056/A mainly works within the fist islands chain. Beyond that you need a lot of cheap workhorses like 054A, otherwise you have to waste a lot of destroyers.
054B/next generation frigate
- Thread starter Blitzo
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IEP is electrical propulsion. Its an outgrowth of something you already have seen in submarines.
Should you expect that IEP is going to be a troublesome system? The defects on the Type 45 wasn't in the IEP system, but on the gas turbines. Their cooling systems failed to anticipate the increased heat found in tropical waters.
Let me point out that the 052C had years to test its radars, not just on the ship, but also test ship 891. A land based installation for example, cannot compensate for the movement of the actual seas. Naval radars have some form of stabilization to compensate for the sea movement, and they have to compensate for clutter in various sea environments. Only a moving ship can do that. We have never seen the 055's radars, both the main one and the secondary smaller one, tested before hand in the sea, such as installation on test ship 891. We only have the mock up in Wuhan.
Talk about cooling systems. The enormous and numerous AESAs on the 055 will require tremendous liquid cooling, along with the gas turbines and six diesel generator sets. The ship keeps spraying water near its waterline in many pictures. Cooling is going to be a major issue with the ship. Yet they never tested the ship in tropical waters where the water is warmer and can play havoc on the cooling systems like the Type 45s did. Then all of a sudden one day, you got a Type 055 ship in tropical waters, to be precise in Hainan, and not too long after that, that ship got its commissioning.
So everything they did was precalculated and anticipated, then like the Mars Tianwen project, then they went into everything feet and head first. Its a gutsy move, maybe not as gutsy as Tianwen, but in its own way, gutsy. Whoever is running these projects should get a medal.
So I think the 055 represents a new era of the PLAN, where the thinking is going to be bolder, more ambitious, and more gutsy. I had a feeling that this bold new sentiment is why the 054B was delayed, because the initial ship wasn't bold enough, too conservative even, with plans and thoughts from an earlier era, and the rehashed model might be bolder in a way the 055 was bold. The parallel build of 054A might be there to qualm the more conservative factions with the PLAN, but it can afford the 054B to be even bolder since there would be less consequences if something bad is too happen.
When 054A is still in mass production, I don't think they have the capacity to mass-produce 054B in parallel anyway. If it's just one ship per year initially, I don't call that mass production even if there's no gap planned ahead.
Tam, can you give us an example of a Chinese civilian IEP ship that uses fully indigenous IEP technology? I have a hard time finding one.
I found several examples, including a cruise ship, that utilize substantial Western IEP technology (from ABB, for example).
Cruise ship (2023 est):
Based on what I could gather from ABB's azipod technology, these are AC systems, but everyone on this forum has been saying that PLAN is pursuing DC grids only:
Rescue vessel (2020):
From what I could gather, this vessel uses a DC grid, but at a relatively low voltage of 1000 VDC, which may not be scalable to meet the power demands of frigate or larger size vessels: ABB's 1000VDC is claimed to scale up to 20MW. Type 054 has 27 MW just for the diesel propulsion, based on data from the Chinese wiki. I couldn't find any info on its electrical generation capacity. I guess the total would come close to 30 MW.
State-of-the-art civilian onboard DC, 2018:
However, I am somewhat skeptical as to what degree these civilian technologies are applicable on a naval combatant, that is expected to take significant damage and continue fighting. The USN developed an elaborate zonal redundant IFEP architecture (IFTP) for the Zumwalt, that is quite unlike civilian implementations.
The civilian route will be good in building a foundation in human engineering capital and experience, but additional work will be required to create militarized applications.
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This is irrelevant to what we are talking about.
I'm going to refer back to this post of yours, which is the whole reason why I'm continuing to have this discussion with you.
To answer your question again, and for the last time -- the difference between what we wrote, is that you are suggesting there will be a "planned pause" after the first 2-4 ships in production, whereas I'm saying that I don't think there will be a "planned pause" in production.
If you want to ask me what my vision for mass production without a planned pause looks like, that is an entirely separate topic.
Their 2011/12 refit should be enough till the end of their days. It would keep them viable as a quasi-frigate. None of these systems, the ESM, the ECM, the VDS, the TAS, are outdated and they are current. In terms of ASW and EW, they are current and even with the rest of the fleet. HQ-10 is a bit of a sloped upgrade or slopegrade (slopegrade is the direction when you mix upgrade and sidegrade) over the HQ-7. The radars it uses, while mechanical, are also current.
There should be only one major refit, and for 052, the 2011/12 event is it. This does not mean it didn't have other minor refits since then. The most obvious of that happened recently when the 052 received two circular SATCOMs which appears to be a mandatory fit as soon as possible refit on every PLAN ship. These SATCOMs should have a flat panel or phase array for communicating with satellites or high flying objects like UAVs. The urgency of these installations suggest these things are important.
Well, it should be about propellers connected to electric motors powered by diesel generators, right? I am not anticipating that this IEPS is like the Type 45 that has GTs and diesels. The 054 on the 054B signifies that this is still going to be an all diesel project. So how is that different from a submarine, without the batteries.
Frankly I don't even think this might be the first PLAN vessel to have IEPS. I suspect those SURTASS cats, incidentally being cranked out by Guandong Huangpu, are IEPS ships. It isn't just because IEPS are seen with catamaran vessels like cruise ships, which there is a certain Chinese example, but also because it is much quieter which is something important for a sonar surveillance ship. As a matter of fact, oceanographic survey ships are also good candidates for using IEP for the same reason. Once again, Guandong Huangpu is the shipyard that's pumping out most of the Chinese government's oceanographic survey ships.
It's never my focus wether there's a planned gap or not. My point is that PLAN won't put 054B into mass production before it proves to be reliable. By then, the new batch of 20 054A will have already been completed.
I am not sure if 054B is a given that it will use IEPS. It can be that IEPS is going to be used on a PLAN vessel, emphasis on "a" vessel, not the 054B. I have my own doubts ever since the moniker "054B" is retained. A new power plant platform change can result in a new designation, even with IEPS. Note that 053, 054 and 056 are all diesels. 054B can in fact be an all diesel platform, without IEPS, with the main focus of its changes being more related to its sensors. You want the economy and reliability of the 054 platform, along with the point that it is cheap to build, but combine that with a more advanced sensor set up.