054/A FFG Thread II

[antiterror13]

1. 2000 kg missile can not be "no reduction over 700 kg period"! This is not how ship design works, on the very basic level.
Ship can take this much of a change (with a corresponding increase in draft), or weight can be found/compensated elsewhere. But nothing is free, we are not on hard land.
2. Worth noting(Tarantul/Constellation case), that if you have space, for broadly the same weight you can have 16 ascms. Or you can have a full multi-purpose battery(4 ASCM/ASW rocket) for a weight of just ~1.5 (type 056).
2.ASEAN statement is an interesting point. There is essentially no added value in having YJ-12s against most ASEAN navies; upgraded YJ-83s would be able to do exactly the same thing, but sneakier, and probably much cheaper. If anything, these navies have quite a lot of smaller targets, against which YJ-83 will be a superior pick.

You can fit any missile at any boat, as long as it is designed for it, geometrically fits, and won't sink it. This isn't new. This is an inherent advantage of a self-contained weapon, which a missile is.
First Chinese torpedo boats were ex-soviet 15t "floatplane floats" with 2 1.5t torpedoes. It isn't inconceivable to fit, say, tomahawk on a similarly-sized cutter(for example, unmanned).
But it doesn't change the fact that there is no "free" fit on ships.

Stealth isn't just radar stealth. And you won't be able to hide your IR signature when you're flying on a literal torch.
(1)Small ASCMs flying right above sea level are inherently stealthy. Simply because of the altitude of flight and their size. Wargames often show exactly that.
(2)frontal RCS isn't the only signature. There is also heat, missile's own emissions, and even visual signature. Finally, supersonics inherently have to fly higher for given conditions - lower efficiency, thermal loads, and trivial risk of collision.
(3)Kalibr-style missiles are an interesting combination - and it's indeed probably a good option for a new frigate. But it's worth noting that for their dash capability they lose much of the advantages of subsonic ones. Terminal stages are (1)small(directly affects volume/capability of installed seeker), (2)less maneuverable, (3)have the full signature of their solid-fuel rocket motor(including reflections of the plume), they're are energy limited (4).

Disclaimer: it doesn't mean that this post is another anti-stealth rumbling. It is meant to say that all modern light asms are a pain to deal with, not only stealthy ones. Stealthy/passive ones are simply even more annoying (but also more susceptible to passive countermeasures).
Nor it is rumbling against supersonic missiles. It's only aimed at the "bigger-faster=better" line of thinking.

Yes, exactly.

@Gloire_bb .... please educate me what do you mean of "ASEAN statement"



I agree that YJ-83 variant is more than enough to handle most ASEAN navy, but China also deal with much stronger navy (Japan, USA) even for 054A

 

[Tam]

Agreed that YJ-12 is too much for 054A

Interesting regarding DD-167 Shenzhen got all 16x YJ-83 replaced with 16x YJ-12, really very good upgrade

Do you think PLAN would do the same to the 112 Harbin and 113 Qingdao ? both also have 16x YJ-83 and interestingly both have 2x GE LM2500

YJ-12 isn't too much for 054A. Should note that there are even much smaller Russian ships with 8 Kalibrs, which is a bigger and heavier missile. The Admiral Grigorovich class, which is a frigate with similar displacement, has 8 Oniks or Kalibrs. In case if you don't know, the Type 054A/P for Pakistan will have 8 CM-302, which is the export version of the YJ-12.

112 Harbin and 113 Qingdao has been positioned as ASW destroyers. Surprisingly they should do this well. Their refit includes both TAS and VDS. You got hanger and two helicopters. For this role it can be made better if they replace some of the YJ-83 with YU-11 ASROCs, which uses the same canister and launch stand as the YJ-83. If they wanted to convert that to YJ-12s that's fine too but these two ships are repositioned for ASW. Their gas turbines are quieter than the racket the steam turbines of the 051B makes, which is why for the 051B, its TAS was removed, and the ship has no TAS no VDS. The 051B is repositioned as an surface warfare ship, hence the YJ-12s.

Retention of the YJ-83 launch stands on the 054A is fine in line with the ship's ASW mission, since it would give the ship the option to use the YU-11, even if it already has the YU-8 ASROC. The YU-11 does not use up the VLS, so the YU-11 trades in against your ASM numbers, while the YU-8 trades in against your SAM numbers.

 

[plawolf]

YJ-12 isn't too much for 054A. Should note that there are even much smaller Russian ships with 8 Kalibrs, which is a bigger and heavier missile. The Admiral Grigorovich class, which is a frigate with similar displacement, has 8 Oniks or Kalibrs. In case if you don't know, the Type 054A/P for Pakistan will have 8 CM-302, which is the export version of the YJ-12.

112 Harbin and 113 Qingdao has been positioned as ASW destroyers. Surprisingly they should do this well. Their refit includes both TAS and VDS. You got hanger and two helicopters. For this role it can be made better if they replace some of the YJ-83 with YU-11 ASROCs, which uses the same canister and launch stand as the YJ-83. If they wanted to convert that to YJ-12s that's fine too but these two ships are repositioned for ASW. Their gas turbines are quieter than the racket the steam turbines of the 051B makes, which is why for the 051B, its TAS was removed, and the ship has no TAS no VDS. The 051B is repositioned as an surface warfare ship, hence the YJ-12s.

Retention of the YJ-83 launch stands on the 054A is fine in line with the ship's ASW mission, since it would give the ship the option to use the YU-11, even if it already has the YU-8 ASROC. The YU-11 does not use up the VLS, so the YU-11 trades in against your ASM numbers, while the YU-8 trades in against your SAM numbers.

Ship designs only have so much safety margin tolerances. You cannot simply look at displacement alone when trying to determine if a ship can easily change armament to something significantly heavier. Top weight is a serious factor in determining the sea worthiness of ships.

There is a huge difference between carrying a heavy missile deep within the hull as you would with a VLS compared to up to on slant launchers.

When you are building a brand new ship, as with the PN 054Ps, you have a lot more leeway to change things up since you have the option to adjust some internal weight distribution to offset the increased top weight from mounting a significantly heavier AShM. With MLU, your options are a lot more limited due to cost and time considerations.

The easiest way to offset increase top weight is to add ballast below decks, but that eats away at your internal volume and also potentially limits other stores you can carry in terms of max displacement limitations.

The PN 054Ps may well have accepted some performance penalties in terms of maximum range/duration and safe operating sea state for the increased firepower since that represents such a huge leap compared to what they currently have. But for the PLAN, that may not be a worthwhile trade off since they already have plenty of YJ12s and even better AShMs on all their DDGs. As such, the added value they get from adding YJ12s to 054As is highly questionable.

Hell, it would not surprise me if the PLAN simply switched out all the YJ83s for Yu8/11 ASROCs on their 054As for fleet deployments and went all in on ASW with them, with AAW as the secondary mission. ASuW is simply such a remote possibility in any realistic scenario that even carrying YJ83s feels like a huge waste.

 

[Tam]

Ship designs only have so much safety margin tolerances. You cannot simply look at displacement alone when trying to determine if a ship can easily change armament to something significantly heavier. Top weight is a serious factor in determining the sea worthiness of ships.

There is a huge difference between carrying a heavy missile deep within the hull as you would with a VLS compared to up to on slant launchers.

When you are building a brand new ship, as with the PN 054Ps, you have a lot more leeway to change things up since you have the option to adjust some internal weight distribution to offset the increased top weight from mounting a significantly heavier AShM. With MLU, your options are a lot more limited due to cost and time considerations.

The easiest way to offset increase top weight is to add ballast below decks, but that eats away at your internal volume and also potentially limits other stores you can carry in terms of max displacement limitations.

The PN 054Ps may well have accepted some performance penalties in terms of maximum range/duration and safe operating sea state for the increased firepower since that represents such a huge leap compared to what they currently have. But for the PLAN, that may not be a worthwhile trade off since they already have plenty of YJ12s and even better AShMs on all their DDGs. As such, the added value they get from adding YJ12s to 054As is highly questionable.

Hell, it would not surprise me if the PLAN simply switched out all the YJ83s for Yu8/11 ASROCs on their 054As for fleet deployments and went all in on ASW with them, with AAW as the secondary mission. ASuW is simply such a remote possibility in any realistic scenario that even carrying YJ83s feels like a huge waste.

I don't exactly see what kind of penalties, let's say, Stereguschy class or Admiral Grigorovich class ships have in handling 8 Onikis or Kalibrs, for say a 2500 ton or 4000 ton. 8 x 2500kg missiles only amount to 20 tons minus 5.6 tons for 8 x 700kg missiles, so that's only less than 15 tons. Plus all the YJ-12 switches are done outside of the hull and on top of the deck, not inside the deck. See Type 051B.

There is the real possibility, that the ships, intended to last maybe 40 years, are going to be future proofed and is over engineered to allow for all sorts of possibilities.

For them to be able to handle large missiles is quite likely, something that was already factored into their designs during their genesis.

 

[nlalyst]

Both Flap Lid and MPQ-53 work on TVM , and TVM requires a continuous lock on beam.

Again, what’s your source for this? And why would this imply CW instead of pulsed radar waveforms?

In TVM, the tracking beam the ground radar uses to track

You don't read closely the "evidence" you post. Keyed CM is just another way of calling FMCW. Do note that it still refers to interrupted CW, which is not the same as sampled data mode. So you can perform interrupted CW, FMCW or PD with or without compression with sampled mode, which is an entirely different matter. Plus in cases that ICW is used to acquire ranging data, it really is FMICW, because ICW isn't efficient and can be ambiguous in obtaining range information, so requiring that once again, you have to frequency modulate (key) markers into the waveform. This is similar to high PRF which also has problems with ranging, that you're going to do compression on it.

Flaplid and Tombstone by the way, starts with the ability to track and engage at least six targets at one time. of closure.

Let’s get this straight.

1. You claimed that Fire Dome is a FMCW track and illuminate radar. I demonstrated that was false. This has serious ramifications on our original discussion about Front Dome, which is probably a Fire Dome derivative.
2. You claimed that MPQ-53 and Flap Lid are another examples of FMCW radar. You furthermore claimed that because MPQ-53 is TVM it needs to keep “a continuous beam on target”.

When I asked you for evidence for 2., you produced posts after posts of handwaving arguments, but no actual evidence. Zero.

In conclusion, it is clear that you were simply speculating.

 

[W20]

"Hell, it would not surprise me if the PLAN simply switched out all the YJ83s for Yu8/11 ASROCs on their 054As for fleet deployments and went all in on ASW with them, with AAW as the secondary mission. ASuW is simply such a remote possibility in any realistic scenario that even carrying YJ83s feels like a huge waste"

E x a c t l y

I think the same thing, my thoughts go along those same lines especially if we are talking about 056 corvettes but even on 054 frigates it makes a lot of sense

 

[Gloire_bb]

Once again the 051B refit is installed exactly with the same number of YJ-12 missiles as it had YJ-83s. The same with 054A/P. To say that you have to launch less supersonic missiles doesn't hold, particularly with the Chinese examples.

It will hold in almost any case, unless we're talking a ~50'000t ship, which can take such change of load amidships with a negligible change in buoyancy reserve. These ~10-20t of added load clearly don't come "free". This is impossible in 4-6000 t of displacement. Like physically impossible.
Again, the question isn't "whether it's possible" - it most certainly is. The question is (1)sacrifices and (2)whether it's worth it.
For upgraded Chinese destroyers from 2000s, which form essentially a different fighting force from the newer aegis-type destroyers, and are optimized accordingly - the answer is clearly "yes". For Pakistani frigates - which by necessity play a similar role - the answer is also "yes". But for PLAN frigates - I personally don't see the point.

Yes its true that small ASCMs fly right above sea level. But so does the latest supersonic missiles, with Oniks said to be around only 10m, which is similar to the final Moskit version sold to China with the last two 956EM. The terminal section of the Klub is said to be around even as low as 5 meters. These are heights that subsonic sea skimmers also use.

"3-5 meters" and "10 meters" are two very different realms.
Modern subsonic are basically limited by the danger of hitting wavetops - and can cruise at such altitudes for extended periods of time when necessary. Supersonics still have to perform their cruise&final dash higher. It's basically a physical restriction.
YJ-18 forms an interesting compromise (thanks to the small size of the last stage it actually can fly almost as low as true sea skimmers), but again - it isn't a no-brainer compromise. PLAN itself is a very good example of this - all 3 approaches exist in parallel in the same navy.

Plume problem also occurs with subsonics.

Once again, heat/IR travels only a relatively short distance above the water, thanks to water vapor absorbption.

Plume of a turbofan and plume from a ramjet/rocket engine are in two different realms completely: air from the outer circuit of the turbofan is "cold". Furthermore, measures to hide it even further on turbofans are relatively straightforward - and can be easily seen on some modern ASMs. Water vapor is of limited use in this particular situation.
In the end, IR and UV, and the acoustic signature of supersonic missiles is a bitch - there is basically nothing to do here.

Missile's own emissions isn't an argument against supersonics, since subsonics also make as much. If anything supersonics give ESM/ECM less time to react, and if jammed the supersonic turns into a giant unguided artillery shell still headed into your direction by its sheer inertia. If you are still only armed with a 20mm Phalanx, shredding the supersonic missile turns a rifle bullet into a buckshot still headed at you.

Ha! That's an interesting moment. it's actually not true, or at least partially not true.
Partially - because for subsonic it's a matter of choice. Conditions for employment of passive sensors are much more permitting, +there is time. Different missile producers and employers take this choice differently, depending on local conditions. For example, new ASCMs of the USN are intentionally passive (actually interesting and quite clever ecosystem, but it's offtopic here).
For supersonics, radar is a necessity. Preferably - earlier radar, because whole attack pattern has to be engaged earlier, and there is no time to spare. Something like LRASM can lurk around at low altitudes, supersonic missile can't.
For terminal survivability - no questions here, supersonics(especially with warhead covering avionics section are very tough indeed.

Saying that subsonics fly higher ignore that subsonics also fly higher during their initial and mid phase cruise phase. The reason for doing that is to conserve fuel and extend range, as well as to maintain datalink connection.

Yeah... but for comparable conditions, the difference is always against supersonics. Comfortable altitudes for the supersonic cruise are really high, and this is a problem. SS-N-22 and AS-20 is a nice pair here, clearly showing how much supersonic speed costs. And, btw, what "higher" constitutes for both. Higher is a relative term, after all.

The terminal stage of the Kalibr/Klub/YJ-18 isn't small. The Klub missile alone is around 8.9 meters in length. Compare that to the Tomahawk at 6.3 meters, the Harpoon at 3.8 meters, or the Standard missile at 4.72 meters. That's like a cruise missile with a SAM placed on its nose. There is a reason why the YJ-18 is placed into a 9 meter deep VLS.

It's exactly relatively small. Check the length of the last stage /alone/, as well as its diameter. Overall dimensions are suffering, of course, you're carrying a missile on a missile, after all. Furthermore - this is a missile with a solid-fuel rocket motor. This doesn't help either, as convenient as it is, ISP is still here.

Once again, the plume of a solid fuel vs. a jet engine doesn't really matter as much. They're both detectable at closer ranges.

Hey, I don't want to sound aggressive, but earlier you went to explain the advantages of angled surfaces. Shall I return the favor by explaining how IR stealth works and why Saddam's IRST-equipped Mig-29s couldn't find F-117s over Baghdad?
"Closer ranges" is a relative term - which is fully exploited by sea skimmers. This is why they remain relevant even 50 years after their initial appearance, after all. Plume matters a whole lot - if anything, just because the sole act of engaging rocket engine will wake up all UV launch warning systems in the vicinity (if they somehow failed to detect target search before it). For sea skimmers it's pretty normal to be detected at well below 10 km during drills (and I am not talking truly stealthy ones) - and we are talking drills. No onboard EW, no true attack profile (it's bloody dangerous even with a dummy warhead, after all), typically aiming at least somewhat away from the target ship, crew and ship are at their best and actually know when the "attack" will come. And still.

Not saying that subsonics are not relevant, but the choice of certain Chinese Navy ships to hold subsonics is due to doctrine and mission, and why others use supersonics or supersonic on terminal only.

This one is very agreeable: doctrine and mission (as well as simple price, availability and unification) indeed.
The way PLAN distributes its missiles amongst its platforms is actually very coherent, and is self-explanatory which weapon is where, and why.

 

[Gloire_bb]

@Gloire_bb .... please educate me what do you mean of "ASEAN statement"

Referring to @Tam stating that YJ-12 equipped 051B can deal with any ASEAN navy.
Idea was that a similar salvo of YJ-83s will do the same just as good or even better. Main value of YJ-12s is in launching strikes against opponents (ship or groups of thereof) equal or stronger than force including 051 itself.

 

[Kich]

All these arguments back and forth between having a Frigate with supersonic ashm and a destroyer with subsonic missiles just leaves me thinking that PLAN really need a medium destroyer (something between 055 and 052D, 9K tons) or heavy frigate (5K to 6K) to fill the role of real surface warship that can bring enough ashm to the fight with enough hanger room to perform asw also along with the standard kit of VDS and TAS.

 

[plawolf]

With the PLAN fully committed to carriers, surface warship based ASuW is becoming increasingly irrelevant, just as the USN doesn’t even typically bother to equip any of its surface ships with AShMs in CSGs.

Carrier aircraft can delivery AShMs faster, closer and repeatedly if needed. Why put a warship in harms way when you can just spam missiles at the enemy with aircraft until they all go bye bye?