the Asters around 15kg. If the PLAN had gone to a PL-12 based design like the SD-50, it would have also given them only 22kg.

I would go with the 130mm gun for commonality but the 100mm gun is also a possibility. I think the 76mm gun would be underpowered at this time. Look at the Italian FREMM-class or the South Korean Daegu-class frigate. I think it will use an integrated mast. If the frigate is on the smaller side, which is a possibility, since unlike the Europeans, China isn't into one size fits all frigates, it will likely only have one helicopter hangar.

The firing rate of 130mm might be low. If H/PJ38 is derived from AK-130, the rate of fire is up to 40 rounds a minute for a single gun, which is double of the USN Mk. 45. But way behind what you can do with the 76mm, that has a rates of 30, 60 and 120 rpm. While 76mm might sound weak, but it works more like a CIWS. The Russians were eyeing at least 60 rounds per minute with this gun, after they failed to attain it with a single gun, doubled the guns instead on the AK-130.

The 100mm gun might be a good idea to revisit, if you are looking for somewhere between punch and ROF. The Italian 130mm on the FREMM gives about 30 rounds per minute, but the French 100mm used on their frigates like La Fayette gives about 60 to 80 rounds a minute. Russian AK-100 and A190 gives about 60 and 80 each. With 60 rounds a minute at least, that is one round per second, and 80 rounds a minute can give you 4 rounds in 3 seconds. If your hit average is 20 rounds per missile, you got 15 seconds to expend them.

One problem is that the Chinese Type 79 gun or PJ33 only has 25 rounds per minute per gun, and with the Luhai doing two guns per turret, will give you 50 rounds rpm. This is poor unless China is able to come up with the French 100mm or Russian A190 equivalent, license or copy them. They did obtain copies of the French gun, which is turned into the Type 210 gun, and later the H/PJ87 used on the Type 052C. This gun alleged to hit 90 rounds a minute. But since the 052D switched to the 130mm gun instead, there must be issues to lead to the switch. Two other ships used this 100mm, the Type 052B and the Type 054, but as you see with the 054A, the 100mm is again replaced, this time by the 76mm gun for some other reason than caliber. The commonality of the 130mm and the 76mm gun is the Russian parentage. French design of the 100mm sucked for some reason, like reliability? Will they fix the 100mm gun for the Type 054B? The Chinese don't seem to have any copies of the AK-100 or A190 gun this time to do the copy route.

 

[snake65]

These CSSC shipyards are more flexible. They can afford not building warships because they can build other things. But those two shipyards in Dalian, the ones building four destroyers at the same time and the one handling the carriers, they seem a bit more specialized to me, or have become so despite their origins.



HQ-16 missile range maybe limited by the radar range of the Front Domes that supply CWI for its SARH seeker. Probably about 75km max. Even if the missile can fly double of that range, there won't be anything to shine targets once it reaches there. If you switch the head to a ARH seeker, you remove the dependency chain, and likely see better range as a result. I thought the Russians are planning upgrade the Buk to active seekers after the Buk M3. Buk M3 shows the Russians are not about to give up Buk for S-350 Vityaz.

B.

Reportedly, Admiral Makarov, third 11356 frigate for RuN, was delayed due to introduction of 9M317MA missile with ARH.

 

[Jura The idiot]

Reportedly, Admiral Makarov, third 11356 frigate for RuN, was delayed due to introduction of 9M317MA missile with ARH.

По имеющейся информации, затягивание Государственных испытаний «Адмирал Макарова» связано с затягиванием отработки проходящей морские испытания на данном корабле новой зенитной управляемой ракеты 9М317МА с активной радиолокационной головкой самонаведения, вводимой в состав ЗРК "Штиль-1".

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April 29th, 2017

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[AndrewS]

My last missive on this irrelevant topic,

the Type 054A has a 76mm gun it will not have an effective range of 30km against aerial targets, let alone fast moving sea skimming ones whatever ammunition it uses,Tam has already gone through the engagement scenario so not going to repeat it.

It's not a 5in gun, there isn't the space for a 5in gun or the Chinese equivalent 130mm weapon on a Type 054A. The range and effectiveness numbers you quote are just guesses, so not grounded in fact.

Guided 76mm ammunition (Strales DART) exists for anti air work but it's rated for 5km engagements

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not 30km the same gun (OTO 76/62) can fire VULCANO guided ammunition out to 40km but that's not for anti-air engagements. For completeness and transparency the marketing brochure quotes 8km range. Real weapon, actual numbers. Note: The operational principle, range and effectiveness of the DART guided munition is similar to a Starstreak MANPAD.

5 or 8km is a useful extension to the 3km effective range of the Type 730 CWIS on a Type 054A, but it's not a 30km $1million SAM replacement!

At the last count OTO 76/62's are used by 46 navies, wonder how many of them use guided 76mm munitions for AA work, if it is a cost effective replacement for expensive SAMs, why wouldn't they?

Let's look at 2 Navies that happen to have almost identical destroyers.The Horizon destroyers (joint French/Italian destroyer design) of the French and Italian Navies both have OTO 76/62 guns as their primary gun armament, however, only the Italian ones uses Strales DART the French ones uses Sadral Mistral SAMs (a MANPAD derived system) instead, this should give an indication of where a guided munition 76mm weapon fits in the AA hierarchy.

So maybe you should be taking this HVP wonder weapon to the Type 052D/055 threads because they have 130mm guns and will be able to fire larger shells with more range. But wait those vessels address the cost problem with HHQ-10 lightweight SAMs guess the PLA Navy officer corps have the "let's not use a $1million dollar SAM" issue covered without resorting to 'promising' weapons.

Did you actually read what I wrote?

I already doubted 76mm Guns will be viable as a medium range air defence system to replace the HQ-16.
So why are you going on and on about a 76mm Gun, which is irrelevant.

But if a 127/130mm Gun is a significantly better replacement, then it's better for a future frigate to be enlarged so it can fir such a gun.

And we're not talking about today's air defence technology. It's a discussion about the Type-54 Frigate successor and the optimum air defence layer strategy.

 

[AndrewS]

I don't think guns are reasons for delay on 054B. I simply think the PLAN's plate on the ship is currently full now, with 30 ships, and they have previously neglected 052D for fast deployment of 054A and 056. But now the 052D is trying to catch up in the pause with the 054B. You still have upgrades to the four Project 956, the two 054 and the two 052B, that adds another 8 ships that are like quasi-054A.

I do think the H/PJ-26 might be an effective AA system on its own, but it does not displace MRSAM and rather, supplements it. I think the current H/PJ-26 supplements the range between the HQ-16 and the engagement range of the Type 1130 CIWS. It might be the reason why the 054A is not in any rush for some kind of quad packed smaller SAM to fill the layer between the Type 1130 and the HQ-16. The gun might also be the reason why the Type 056 only needs to carry 8 HQ-10s. The gun is the Type 056's primary air defense.

With regards to the Type 054A successor, I think there are so many complex issues involved, many questions needed to be asked.

Can a Type 054A/P be a more cost effective alternative and successor?
Are you still going to use HQ-16, or use HQ-9 instead or some other MRSAM successor?
What's your radar layout going to be? Use the "Lantern" radar? Integrated mast like on the Type 055?
Still use the 76mm H/PJ-26? Go to the 130mm H/PJ-38 instead? What about adding the H/PJ-17 guns?
One hanger? Two hanger?

Foreign competition may require revising your previous plans and upping your game. FFG(X), the British, Australian and Canadian frigate programs, new Talwar II frigates, Hyundai and Damen selling frigates to SEA nations.

I think the only thing that seems to be resolved might be the use of IEP. But the rest of the ship is a lot of questions.

So many questions, so many issues, so many factors that are not there before. Maybe long term plans laid before needed revising. PLAN needs to think its next frigate design through and through.

If you read what I wrote, I don't think the guns are the main reason for the delay in the Type-54 either.

Yes, the Chinese Navy is busy with AEGIS Destroyer production and commissioning.
For long range air defence, large missiles are always going to be needed.
And for long range land attack or anti-ship, they still need large missiles.
So the AEGIS destroyer main armament of VLS cells won't become obsolete for its entire service life.

---

But for a Frigate, whose main missions are ASW and medium-range air defence for a convoy?

ASW warfare is definitely changing with the advent of drones (Airborne/Underwater/Surface) and new detection technologies (LIDAR/SQUID/etc)
How well is each system going to work? We don't know yet because it is all so new.

Then we have potential HVP/Railguns, both of which could change the medium-range air defence calculation.

This takes time to work out, because they need get the experimental data to figure out what works, how much it costs, and then what is the optimal combination of systems and hull.

And in the meantime, they're just proceeding with the Type-56 light frigate.