054B/new generation frigate

ACuriousPLAFan said:

The 056A FFL differs from the 056 FFL being that she is an upgrade step-up from its predecessor in the domain of ASW.

Besides, the oldest 056A is not even 10 years old, while the newest 056A entered active PLAN service just 3 years ago. Hence there is neither the reason to retire nor transfer them to the CCG.

However, given by Yankee's notion that the 054A FFGs will be slated to join the 056As in the PLAN's offshore/green-water fleet, I do envision that they will stick within and around the vicinity of the 1IC by acting as:
1. Offshore anti-air defense batteries,
2. Support/conduct anti-submarine and anti-seabed warfare, and/or
3. Radar-&-sensor pickets + intelligence gathering.

Meanwhile, 054B FFGs will join the 052C/D DDGs, 055 DDGs and CVs by operating as ASW-cum-AAW escorts for PLAN CBGs and SAGs in the "true blue" WestPac.

Though, until the 054Bs are entering PLAN service en masse, we should still see 054As sailing in the "true blue" WestPac for quite some time.

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It´s not the age of the ships that PLAN find problematic but the fact that many ships are outdated.

PLAN frigate fleet

- 054A (2005-2023) - 40 ships
- 054 (2005-2005) - 2 ships
- 053H3 (1999-2005) - 7 ships
- 053H1G (1993-1994) - 2 ships
- 053H1 (1985) - 1 ship (training ship)

The 054 and 054H3 are fit for China Coast Guard. The 053H1G and 053H1 are not fit for anything including training. China has moved so fast in terms of ships technology the last 30 years that Chinese ships become outdated in a few years. The 054A is the first Chinese frigate that is on par with some Western European frigates. The Type 054B frigate will be up there with more or less all Western frigates in operation today. The "catching up" game in terms of rated ships is over. Today, it´s all replacing outdated vessels that were built during the "catch up era" with modern vessels. PLAN has still an large amount of ships and vessels that were built less than ten years ago but are outdated compared to Western ships built in the 1980s. China is burden by speed and excellence in this regard. The United States actually pointed this out in a rare act of friendship. China should have built fewer rated ships and then expanded when it catched up to the West.

Anyway, building 12 ships of Type 054B to replace the 054, 054H3, 054H1G and 053H1 should not be excessively expensive or take to much time. The same goes with the replacement of 037 Corvette class. They should be replaced with something like a Cape Class patrol boat or something similar. What will be expensive for China is to replace the non-ASEA destroyers and other major vessels.

The Type 054A is a pretty good frigate. It is better than a lot of frigates still in service today. But I agree that older frigates need to be retired. The Type 054 and 053H3 can be sold to friendly countries. The older ships can be scrapped.

It is possible to increase the usable lifetime of the Type 054A frigates with modernization of radar and weapon systems. The Type 054B will basically be a long endurance Type 054A it seems. Unless they change the weapons loadout it won't be competitive with other yet to enter service frigates. Compare the weapons loadout and performance characteristics of it with the UK's Type 26 or 31 frigates for example.

gelgoog said:

The Type 054A is a pretty good frigate. It is better than a lot of frigates still in service today. But I agree that older frigates need to be retired. The Type 054 and 053H3 can be sold to friendly countries. The older ships can be scrapped.

It is possible to increase the usable lifetime of the Type 054A frigates with modernization of radar and weapon systems. The Type 054B will basically be a long endurance Type 054A it seems. Unless they change the weapons loadout it won't be competitive with other yet to enter service frigates. Compare the weapons loadout and performance characteristics of it with the UK's Type 26 or 31 frigates for example.

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The sole Type 053H1 is just 39 years old. However, it´s a "kit ship" based on the Soviet Riga class designed in the late 1940s. The Riga class was outdated when the first ship was commissioned in 1951. Soviet sold and scrapped them in the mid 1960s. A few remained in service in the Bulgarian, Finnish, Indonesian and East German Navies. China sold the Type 053H1 to Bangladesh, Myanmar and Thailand and they still operate them in small numbers. The two Type 053H1G that remain in PLAN are 30 and 31 years old. The 053H1G class function as training ships in PLAN. Ships are not that old but the design is outdated. I understand that there is some sentimental value but these ships are a museum ships.

The 7 Type 053H3 frigate is a modernization of Type 053H1G. They were commissioned between 1998 to 2005. China sold three of the ten ships built and then built four ships for Pakistan. Why the 053H3 frigate was built is beyond me. The hull design is outdated. Many Coast Guards including the United States keep outdated ships in its inventory so the 053H3 frigate would do fine for this purpose. The Type 054 frigate class has a fairly modern hull design and would fit fine in the China Coast Guard.

As you write, the Type 054A frigate is better than the 1980s and 1990s frigates still in use in Australia, Canada, France, Germany, Greece, Italy, Japan, Netherlands, New Zealand, Poland, Portugal, Russia, Romania, Saudi Arabia, South Korea, Spain, Taiwan, Turkey, United Kingdom and so on. However, up coming up frigates will be much more modern.

The Type 054B is a better ship than 054A but it will not be a leading ship´s design like the 055 destroyer. On the other hand. United Kingdom will only build eight Type 26 frigate and five Type 31 frigate for themselves. Western countries build few ships. Europeans focus on corvettes and a couple of frigates as lead ships. China on the other hand build a significant amount of ships in comparison. Quantity matters. In the end I hope China get rid it´s outdated ships. It does not look good.

J.Whitman said:

It´s not the age of the ships that PLAN find problematic but the fact that many ships are outdated.

PLAN frigate fleet

- 054A (2005-2023) - 40 ships
- 054 (2005-2005) - 2 ships
- 053H3 (1999-2005) - 7 ships
- 053H1G (1993-1994) - 2 ships
- 053H1 (1985) - 1 ship (training ship)

The 054 and 054H3 are fit for China Coast Guard. The 053H1G and 053H1 are not fit for anything including training. China has moved so fast in terms of ships technology the last 30 years that Chinese ships become outdated in a few years. The 054A is the first Chinese frigate that is on par with some Western European frigates. The Type 054B frigate will be up there with more or less all Western frigates in operation today. The "catching up" game in terms of rated ships is over. Today, it´s all replacing outdated vessels that were built during the "catch up era" with modern vessels. PLAN has still an large amount of ships and vessels that were built less than ten years ago but are outdated compared to Western ships built in the 1980s. China is burden by speed and excellence in this regard. The United States actually pointed this out in a rare act of friendship. China should have built fewer rated ships and then expanded when it catched up to the West.

Anyway, building 12 ships of Type 054B to replace the 054, 054H3, 054H1G and 053H1 should not be excessively expensive or take to much time. The same goes with the replacement of 037 Corvette class. They should be replaced with something like a Cape Class patrol boat or something similar. What will be expensive for China is to replace the non-ASEA destroyers and other major vessels.

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There's no more 053H1 in service now, but PLAN still have 4 053H1Gs: 2 for training; 2 for testing. They also have 8 053H3, with 6 of them upgraded. The rest 2 were supposed to be sold, but it seems no country’s interested. The 2 054s were also upgraded. So, the frigate fleet of PLAN is actually not that outdated.

J.Whitman said:

The Type 054B is a better ship than 054A but it will not be a leading ship´s design like the 055 destroyer. On the other hand. United Kingdom will only build eight Type 26 frigate and five Type 31 frigate for themselves. Western countries build few ships. Europeans focus on corvettes and a couple of frigates as lead ships. China on the other hand build a significant amount of ships in comparison. Quantity matters. In the end I hope China get rid it´s outdated ships. It does not look good.

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Remember that:

1. the Type-26 Frigate is the low-end Frigate. I would expect the Type-054B to be roughly equivalent

2. the Type-31 Frigate is the high-end Frigate. This is called a Frigate, but note that it does cost twice as much as the Type-052D Destroyer, which is more capable.

AndrewS said:

Remember that:

1. the Type-26 Frigate is the low-end Frigate. I would expect the Type-054B to be roughly equivalent

2. the Type-31 Frigate is the high-end Frigate. This is called a Frigate, but note that it does cost twice as much as the Type-052D Destroyer, which is more capable.

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No it's the other way around. Type 26 is high end ASW, Type 31 is global patrol frigate without extensive ASW suite.

J.Whitman said:

It´s not the age of the ships that PLAN find problematic but the fact that many ships are outdated.

PLAN frigate fleet

- 054A (2005-2023) - 40 ships
- 054 (2005-2005) - 2 ships
- 053H3 (1999-2005) - 7 ships
- 053H1G (1993-1994) - 2 ships
- 053H1 (1985) - 1 ship (training ship)

The 054 and 054H3 are fit for China Coast Guard. The 053H1G and 053H1 are not fit for anything including training. China has moved so fast in terms of ships technology the last 30 years that Chinese ships become outdated in a few years. The 054A is the first Chinese frigate that is on par with some Western European frigates. The Type 054B frigate will be up there with more or less all Western frigates in operation today. The "catching up" game in terms of rated ships is over. Today, it´s all replacing outdated vessels that were built during the "catch up era" with modern vessels. PLAN has still an large amount of ships and vessels that were built less than ten years ago but are outdated compared to Western ships built in the 1980s. China is burden by speed and excellence in this regard. The United States actually pointed this out in a rare act of friendship. China should have built fewer rated ships and then expanded when it catched up to the West.

Anyway, building 12 ships of Type 054B to replace the 054, 054H3, 054H1G and 053H1 should not be excessively expensive or take to much time. The same goes with the replacement of 037 Corvette class. They should be replaced with something like a Cape Class patrol boat or something similar. What will be expensive for China is to replace the non-ASEA destroyers and other major vessels.

Click to expand...

I hope PLAN will have more than 12x 054B, I think likely over 20x

Comparing Europe's 6,000-7,000 ton class frigates to PLAN's 2,250-4,000 tons frigates is like comparing type 055 to type 052D, they are just not in the same class. Comparing European frigates with type 054B would be more appropriate.

You don't just retire and transfer older navy ships to coast guards because they are "obsolete", though this did happened to type 056 but they are hardly obsolete. I suspect this was done due to urgent need of CCG for more ships especially in SCS, and also to replace older CCG ships that were transferred from PLAN, China MSA and China Fishery during the heights of Dioyu island conflict with Japan.

The old ships can be upgraded with new advance electronics and sensors and latest weapons but is it worth the cost and time for ships that will be retired in less than 10 years? As for type 054A mid-life upgrade, we will just have to see what will be replaced for the batch 1 ships.

PLAN seem to prefer to re-assign older ships for general patrol duties in near seas like SCS and East China Sea. The old type 053H2/H3s are just doing that currently. This freed up latest frigates for far sea duties. Coast guard patrols and navy ship patrols have different roles, one is for enforcing a country's sea terrtorial sovereignty rights while the other is acting as eyes and ears for potential battle with enemy warships.

I'm now starting to feel like they never planned to make UVLS a "universal" VLS in the first place, and instead think it's fine operating two types of VLS. Kind of like Korea's Mk41 and K-VLS

I just wish there was more clarity into things like the lengths, which missiles can be used, and typical loadouts.

That China still has a few older ships around is a good sign because it means they still have sailors allocated to those ships that can later be reallocated to larger and more modern vessels that deliver far more capability per sailor, e.g. 051 and 051D having similar crew requirements. Once all those older ships are gone, further growth becomes significantly more expensive as more ships mean more people, and personnel costs are not trivial even for China. Unfortunately there are few genuine antiques left these days, so most of those easy wins have indeed already been banked.

USN is forever pushing to retire older but still useful vessels precisely because it is a mature Navy that is no longer growing. With relatively fixed manpower, operating and maintenance budgets, it makes sense to discard older but still useful vessels in favour of shiny new toys. By doing this, USN is trying to maximise the efficacy of the inventory within the budget. Meanwhile, Congress wants USN to accumulate ships that it lacks the crews to operate and facilities to maintain. When PLAN starts retiring ships ahead of time as USN does, we will know that the surface combatant inventory is approaching maturity and that the era of rapid growth is coming to an end, hence we should indeed pay close attention to what is going on with these older ships.