I do hope that the PLAN will come up with their own NSM, in that case. Credible amounts of (V)LO-characteristics with marginally-extended strike ranges would do.
054B/new generation frigate
- Thread starter Blitzo
- Start date
On a level of idea - unification between stealth plane(bay), helicopter(small booster) and ship/land(larger booster) light weapons. Not necessarily ASCM.
Maybe even the same booster for all variants - unification of supply may very well be worth it.
Thankfully, @大包CG just posted this CGI side-by-side comparison between the 054B and Constellation FFGs (which is close to the real ones, dimension-wise at least):
While both the 054B and Constellation have nearly the same length:
1. The beam of 054B is around 18 meters, while the beam of Constellation is almost 20 meters;
2. Constellation is visibly taller than 054B; and
3. The 054B displaces around 6000 tons, while the Constellation displaces nearly 7300 tons.
This makes the Constellation almost one 056-class corvette-heavier than the 054B. For warships of such displacement range, that means quite a lot.
Then, notice the slanted AShM canisters on both the 054B and Constellation. In this case, the 054B uses YJ-12, while the Constellation uses the NSM.
The YJ-12 is more massive than the NSM, such that the YJ-12 canisters span most of the 054B's beam. In the meantime, the NSM canisters only took up around one quarter of the Constellation's beam on either side.
So, there you have it. Apart from what others have already mentioned before (i.e. 054B's role in the PLAN and how the 054B are meant to be designed and deployed), trying to fit 16 YJ-12s on the 054B is simply impossible.
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6,000 tons seems to be a bit low for Type 054B.
Other ships with similar dimensions have higher tonnage:
Hobart Class:
Length: 147.2 metres
Width: 18.6 metres
Weight: 7,000 tonnes
Nilgiri Class
Length: 149 metres
Width: 17.8 metres
Weight: 6,670 tonnes
I think Type 054B's tonnage might be closer to 7,000 tonnes than 6,000 tonnes.
Constellation is not yet in the water, with late mishsaps from other US programs, I would not do comparison before both are well in service.
054B is a nice increment from 054A who was quite a rescent design, layed down less than 15 years ago. Some level of commonality between the two types could help training and managing the fleet.
the middle part of the 054B in this CGI is shorter than the middle part on the actual ship. VLS is still possible.
You can already see the two ECM units on the sides of the main mast. These are all new units, never seen before. Their external casing design is meant to reduce radar cross section themselves.
ESM mast on the second mast. These we have seen before it's a good game of the design used on the 052D and 055, and has been retrofitted on older destroyers as part of their MLU kit.
Seems unlikely.
The VLS isn't so much of being the main point here.
I've mainly discussed about the number of AShM - In this case, YJ-12 - launchers (or more specifically, AShM missile canisters) that can be reasonably installed in the amidship section of the 054B FFG.
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