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.
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.
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.
Supersonics like Oniks has been rated as low as 10 meters, so does the last Moskit. There are claims they even go down as much as 5 meters. We can expect the YJ-12 to be in that range or lower, same goes with the HFIII and ASM3. It is not about hitting the wavetops, you can always to adaptive sea skimming for that. The difficulty for supersonics comes from excessive compression on the engine due to the high atmospheric pressure at low altitudes. However the answer to that is to close the inlets as much as possible to reduce the air coming in which these missiles do address with adjustable inlets.
The YJ-18 has no problem with this as the sprinter is a rocket and is not dependent on the atmosphere.
When it comes to turbojet or turbofan ASMs, 5 to 10 meters is also their altitude. Do realize that the "small" ASMs like Harpoons, Exocets and YJ-83s are turbojets rather than turbofans because of their slim bodies. Turbofans maybe used when the body of the missile is relatively wide enough as per with bigger antiship missiles but again only with a low bypass ratio.
I don't even know why you think plumes are a big issue as turbojets do produce enough of that. You cannot hide the plume enough because whatever you are going to add to a missile, will add weight and drag and reduce its range. You want to practice minimalism. What makes you think the plumes of a turbojet or a turbofan is less than a ramjet. Turbos actively compress air into their engines, unlike a ramjet that compresses air passively. For this reason a turbojet or turbofan is capable of producing a hotter exhaust. The turbofan can cool the exhaust using bypass however, if you use a turbofan on a missile chances are it has a low bypass ratio to begin with because of the severe limitations of the missile's diameter. So the exhaust is going to be hot still.
For supersonics radar is necessary? All missiles do not need to emit radar until their final stage. Most of their path is determined by a programmed flight path added to the missile before launch. The missile is subject to flight corrections via datalink which will have to be done by satellite as a router, aircraft, UAVs, or even other ASMs. The use of passives have a longer history with the Soviet Union than it does with the West. But once again, don't think that passives is another silver bullet. Missiles may not have the space in their tight bodies for OTH passive direction finding which by itself is weather dependent as it requires radio waves to bounce off from atmospheric layers. So in order to find its target passively, it cannot be sea skimming but flying at a height so it will have a direct line of sight with the target's radar. However, when you reach to this point, the missile itself will be detected by the target's radar. The only real way a missile can "lurk" around if it will be updated via datalink.
Furthermore, it was on the Soviet Union that also pioneered OTH passive detection and directional finding and placed that in their ships. So their ships can locate the other fleet by the other fleet's radar or even communications. The data is uploaded to the missile before launch or updated to the missile already on flight via datalink. The USN got around passive directional finding by adding that to the SLQ-32 and working on projects like COBLU. But the Soviet Union perfected this system, and probably the finest example of this system is the Mineral radar code named Bandstand of which there is no equivalent in the West. In hindsight this was a priority for the Chinese to obtain for their C802 aka YJ-82 which is their first OTH antiship missile, and they got that by purchasing the Sovremenny. Then they were able to obtain these sets directly for the Type 052B and 051C. Then finally it got copied into the now ubiquitous Type 366 radar which equips the 052C, 052D and all Type 054A. The radar does both active and passive OTH and also has a cooperative datalink; the Chinese innovation to it is to add the ability to detect flying targets at low altitude.
As for stealth, supersonics have a much angled nose, in addition to adjustable inlets that are also highly angled. So you can expect frontal (I mean frontal, not the sides) RCS to be low. But subsonics have a rounded radome, and roundness is the enemy to RCS, as it produces reflection highlights. Some subsonics also have inlets hanging out from underneath their bodies with the edges of the inlet at right angles from the missile's surface. That's another no no for stealth, as radar loves vertical surfaces and edges, along with right angles. If a missile decides to hang its turbofan outside of the body, radar can easily reflect off the blades of the turbofan. Even if radar goes into the inlet of a supersonic ramjet missile, there are no turbine, no fans, no mechanical components inside the ramjet duct engine to bounce radar.
You think the Chinese adopted supersonic missiles because they were inclined to adopting a Soviet doctrine? The history of Chinese antiship missiles have been by far and large, subsonic and they have no institutional overhang or momentum for bias to favor supersonic missiles. The missile they copied from the Soviet Union to produce the Seersucker and Silkworm missiles, is subsonic. Then came the era of Western European influence, particularly from the French that brought the C-801/YJ-81 from the Exocet. The Chinese was probably never convinced of supersonics themselves until they got a hold of the Moskit and saw what it can do, so they made a spiritual copy of it as the YJ-12 though they did have their own prototype supersonic ASM projects themselves, notably with the C101. The YJ-18 can be considered as mostly subsonic, the sprinter only works around 20 to 30km from a range total that can exceed 500km. If they are made to convince in the use of supersonics, even for a sprinter, it is because they have first hand, right at the front seat, experience of seeing it, testing it, collecting data for it themselves. It will be a decision made objectively and not through institutional bias.
