054/A FFG Thread II

[Lethe]

Anti-submarine warfare is the #1 task for PLAN going forward just as it was for the Cold War-era USN. Folks should be looking to that era for relevant comparisons, not the USN of today. In the 1980s USN had north of one hundred dedicated ASW ships across the 054A-esque Knox and Perry classes, and the larger Spruance class for which PLAN has no equivalent (I argued the case for one recently).

Of course it is not as straightforward as looking at what USN did in the 1970s and 1980s and copying that. The geography is different for one, which leads to the utility of small ASW ships such as 056 for PLAN. It may be that the aerial threat has increased such that a higher base level of AAW capability is required, or the cost (in dollars or volume) of fielding high-level AAW sensors and munitions may have decreased such that it is more desirable or feasible to make every large combatant a multi-role vessel rather than pursuing more specialised designs such as Spruance. But there are many things that carry over. And chief amongst them is that numbers matter and that not every ship needs to be equipped with top-end capabilities or bleeding edge technologies to be useful.

 

[nlalyst]

That's why I said the capabilities are educated guesses at best, because the normal consumer is stuck with the educated guesses of the base game/simulator.

Saying that CMO is based on guesses gives a wrong connotation and is largely rhetorical. It’s akin to calling the usage of Newtonian mechanics to describe movement of objects in Earth’s atmosphere a “guess”, because it doesn’t take into account atmospheric drag and friction, thermal expansion, fluid dynamics, etc.

The heart of the game are models, like the sonar model or the radar model. The latter takes into account parameters such as antenna aperture, emitted power, antenna efficiency, receiver sensitivity, target RCS, etc. All of this on the consumer version. Well beyond the typical discussion level at SDF.

Insofar as PLAN is concerned, a weakness is that the developers rely on western publications for their platform database, and these tend to be somewhat conservative or out of date. However, the developers have always been open to input from the community and many PLAN platforms have received significant updates rendering them closer aligned with the PLA watchers lore.

Finally, in addition to an editable database. I suspect the pro version allows customers like the USAAF to substitute their own radar model(s) for the default one, and obtain a higher degree of simulation accuracy at the cost of increased hardware requirements.

 

[Tam]

Makes sense. Thanks for the answer. My biggest concern is the AA missiles equipped just seem so limited. But if they're getting upgraded that changes things.

YJ-83's and HHQ-16's seem pretty limited in performance but having cheaper ships that can do effective ASW seems handy.

If the missiles are weak then its the question of either improving the missiles or replacing them instead of replacing the platform. The PLAN should know the truth of how strong or weak their missiles are, and should make decisions on them accordingly. The netizens shouldn't know any better.

 

[plawolf]

Makes sense. Thanks for the answer. My biggest concern is the AA missiles equipped just seem so limited. But if they're getting upgraded that changes things.

YJ-83's and HHQ-16's seem pretty limited in performance but having cheaper ships that can do effective ASW seems handy.

HQ16s only look weak on paper, and then only if you solely obsess about range. But if you look at its performance and intended role, I think one of its key hidden strengths is going to be its speed.


Unlike long range missiles like SM2/S300/HQ9, which all use a lofted flight profile, the HQ16 looks to use a direct ascent approach. That is much more fuel intensive, but should significantly reduce intercept time.

Looking at HQ16 launch videos also suggest it may use faster burning propellants.

As with all things in life, it’s a trade off, so they are accepting lower range and larger missile size for speed of the missile. This gives them the benefit of having reduced engagement time, so they could potentially afford to wait to see if the first missile hit its target before firing a second, as opposed to shooting two missiles per target as standard with slower missiles that won’t allow you a second bite at the cherry if you miss with the first shot; and probably also the much higher KP when engaging higher speed incomings, specifically supersonic AShMs.

 

[Blitzo]

Saying that CMO is based on guesses gives a wrong connotation and is largely rhetorical. It’s akin to calling the usage of Newtonian mechanics to describe movement of objects in Earth’s atmosphere a “guess”, because it doesn’t take into account atmospheric drag and friction, thermal expansion, fluid dynamics, etc.

The heart of the game are models, like the sonar model or the radar model. The latter takes into account parameters such as antenna aperture, emitted power, antenna efficiency, receiver sensitivity, target RCS, etc. All of this on the consumer version. Well beyond the typical discussion level at SDF.

Insofar as PLAN is concerned, a weakness is that the developers rely on western publications for their platform database, and these tend to be somewhat conservative or out of date. However, the developers have always been open to input from the community and many PLAN platforms have received significant updates rendering them closer aligned with the PLA watchers lore.

Finally, in addition to an editable database. I suspect the pro version allows customers like the USAAF to substitute their own radar model(s) for the default one, and obtain a higher degree of simulation accuracy at the cost of increased hardware requirements.

The database of the capabilities is exactly what I am describing as educated guesses, as should be clear based on the conversation I had with Zeak.

 

[Gloire_bb]

YJ-83's and HHQ-16's seem pretty limited in performance but having cheaper ships that can do effective ASW seems handy.

Please elaborate on what's weak.
Say, YJ-83 apparently got an update very recently.

 

[AndrewS]

Anti-submarine warfare is the #1 task for PLAN going forward just as it was for the Cold War-era USN. Folks should be looking to that era for relevant comparisons, not the USN of today. In the 1980s USN had north of one hundred dedicated ASW ships across the 054A-esque Knox and Perry classes, and the larger Spruance class for which PLAN has no equivalent (I argued the case for one recently).

Of course it is not as straightforward as looking at what USN did in the 1970s and 1980s and copying that. The geography is different for one, which leads to the utility of small ASW ships such as 056 for PLAN. It may be that the aerial threat has increased such that a higher base level of AAW capability is required, or the cost (in dollars or volume) of fielding high-level AAW sensors and munitions may have decreased such that it is more desirable or feasible to make every large combatant a multi-role vessel rather than pursuing more specialised designs such as Spruance. But there are many things that carry over. And chief amongst them is that numbers matter and that not every ship needs to be equipped with top-end capabilities or bleeding edge technologies to be useful.

I would say the #1 task for the PLAN is carrier aviation.

ASW actually looks on the right track to me, and is much further along than carrier aviation.

 

[AndrewS]

052D is double in tonnage and weapons comparing with 054A and equiped with AESA radar, so the price may be triple or even more.

The last cost figures I saw were:

Type-054A Frigate (1.4 billion RMB)
Type-052D (3.5 billion RMB)
Type-055 (6 billion RMB)

 

[nlalyst]

Because the waveform is changed, the missile seeker has to be upgraded for this. A good example is that for the introduction of Thales APAR used with certain European frigates, a new version of SM-2 has to be introduced as APAR uses ICW for target illumination. APAR is primarily a pulse radar for most of its modes, so the AESA architecture is that of a pulse radar with shared antenna for both Tx and Rx circuits. The legacy seekers of the SM-2 rely on the purely CW form from the SPG-62, which are dedicated emitters, and a new modified seeker is needed for compatibility with the ICW radars.

There was no need to upgrade the seeker. Because the late 90s SM-2s had digital rear receivers (which allows for synchronization with ICWI waveforms), they were already hardware-wise compatible with ICWI on the MFR APAR under development. The final touch was just a software update.

The actual hardware upgrade was the datalink: AEGIS uses S-band datalinks, but the new Euro frigates would’ve had only X-band available.

The advantage of going with an FMICW or ICW system over a pure CW or FMCW system is range. This allows the illuminator to work much farther than the previous. It was said that the bottleneck in the HQ-16's range stems not from the missile itself but the range of the illumination radar.

Why would ICWI increase range over CWI? If anything, it should be the other way around as the latter deposits more energy on target than the former (no interruptions nor target switching).

 

[nlalyst]

The database of the capabilities is exactly what I am describing as educated guesses, as should be clear based on the conversation I had with Zeak.

Which part in particular? Type 054As seemed reasonably well modeled in CMO last time I checked (1 year ago) and their anti-air capabilities were not downplayed. One feature that I found missing was the anti-surface mode on the HQ-16.