054B/new generation frigate
- Thread starter Blitzo
- Start date
Is this somebody of note, or is it perhaps your blog?
Not mine. Wouldn't be surprised if it's a poster here though.Is this somebody of note, or is it perhaps your blog?
Armaments by themselves are only as good as your ability to spot targets and get them to the point where they work. Cell counting isn't equivalent to armament - especially in the modern era, where the contents of the cells - missiles - are expensive, time-consuming to produce, and become incredibly difficult to keep in stock in sufficient numbers and update. Cell isn't the modern equivalent of a gun.
054A does fall behind - it's adequate（not less, not more) right now, but even ensuring it will remain so for its whole life(+25 years from now, i.e. till ~2050) is becoming risky. Even within this decade, its limited capability to work with offboard vehicles appears to grow into a downside. Electric power is very uninspiring by even modern standards. Sensor suite is just enough. Propulsion silencing is dating back to the poor PLAN era - meaning that sub won't even need to try to grossly out spot the frigate.
And it's indeed a frigate - a ship that ultimately will have to face enemy SSNs and top-of-the-line SSKs, quite probably - on its own, without extensive external help.
PLAN's opponents are betting quite heavily on SSNs against China, it isn't even a secret.
054A was a nice "good enough" combatant on the production line for almost 2 decades - never a cool guy, just a tough worker. It will still be.
It's time to replace it on slipways - and complement in service - with something that can actually fight off a Virginia raid, Taigei ambush, or an island NSM units' surprise attack.
US Navy, and their endless struggle to fit all the boxes at their disposal with actually relevant missiles must be a serious lesson to the cell-counter sect.
Metal bawkses(c) are only launch containers for modern navies; the degree of how a navy is armed has much more to do with the store of actual interceptors, cruise missiles, and so on.
Production of those items is limited - and, in fact, can easily be outpaced by the power of the shipbuilding industry. Those aren't 'shells' - they're complex, single-use aircraft in their own right. Their production often struggles to get into hundreds per year(and they're damn pricey) - and it can't be extended beyond reasonable levels even in wartime.
The more VLS, the more strain, the more strain in peacetime - the uglier the situation in any war going beyond the initial stock.
And when even the initial stock mixes all the missiles available(old, new, up-to-date, outdated) - what's the point of those excessive VLSes?
In fact, concerning the controversy about 054b VLS - I personally think that stocks alone may be a major reason to keep h/ajk-16.
Two stocks instead of one, two independent sets of production lines instead of one.
Finally, it isn't exactly hard to calculate expected max salvo for a ship before there will be leakers - this is in fact a fairly basic calculation for any ship class for any navy.
Overly exceeding this number x 2-3 (depending on how many engagements per sortie you plan for) is pointless - you're only going to go down with more missiles onboard. Which, as I hopefully explained above, are a very rare commodity.
054A has 4 diesel engines total 20MW. Considering the much larger displacement, the propulsion power of 054B is almost certain to be 40MW. If it is diesel-based IEPS there needs 8 engines and generators. Diesel engine is less power dense, meaning 40MW diesel egines will take up much larger volume than a 40MW GT or two 20MW GT. IMO, such eletrification is a degradation instead of improvement. So either you get a proper GT based IEPS, or stay conventional. Half-cocked IEPS is wellcoming for troubles.
BTW, the indication of GT IEPS is based on a publication in 2017, in which Naval University of Engineering is looking for civilian application of their IEPS consisting 20MW GT and 4MW diesel.
They have the GT-25000 gas turbine with 30 MW. Or they could use two GT-15000 gas turbines with 15 MW each.
They use diesels with around 5 MW power each on the destroyers.
I assume it is either one large gas turbine with two diesels, or two medium gas turbines with two diesels.
So it adds up to 40 MW.
They use diesels with around 5 MW power each on the destroyers.
I assume it is either one large gas turbine with two diesels, or two medium gas turbines with two diesels.
So it adds up to 40 MW.
This is the 2017 publication that I talked about. See the photo of GT-25000 20MW generator set. Although GT-25000's shaft power is more than 25MW, the generator is rated as 21MW. Even if some variant of GT-25000 can reach 40MW (inter-cooling), it is the electric generator that defines the power of one such set. So I think it is likely a 20MW x 2 configuration.
I also think it is preferable to have 2X20MW than 40MW for haveing one intermediate power step that benifites both fuel efficiency and life of GT. One failing lesson is Type-45 lacking such intermediate power step that led to its breakdown in the sea (one of the reasons). I have posted the report of investigation in this forum. In short, Type-45 has a very low power setting by diesel generator and very high power setting by GT. At crusing the diesel is inadequate, so the GT was used more often than it was designed to causing it to fail. The patch word that UK did is to add another diesel generator to raise the low power setting.
I also think it is preferable to have 2X20MW than 40MW for haveing one intermediate power step that benifites both fuel efficiency and life of GT. One failing lesson is Type-45 lacking such intermediate power step that led to its breakdown in the sea (one of the reasons). I have posted the report of investigation in this forum. In short, Type-45 has a very low power setting by diesel generator and very high power setting by GT. At crusing the diesel is inadequate, so the GT was used more often than it was designed to causing it to fail. The patch word that UK did is to add another diesel generator to raise the low power setting.
Do we know the power generation of the generators aboard of the Type 052D & 055 ? gelgoog appears to hint as much.
I know that Rick Joe / Blitzo speculated the Type 055 to have 6 X 5MW = 30MW in his article in The Diplomat, but that was based on assuming it would feature 6 gas turbines gensets, when it is now established that it really uses 6 Diesel gensets. I haven't found any credible estimates of how power those Diesel gensets are.
Similarly, we know that the 052D uses 4 Diesel gensets, but not their Power output. I doubt that it could be 5MW because those would be huge, about as big as the 2 x 6MW Diesels that power the ship. So far my educated guess has been 2MW, 2.5MW or 3MW (i.e. 8MW, 10MW or 12MW total).
For the 054A I think it's well established that it has 4 X 1MW gensets; i.e. 4MW total; allegedly the ship can run all systems with half of that (i.e. 2MW). This appears to be a core PLAN requirement along with having the gensets arranged in two compartments on either side of the main propulsion so that any hit to the ship will leave at least half of power generation intact. Plus the there is a redundant power supply running along the corridors on either side of the hull; again so that there is redundancy in case of a hit to either side.
My apologies for going a bit off topic, but obviously this is super important regarding estimating the capabilities & growth potential of these PLAN ships; and I haven't found any definitive answers searching the forum, Weibo etc.