055 DDG Large Destroyer Thread

[by78]

Looks like the paint job is all finished. What are they waiting for? I wanna to see some sensors, darn it!

 

[joshuatree]

Are sensors to be tested on a stationary mockup? Or just the RCS of the ship design and sensor placement? I would figure sensors, if they are new designs, to be tested at sea on the test ships and away from civilian proximity where people can be snooping reading the sensor signatures?

 

[Skywatcher]

Are sensors to be tested on a stationary mockup? Or just the RCS of the ship design and sensor placement? I would figure sensors, if they are new designs, to be tested at sea on the test ships and away from civilian proximity where people can be snooping reading the sensor signatures?

Well, it looks like the sensors on the carrier back in 2009 were operational (the ones on ground installations in the US are also operational), though they'll have to take precautions to make sure no civilians get hurt.

 

[tphuang]

This is true, but we can make some reasonable projections, and in fact the relevant planning stuff must make these projections. Or else they will find out in 2025 that they have no space/crew for the ship that has just been commissioned!

USN is preparing right now for its SSBN(X) program, even though the first boat isn't due to enter service until 2030. Similarly they are in the midst of drawing up requirements for F/A-XX, which will not enter service until mid-2030s. PLAN should have timescales out for at least the next 5-10-15 years, with appropriate level of detail for each. Indeed, the 5yr plan should involve very little 'planning' at all, and consist mostly of already committed resources.

I agree that personnel costs will increase significantly going forward and that this should be so, but they will still remain far below western standards for the forseeable future, and this is to China's advantage.

Indeed, which is why planning to accommodate and support a significantly larger fleet going forward must begin now.

Except the idea of getting 40 to 60 Type 055s is unrealistic given the structure of PLAN. You have to think about how they are going to recruit the people, who they are going to be able to deploy them. Just because PLAN will have more money does not mean they will just build more cruisers.

And aside from that, this is not the Indian defence forum. We are not here to just dream up what the navy might look llike in 20 years. Go with conservative projections until proven otherwise.

Continued recruitment and improvement in officer pay? Retirement of older vessels so crews transfer over?

Isn't it a norm to consider 1/3 your fleet at base, 1/3 in the shipyards undergoing maintenance, and 1/3 actively deployed?

Despite not following the US model of world's policeman, I think we will see China deploying her naval assets across the globe to protect her economic interests such as investments and emigrant Chinese population in places like Africa.

I don't see how having 1/3 at base, 1/3 deployed and 1/3 undergoing maintenance would change the number of ships these naval bases can handle. PLAN have always been moving its ships around different bases. They may be deployed more often and for longer period, but the ships have also gotten larger. Also, they got new large ship types like CV-16, Type 071, Type 903/904 and other auxiliary types that need to be supported. The result of that is needing to build larger naval bases like at Sanya and Qingdao to support these ships. Even so, we will get larger ship types like LHD, AORs and more carrier(s) joining service in the coming 15 years. There is a limit on how many of these ships and destroyers can be supported.

As for forward operating naval bases, that's something China will have in the future, but we don't know when that will be. Nothing has been signed as of now, because China still wants to keep lower footprint around the world to not raise alarm over "China threat". Even when things do get signed, it will take years to actually build the base and getting logistics set up. So I think there are certain limitations to how big PLAN can get before then. It's more preferable for them to catch up technological wise.

 

[Lethe]

Except the idea of getting 40 to 60 Type 055s is unrealistic given the structure of PLAN. You have to think about how they are going to recruit the people, who they are going to be able to deploy them. Just because PLAN will have more money does not mean they will just build more cruisers.

Going by Wikipedia, China has 75% of US Navy personnel numbers, and the latter is hardly a manpower-light force. Indeed, when you exclude those categories in which PLAN currently has minimal presence (carriers, amphibs), it seems likely that PLAN currently has just as much, if not more manpower than USN across the categories that remain. The necessary expansion in personnel numbers would therefore seem to be quite modest and involves more a redistribution of resources away from brown/green-water capabilities to blue water capabilities.

On a different note, I'm not sure it is appropriate to think of 055 as a cruiser. True, it is significantly larger than the existing 052C/D destroyers, but that is the trend everywhere. Going by the 12000 tonne full load figure traditionally cited, it is only marginally larger than the Atago, Sejong the Great, and Burke-III destroyer classes, and smaller than the Zumwalt-class destroyer. Also, it is unlikely to be much larger than the upcoming Russian destroyer, if in fact it is larger at all. At the other end of the scale, 'frigate' classifications are creeping up to 6000+ tonnes, or even 7000+ tonnes in the case of the German F125 and French Horizon classes. Lastly, as a brand new hull I do not expect Type 055 (+055A/etc.) to be a limited production run vessel deserving of a special 'cruiser' moniker. Over time it will almost certainly see production numbers exceeding all 052 subclasses put together. All things considered, it seems to me that 'destroyer' is the more appropriate classification for this vessel.

And aside from that, this is not the Indian defence forum. We are not here to just dream up what the navy might look llike in 20 years. Go with conservative projections until proven otherwise.

The most conservative projection I can imagine is that China will have 35 destroyers by 2030. All that is required to achieve this 50% increase in numbers is to follow through on the 052D order of a dozen units, to build a mere dozen 055/As over the next decade, and not to accelerate retirements to vessels less than 25 years old.

 

[Blitzo]

On a different note, I'm not sure it is appropriate to think of 055 as a cruiser. True, it is significantly larger than the existing 052C/D destroyers, but that is the trend everywhere. Going by the 12000 tonne full load figure traditionally cited, it is only marginally larger than the Atago, Sejong the Great, and Burke-III destroyer classes, and smaller than the Zumwalt-class destroyer. Also, it is unlikely to be much larger than the upcoming Russian destroyer, if in fact it is larger at all. At the other end of the scale, 'frigate' classifications are creeping up to 6000+ tonnes, or even 7200 tonnes in the case of the German F125 class. Lastly, as a brand new hull I do not expect Type 055 (+055A/etc.) to be a limited production run vessel deserving of a special 'cruiser' moniker. Over time it will almost certainly see production numbers exceeding all 052 subclasses put together. It seems to me that 'destroyer' is the more appropriate moniker for this vessel.

The standards navies call their ships by are different to the common metric still used by observers.

European navies call their 6000 and 7000 ton destroyers as "frigates," and the burke variants are more powerful and nearly as large as what would've been classified as cruisers just a few decades ago. Hell, the USN even calls Zumwalt as a class of destroyer, at displacing over 14,000 tons full. But I don't think we are at a stage yet where we can change the weight class for various ship names all across the world.

055 is speculated to displace 12,000 tons normal (so over 13,000 tons full), which would put it well in the traditional (and more sensible) weight range of a cruiser which is typically 10,000 tons or more. I think the mainland BBS have called 055 the "large destroyer," demonstrating again just how flimsy names really are.
It is safest to say that different ship types can overlap slightly in their weight range, such as my own definition:
-frigates, 2000-5000+ tons
-destroyers, 5000+ tons to 9000+ tons
-cruisers/large destroyers, 10,000+ tons and above

 

[Lethe]

The standards navies call their ships by are different to the common metric still used by observers.

European navies call their 6000 and 7000 ton destroyers as "frigates," and the burke variants are more powerful and nearly as large as what would've been classified as cruisers just a few decades ago. Hell, the USN even calls Zumwalt as a class of destroyer, at displacing over 14,000 tons full. But I don't think we are at a stage yet where we can change the weight class for various ship names all across the world.

Certainly navies use different standards and can call their vessels whatever they like. Germany and France have no destroyers while Japan has no frigates. If PLAN deems Type 055 a cruiser, then it is so and I am happy to go along with it. But I don't think they will.

The weight classifications clearly do change over time, however. At 5000 tonnes full load, the upcoming 054B frigates are four times the displacement of the 1960s-era Type 065 frigates, and larger even than any destroyer PLAN fielded before 1999.

In the US, both the Zumwalt-class and Flight III Burkes are to be larger than the Ticonderoga-class cruisers, yet they are classified as destroyers, reflecting just this displacement creep. At the other end of the scale, we now have 3000 tonne 'corvettes' roaming the seas (India, and the US LCS should probably be considered a corvette also). For vessels commissioned today and going forward, I think it is better to use the standards of today (as reflected by recent vessels and their classification by respective navies) whilst for older ships, continuing to use the classifications appropriate for their time.

 

[Blitzo]

I think it makes more sense to standardize current ships and future ships based on displacement and capability, with current and past vessels used as a frame of reference.

Like, everyone winks and nods when the USN calls Zumwalt a DDG or when France calls Horizon an FFG, but we all know their true capability is more reflective of CGs and DDGs respectively.

I think only once the majority of ships are in service can we make a shift to call all new generation ships by their uprevised weight classes.

 

[Lethe]

I think it makes more sense to standardize current ships and future ships based on displacement and capability, with current and past vessels used as a frame of reference.

Like, everyone winks and nods when the USN calls Zumwalt a DDG or when France calls Horizon an FFG, but we all know their true capability is more reflective of CGs and DDGs respectively.

I think only once the majority of ships are in service can we make a shift to call all new generation ships by their uprevised weight classes.

I have no problem with this kind of dual-identity thing in the present. But as more ships of similar displacement being given similar classifications come into play, it will make less sense to make the side comment that really they ought to be considered something else. At the extreme, in another decade you could wind up with four or five >10,000 tonne so-called cruiser classes sailing around, none of which are called cruisers by their respective navies, while the only class officially classified as a cruiser (Tico) doesn't even fit the >10,000 tonne cruiser construct. At that point the notion would clearly have outlived its usefulness.

It's the idea that brackets/categories evolve over time that is the important thing, the rest is just splitting hairs.

As well as Type 055, I think the Russian Leader class destroyer and British Type 26 frigate will be significant going forward in terms of helping to set modern benchmarks.

 

[Blitzo]

I agree that increased proliferation of new weight class ship types using older names should eventually lead newer categories to supersede older ones, but I think it will be many years until that point is reached numerically.

Care to share more about this Leader class you speak of? The only credible piece of info I've found online regarding it is a video on youtube. I have doubts as to how quickly they can be delivered as well, given the recent commissioning rates of the russian shipbuilding industry. I don't think the lead ship of the Gorshkov class is even commissioned yet? (some say gorshkov was commissioned last year, but there are differing accounts)