If this is the case, it could mean to replace all of the 052/B, 051B/C and the Sovs gradually regardless of the recent upgrades.
Hightened tensions require the older ships to be upgraded to bridge the gap to 2030.
054B/new generation frigate
- Thread starter Blitzo
- Start date
Hightened tensions require the older ships to be upgraded to bridge the gap to 2030.
antiterror13
Brigadier
Those old ships have ben upgraded recently, I think those old ships will stay for sometime perhaps to mid 30. I am not sure whether 054B is to replace those. At that time in mid 30s, new variant frigate will emerge
lcloo
Captain
Yes and no. If you mean a direct replacement, I would say no. But if you mean replacing older ships (serving similar roles) that are due for retirement, pobably yes.
Hightened tensions require the older ships to be upgraded to bridge the gap to 2030.
Upgrading older ships at their mid-life is normal practice in PLAN, they have been doing that since the days of type 051 destroyers, regardless of the heightened tension. MLU is normally done when a destroyer or frigate has served around 15 years, to ensure they will still be effective in next 15 years or so.
It is faster to built a new ship than MLU from what we have been observing, thus heightened tension means more new ships will be built.
No. In fact, with the presence of flame deflectors at the location right where AShM canisters are expected to be installed on the 054B FFGs, it is pretty likely that the 054Bs will stick with YJ-83s (or derivatives) as its anti-ship weapon.
Not really. Despite their MLU into essentially large FFGs, they are still very much DDGs by nature. When the time comes, they can only be replaced by newer 052DGs and 055s.
Besides, considering that there are 8x 053H3s and 2x 054s still in service with the PLAN, any new 054AGs and 054Bs should (and will) be replacing these 10 older FFGs instead.
Given that there aren't more than 2x 054B FFGs being observed at present, concurrent with additional orders for 10x 054AG FFGs - There are some on the Chinese PLA-watching side which suggest that the 054Bs could be the 054s of this decade, i.e. a "test" platform meant to verify newer technologies planned for incorporation onto newer PLAN FFGs, before the PLAN is finally satisfied and commits to a mass-produced design at a later time.
Of course, it should be noted that this hypothesis cannot be proven at present, so kindly take this with a grain of salt.
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If having a cheap but modern and capable 6000ton (full displacement) ship is the initial goal of this ship, I wonder wouldn’t just keep on producing and improving 052D be the better choice? I mean yes eventually each unit of 054B will be cheaper than the current cost of each 052D. But considering the development costs of a brand new ship like 054B with its all new electronics and so on, while the more 052D being produced, the cheaper it will get.
Well, to be fair, 5,700 tons is not that far off 6,000 tons. That said these measurements are interesting, notably for the beam being smaller than previously measured. Will have to have a closer look myself. The issue is that a metre of difference in beam has significant repercussions on overall displacement (in combination with draft obviously).
Reasons:
#1 - The 054B is a FFG, while the 052D/DG is a DDG. In the PLAN's operational doctrine, DDGs and FFGs specializes in different roles and responsibilities respectively. To put it generally:
1a. The DDGs are tasked with mainly area/fleet-wide AAW and AShW, with secondary role in ASW; whereas
1b. The FFGs are tasked with mainly ASW, with secondary role in mid-range AAW.
Both their roles and responsibilities actually complement each other instead of clashing with each other.
#2 - Upgrades to the radars, sensors, and combat-&-command systems to the 054B significantly enhances its warfighting performance and survivability over the 054A/AG.
#3 - Sooner or later, the 052D/DGs will be succeeded by newer, more capable general-purpose DDG models that are going to be more expensive than the 052D/DGs we have right now. This is a natural progression of technological upgrades and advances on warships (and pretty much many other things, obviously) around the world, of which many people often neglect to consider when discussing matters such as this.
This goes the same for the 055 DDGs which we have discussed previously in this forum.
#4 - Even without #3, increment retrofits and MLUs conducted/to be conducted onto the 052D/DGs will eventually add onto the overall development, construction and upgrade costs of the individual ships. So it really doesn't matter much in the grander scale of things, vis-a-vis how the 054B is going to cost closer to the 052D/DG, etc.
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How you define a ship of that size is really up to each individual. PLAN can’t just produce an all new ship for the sake of not letting 052D to act as a very capable FFG. 6000 ton use to be the standard destroyer tonnage. But clearly nowadays it’s more like the standard for post 2020 frigates size. So the argument of 052D is a destroyer and PLAN needs a frigate doesn’t really make sense.
Easy example, there use to be only me and my wife at home. Our medium sized pot was used to boil spaghetti for two of us. We simply called it spaghetti pot back then. And we used a small sauce pan for the bolognese sauce… Now we have two sons, each of them eats more than two of us combined. So we end up boil spaghetti in a much bigger pot. And the old medium sized spaghetti pot becomes our bolognese sauces pan instead. There’s no need to spend more money on a new expensive medium sized pot for the bolognese sauce, is there? Especially consider 052D is perfectly capable of doing what 054 series of frigates’ job.
No one is saying 054B isn’t more advance than 054A. There’s no argument here. But the same can be said about 052D being much more advanced than 054A… That’s why I thought using 052D to replace 054A is possible and cheaper for now too.
Sure sooner or later 052D will be replaced by more modern models. But that applies to 054B too. All ships will be replace one day by more modern models. Using 052D instead of 054B to replace 054A doesn’t stop the continuous development of the 052 series. Is it so hard to simply call 052 series frigates and calling 055 series destroyers?
My point is that PLAN has already had a very capable 6000 ton ship (the 052 series). Even in its current configuration, it’s one of the most capable 6000 ton war ships there is. Why spend the money and time on another 6000 ton ship design/development/construction which ends up being not any more capable doing the same job?
I don't see the Type-054B incurring that much in additional development costs.
The Type-054B would be using electronics that have already been developed for the Type-055 or Type-052D.
So that leaves the development costs for the larger hull and propulsion system, which shouldn't be that much.
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From what I see, by the time a hull reaches 10 repeats, you've already wrung out the vast majority of production productivity/efficiency gains.
And if you plan on 30 hulls, that is definitely enough justification for an entirely new ship-class and its associated supporting infrastructure.
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Rather than focus on the size of the ship, I would say cost or weapons/sensor outfit is a better descriptor if you want to differentiate between ship roles.
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