antiterror13
Brigadier
so extra 20 054A would only cost $1B a year for China for 5 years .. just a peanut really
054/A FFG Thread II
- Thread starter tphuang
- Start date
so extra 20 054A would only cost $1B a year for China for 5 years .. just a peanut really
I suspect they added the VDS but I need a good sharp picture of the butt to be sure.
The electronic warfare gadgets have all been changed and upgraded.
As many have said earlier, the 054A is fine for its role, as a cheap asw frigate that has some basic air defense and anti ship capabilities.
I just can't help thinking a slightly modified 054A with 24 UVLS would be more versatile and future proof for not much added cost
I just can't help thinking a slightly modified 054A with 24 UVLS would be more versatile and future proof for not much added cost
Why?
It's a good universal asset, no point in derogating it to just 1.5 trick pony.
ASW capability - check;
AAW capability - check;
Surface action capability - check;
Available in numbers - check;
All 4 categories are fairly good on top of that. Yes, they may be not the most advanced combatants around, but raw numbers are there, and they matter.
LCS may be advanced, sure, but you won't be throwing NYT articles with a lot of word "advanced" at aircraft literally bombing you by gravity bombs from out of range(or even beyond the effective ceiling of this missile).
Lethe
Captain
Yes 054A has adequate capabilities in these other areas, but in relative terms it is less capable in those other areas than it is in ASW. For anti-air, anti-ship and land-attack there are much more capable platforms available (and not only surface ships!), while for anti-submarine warfare, 054A is more or less a first-rank combatant. Only 055 is significantly better owing to its second helo, but then it is also a much more tempting target. A hostile submarine would be loathe to give away its position in exchange for a relatively low value target like 054A, rather the submarine would instead seek to avoid it, while the calculus in relation to a much more valuable target like 055 could well be different.
054A is doctrinally similar to the American FFG-7 Perry-class ASW frigates. Those vessels were capable of other taskings and routinely engaged in "presence" missions, but they were always pitched first and foremost as ASW combatants as that was their expected role in a major conflict with the Soviet Union. The major difference, beyond the helos, is that Perry is faster than 054A owing to its gas turbine propulsion, which reflects that they were intended to escort the nuclear-powered carriers. And ultimately ASW is, along with AAW, the major task for Chinese surface combatants going forward, as was the case for USN surface combatants during the Cold War. Anti-ship and land-attack capabilities are of distinctly secondary importance, not least because such tasks are better handled by other assets, i.e. submarines, carriers, and strategic airpower.
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Its AAW capability is kinda meh if you ask me. Then again thats the job for 052C/D and 055 in PLAN. Plus the speed at 28 knots is the weakest link.
LCS is a nightmare for US Navy, expensive and useless. The promised changeable modular design never works. So most of LCS just have a small gun installed and almost can do nothing… 054A is a totally different story.
Its ASW peaks out only in the sense that surface ship ASW is a limited (defensive) capability in the first place, not in that it receives on this ship any special degree of attention (like, for example, on type 26 frigates, or on type 056A corvettes).
In fact, in my humble opinion, ASW is probably going to be among more difficult tasks to keep for 054A through its lifecycle - as it is a 2000s CODAD platform(energy maneuver, acoustic signature), which isn't really designed to carry emerging offboard platforms (unmanned surface vessels, submersibles, and drones) - it will reasonably soldier through as the element of the screen, but I am not sure about anything else.
AAW and ASuW, on the other hand, won't go anywhere - as HQ-16 won't go anywhere either for decades to come, and will be kept up to date.
It is indeed not a first-rate capability, but it's still capable of collective defense - it has both the reach, enough engagement channels, and its missiles are fully capable to engage targets attacking friendly warships (i.e. when the target is some distance away from the shooter).
Of course 052Ds are so much more capable, there is no point to even compare them - but collective defense capability is still present.
Ok, I'll use a different example.
German Brauschweig class corvettes - which actually have quite reasonable self-defense capability (2 RAM), but their ability to defend anyone else is limited even within a couple miles of the ship, as RAM missile doesn't really have enough energy for that even when it has the range. Nor it can really prevent stand off attack of any kind - even bombs are "go" if the attacker is fast/high enough.
HHQ-16 has both the energy and range(and, as it seems, integrated fire control) to do the job - and it will certainly require attacker to use proper ASMs to be out of range.
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Future proof for what mission?
24 UVLS on a Type-054A by definition means additional anti-ship and anti-air capabilities.
That comes at additional cost.