054B/new generation frigate

Blitzo said:

This discussion can't really be had if we do not agree with what the likely sensor fit for 054B will be to begin with.

My view is that 054B's radar is a twin faced AESA with each face about 2/3 to 3/4 the size of a single array on 052D, which when considering modern technology, could give 054B's radar performance in the SAMPSON ballpark -- and thus the ability to organically engage long range aerial targets.

If we can agree that 054B will use the 7m long UVLS as well, then when pairing that with the new twin face AESA, I have to ask why the ability to conduct long range engagements (i.e.: integration of the HQ-9 LR SAM) would not be at least capitalized on?




Yeah, I disagree with that.

I think that the ability to reach out to longer ranges *may* be a factor in differentiating between surface combatants, but magazine depth and simultaneous target engagement capability are as important if not more important.

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Certainly nothing could stop the new radar from working with the HHQ-9 if you want the integration. This is about two devices talking to each other.

The one missing piece of the puzzle is that the radar and the computers have to update the missile in flight. For a 300km missile, if we assume the terminal seeker has a range of 30km, the missile still has to be guided from the surface for at least 270km until the seeker is range of the target to be autonomous. This calls for a long range datalink.

For this to happen you need to redeploy the datalink from the Type 346A array. The datalink should be the C-band arrays on the top and bottom of the Type 346 array face on the 052C, but on the 052D and Type 346A, the shape of the array dictates that the datalink array might have been moved to the corners of the array. On the 055 and Type 346B, I suspect the datalink is removed completely from the main array and placed somewhere else, which I suspect are on the bridge wings of the ship or on the large bars on top of the bridge. Either for the 054B you have to create a new datalink, or use the set on the 055. The datalinks alone should resemble like a set of flat squares and expected to be phase arrays. If you have longer ranged HHQ-16, you will also likely need a longer ranged datalink.

I do expect the datalink to be used and shared with the 3-5 missiles. In turn, the available radio channels of the datalink can be limited, let's say, for example, 16, so you can have a maximum of 16 missiles on air simultaneously, that's any mix of HHQ-9 and 3-5.

Tam said:

I do expect the datalink to be used and shared with the 3-5 missiles. In turn, the available radio channels of the datalink can be limited, let's say, for example, 16, so you can have a maximum of 16 missiles on air simultaneously, that's any mix of HHQ-9 and 3-5.

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Yes, but I would expect a single Type-055 datalink to be able to handle many more missiles than 16.

The data flows involved are tiny, even if they have to update many times a second.

Gloire_bb said:

LPI modes tend to severely cut into range against all targets, for reasons all too obvious; furthermore, LPI's L depends a lot on whom we're scanning: fooling average fighters' slightly legacy RWR set is one thing; fooling P-1 or P-8 is a completely different story.

I don't think it's such a straightforward answer to the problem.

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To counter that, AESA tends to have much greater sensitivity over previous arrays. This allows the AESA to track and engage targets with relatively low power. That's the reason why AESA is often associated with LPI. LPI itself does not appear like a common pulse radar set. It's continuous, with near infinite combination of pseudo random peaks, plateaus, jitters and scatters. You're going to have to figure out if this "noise" is really noise, and even when you did, the radar can flip and change the form again.

There is a risk of using your over powered air defense radars, and that's the risk your radio waves are going to be reflected by the atmosphere over the horizon, gets picked up by a ship's ESM, which is used to find your direction, and sends some antiship missiles to your way. Hence the necessity to minimize or mask your air defense emissions. This is why you need to LPI all the emissions on your ship, going solid state or AESA on all available radars and links. You need to look at the 055 and why it went this way. Military grade navigation radars have already gone solid state and LPI.

AndrewS said:

Yes, but I would expect a single Type-055 datalink to be able to handle many more missiles than 16.

The data flows involved are tiny, even if they have to update many times a second.

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It is however, over a great range, and you don't want that to be intercepted by enemy assets. Hence you want it directed in a narrow beam without any sidelobes, so the beam is not interceptable unless you are right between the datalink array and the missile in a straight line. That will require an active phase array of its own, a small one though. On the 054B, I would expect it to be a set of four small squares or rectangles, similar but separate to the CEC arrays. It will likely be set on top of the bridge and upper hanger, or it will be integrated into one of the two masts. It too is subject to the rules of radio horizon and you want them as high as you can get. As an active phase array, it can make a number of multiple beams, but the more beams it makes, the less elements it can allocate for each beam, and you have decreasing signal strength on each beam. This can limit the number of engagements you have over range, with more targets engaged the closer your are, and the less targets engaged the farther the targets are.

Tam said:

To counter that, AESA tends to have much greater sensitivity over previous arrays. This allows the AESA to track and engage targets with relatively low power. That's the reason why AESA is often associated with LPI. LPI itself does not appear like a common pulse radar set. It's continuous, with near infinite combination of pseudo random peaks, plateaus, jitters and scatters. You're going to have to figure out if this "noise" is really noise, and even when you did, the radar can flip and change the form again.

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it still remains true - it's hard to get around range being cut almost in half, with all other relevant shortcomings.
W/o an electronic scanning array it would've been worse still (to the point of unpracticality).

Tam said:

There is a risk of using your over powered air defense radars, and that's the risk your radio waves are going to be reflected by the atmosphere over the horizon, gets picked up by a ship's ESM, which is used to find your direction, and sends some antiship missiles to your way. Hence the necessity to minimize or mask your air defense emissions. This is why you need to LPI all the emissions on your ship, going solid state or AESA on all available radars and links. You need to look at the 055 and why it went this way. Military grade navigation radars have already gone solid state and LPI.

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The process basically began in the late 1990s, with the introduction of B-2 (IIRC first military LPI set). Everyone is going there, LPI is just that useful indeed.

Tam said:

Certainly nothing could stop the new radar from working with the HHQ-9 if you want the integration. This is about two devices talking to each other.

The one missing piece of the puzzle is that the radar and the computers have to update the missile in flight. For a 300km missile, if we assume the terminal seeker has a range of 30km, the missile still has to be guided from the surface for at least 270km until the seeker is range of the target to be autonomous. This calls for a long range datalink.

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Things can be done cheaper and simpler if you settle with passive-only role - i.e. if there are no HQ-9(or UVLS) onboard, and there is no intention to guide them to ranges beyond practical for HHQ-16 itself. I.e. ship will be able to guide "forward passed" destroyer missile when it needs to be - and that's it.
IMHO it'll give all the necessary capability to the frigate for a high-threat scenario for a reasonable and justifiable CEC integration fee.

I am going to add that just because your search radars have a range of 300km to 400km, does not necessarily mean your AD missiles will have such range.

For example, the 300km Fregat MAE is used on the Kirov and Slava class cruisers, with the S-300 RIF-M. The SAM range is estimated at around 200km for example. You see the same set up on the 051C, with the Fregat providing the search radar. Yet the same radar set is also used on the Sovremenny and 052B, where the Shtil is only up to 50km. The similarly ranged Type 382, heavily inspired from the Fregat, is used on the 054A, where the HHQ-16 range is up to 50 or 70km depending who you read.

Another example is the SAMPSON and the Type 45 destroyer. The range of SAMPSON is said to be up to 400km, but the Aster 30 is only good up to 120km in brochures.

The enormous margin between the maximum search detection range or instrumented range vs. the engagement range, should be used to alert the ship and the fleet, and to get it ready before the threat reaches the engagement envelope. But if the PLAN after careful consideration decides to pack (or not) the 054B with long range SAM, it would be a consideration taken with great thought with careful weighing of the pros and cons of the subject.

Gloire_bb said:

it still remains true - it's hard to get around range being cut almost in half, with all other relevant shortcomings.
W/o an electronic scanning array it would've been worse still (to the point of unpracticality).

The process basically began in the late 1990s, with the introduction of B-2 (IIRC first military LPI set). Everyone is going there, LPI is just that useful indeed.


Things can be done cheaper and simpler if you settle with passive-only role - i.e. if there are no HQ-9(or UVLS) onboard, and there is no intention to guide them to ranges beyond practical for HHQ-16 itself. I.e. ship will be able to guide "forward passed" destroyer missile when it needs to be - and that's it.
IMHO it'll give all the necessary capability to the frigate for a high-threat scenario for a reasonable and justifiable CEC integration fee.

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There is a certain level of complexity of operating the HQ-9 because like all ARH missiles, they tend to be command or update guided until the target is within range of the seeker, from henceforth they become autonomous. Operating the initial and mid flight phase is more complex that it seems.

For the HQ-9, the fire control computer takes the 3D coordinates of the missile, then takes the real time 3D coordinate and track of the target, projects and predicts them, then computes an intercept plot for the missile to the target, which is then sent to the datalink.

For this to happen, the radar has to provide in real time, the coordinate tracking of the target. In earlier version of the HQ-9, the radar also has to track the missile itself, so the fire control radar knows exactly where the missile is at the sky to plot its path. For this, the radar on the surface has to have a separate beam tracking the missile, and it can only maintain that track as long as the radar can manage to detect the missile via the tail's RCS. Once the missile tail's RCS is too small, it loses track of the missile. The missile can still fly, but it is lost. It didn't matter if the missile has the flight ballistics to fly 300km, if the missile's tail RCS disappears from the parent radar at 150km for example, the missile is only good up to 150km, maybe 180km if the terminal seeker adds a 30km range, for an example.

Let's suppose in the next version of the HQ-9, you added some flight telemetry to its guidance system. The missile will then stream broadcast its position continuously to the surface located fire control radar via datalink. No need for the surface radar to track it for coordinates. So now, with this system, the FC computer can track the missile as long as the datalink is maintained between the missile and the surface station. So the range chain is determined by how long the range of this datalink plus the seeker terminal range.

As for the HHQ-16 it works very simple. The search radar tracks the target, then lights it up with the emitter radar which is synced to the search radar. The HHQ-16 homes in to the echoes from the emitter radar. How it makes that flight path is up to its own, meaning its onboard computers. The missile is effectively at terminal the moment its seeker picks up the emitter's echoes and homes on it, which can be anywhere within that let's say for example, a 70km envelope. Its brutally simple and that's why it (and the legacy Buk missile) works.

Well, search radar is useful even without any SAM. It's just nice and useful to know what's going on around.

Tam said:

As for the HHQ-16 it works very simple. The search radar tracks the target, then lights it up with the emitter radar which is synced to the search radar. The HHQ-16 homes in to the echoes from the emitter radar. How it makes that flight path is up to its own, meaning its onboard computers. The missile is effectively at terminal the moment its seeker picks up the emitter's echoes and homes on it, which can be anywhere within that let's say for example, a 70km envelope. Its brutally simple and that's why it (and the legacy Buk missile) works.

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I personally expect HQ/HHQ-16 to move to ARH soon enough - it's just a natural evolution of one of the main systems in service.
Buk/Shtil already started the transition - and it's the right thing to do.

Tam said:

Its likely, at least to my opinion, that the 054B's dual faced AESAs won't be using the same modules as the 052D or 055. To start with, they would have to be lighter, need to save as much weight as possible, to reduce rotational mass as much as possible. The modules would have to rotate. Second is that the modules would have to run cooler. As we do not see any kind of air cooling, the modules have to be cooled by a portable refrigerant unit set between the two array faces and still leave enough room for back end electronics.

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What do you mean by "portable"? Placing the refrigeration unit between the panels would add too much weight and where would the heat go?

I don't see any justification to rule out air cooling. The arrangement of the panels looks rather similar to the Sampson AESA, which is air cooled by airflow between the array faces:

Liquid cooling is also possible and might further reduce weight (because the radiators can be placed below the arrays at a lower height), at the cost of a more complex implementation.

Blitzo said:

My view is that 054B's radar is a twin faced AESA with each face about 2/3 to 3/4 the size of a single array on 052D, which when considering modern technology, could give 054B's radar performance in the SAMPSON ballpark -- and thus the ability to organically engage long range aerial targets.

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Since the two arrays have quite different shape, I assume when you say size you mean area? 3/4 the area of 052D would be almost the size of SPY-1. Each of the SAMPSON arrays have 2560 T/R elements, which is less than half that of Type 052D. If the new radar indeed ends up 2/3 the size of Type 052D, the technological advances of the last 15 years (GaN) will almost certainly make it more capable than the Sampson AESA.

It should be clarified that the 054b is not the successor of the 054a, China continues to build the 054a in large quantities. 054b should be regarded as the previously predicted 057, a large anti-submarine ship that accompanies the aircraft carrier for ocean-going activities. Its mission should be similar to that of the Russian Dreadnought and the British Type 26. It seems inappropriate to think of it as a Tier 2 ship that class than the 052d, and their difference may only be a different mission focus.
Similar to the Type 45 and Type 26, the Dreadnought and the Modern are combined.