In the British system, Destroyers and Frigates differ by function, not by size. Anti-air vs ASW. Regardless, $3B is an insane price.
054B/new generation frigate
- Thread starter Blitzo
- Start date
This looks familiar. Better check first if the designs weren't ripped off from a Thales design. But then again similarities can be the result of functional convergence.
You can see IFF, CEC and possible passive ESM there, the last in a square panel. Both CEC and ESM panels were first introduced on the 055.
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I won't though, because like many AESA frigates they seem to stop short due to having an expensive AESA invoice.
Both these ships lack a proper S-band air volume search radar. For these reason they would need the AEGIS destroyers to help cover them. In contrast the centerpiece of the 054B is its S-band search radar. The most apt comparison in terms of radar performance and purpose might be the Type 45, the French and Italian FREMM, with the Dual Sided AESA against SAMPSON and Herakles. The best European match would be the Thales NS100 and NS200 radars. A version of the Thales NS is being installed on the Type 31 frigates.
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by78
General
What? What does this even mean?
055 mast does not have a big thingie on top of it covered by a bandpass dome.
According to Redshark, apparently this mast was not chosen for its too large and expensive. Shame cuz it a really pretty mast. Also does anyone know which paper or patent the first image (the one with the inside view) comes from? Thanks
ASW/GP(strike). But GP is a tricky thing.
Type 26 frigates are basically for what their cruisers did in the past - mainline surface combatants(Darings are pure fleet escorts and don't count). This is why their price is arguably justified.
On the other hand, for Type 31s GP means they can't do much at all - pure east indies colonial frigate to remind everyone that UK still exists. Crucially, while 31 is kinda empty, it is still really as big as other modern frigates are - you'll only notice that it's a bit fake in high end combat.
For PLAN, of course, 054B calculus is completely different. Thus I personally expect something else, not dissimilar to US constellation class - something noticeably larger than 054A+ (to fit in improved IEP, improved electronic suite, silencing, and much bigger hangars/modular spaces) - but overall armed to approximately similar standards. Maybe up to ~6000t.
I think the mast looks functional but would have to be modified to fit the actual PLAN specifications. There is a question of the radio refraction from the bandpass stealthy shaped radome and how that will affect the radar but the other option is for the top radar to go bare naked. However, the previous posts suggests requirements for bandpass metamaterials which means they will go ahead with a radome.
The mast requires at least two required arrays, and two optional.
The required arrays are:
Four fixed phased arrays for CEC. These are small, rectangular shaped panels.
Four fixed phased arrays for IFF. These are long bar shaped panels.
The options would be if an X-band AESA for fire control would be on the lower base of the mast, but there's a chance the ship might stick to the same legacy fire control radars used in previous ships for cost reasons.
I also think there is a chance that the ship will have a second mast to put the Type '368' radar, that's basically the Type 364 replacement and also takes the form of a dual sided AESA but much smaller and is the radar already on use with the Type 075. The ESM mast can be put on top of the second mast behind the radar, and you can also put two ESM units on the sides of the second mast.