IF there is going to be a 12.000 ship, I'd delete the 052 class and 054 entirely. That, of course, just means stop their production and let them serve for as long as they can. But instead of them build and use a 6000 ton large frigate. Of course, the 12.000 ton ships would then need to be more numerous than half a dozen, probably in two dozen range within a few decades.
That way one'd have a three tier navy. Big battlegroups would have the biggest ships and the 6000 ton frigates. Other ocean going fleets would get just the 6000 ton frigates. Coastal roles would be fulfilled by 056 exclusively, for which it is more than equipped to do.
If there is going to be a 12.000 ship class it will be somewhat of a world's first. Yes, there've been many larger ships before. But let me put it into some context. After big ships of ww2 fell out of favour, biggest "modern" ship was Long Beach Cruiser. It had to be that big because AAW systems of the day were huge. Still, the class never went anywhere and only one ship was ever built. Us had some other pretty big ships, like the Virginia class cruiser, of some 10,500 tons basic displacement. But they didn't have a lot of them, and as the technology progressed, slightly smaller ships took its place, like Tico and Burke.
On the other side, USSR had a very specific fleet and very specific task. Their navy wasn't a true blue water navy in all regards, their navy was more of a heavy counterstrike fleet, hit and run fleet. To fight the NATO, they used colossaly huge missiles, and only way to house those, again, were some big ass ships. Hence Kirov and Slava. Slava was far from a multipurpose ship, it was a striker through and through. Not something China should model.
Kirov, again, was a flag waving exercise - lets build the biggest ship possible. Again, i dont think anyone sensible would hope for chinese equivalent of kirov. Even the russians won't be making a new kirov again.
We have zumwalt class, true. But again, it's a very specialized ship. Even before the whole class was more or less turned into a tech demonstrator class when they cut the funding for all but just three ships, the whole concept was geared towards one thing - ground support from the sea. Hence the two bigass cannons, a weapon system otherwise completely unnecesarry for a naval ship, as well as over the top stealth requirements, needed if ship is to have a chance of survival operating under 100 km away from enemy shores.
So is there a class in history of modern warships or even in future planning, that is to model the alleged 12.000 ton chinese warship? I don't think so. At least i can't think of a similar class. People are free to point it out to me.
Yes, there's the Korean KDXIII. Some sources say it's under 9000 ton basic displacement but with that size, it's got to be more, probably more around 10,500 tons.
That's really another issue with displacement. There doesn't seem to be a standard that people actually stick to when reporting displacement. Burke is oftentime cited as 10.000 ton ship while it can't possibly be compared to the larger kdxIII. It's not just the difference between basic and full displacement, there seems to be a myriad other factors.
All this was written in case 055 is a 12.000 ton basic displacement ship that may go over 14.000 tons when full. IF the chinese 12.000 ton ships ends up being really a 10.000 ton basic displacement ship which at times may reach 12.000 ton ful displacement, then it's all a bit different. It would *still* be the biggest modern warship built as a numerous class, though. Which goes back to my reasoning. Yes, there's been no mention of 055 being a 10.000 ton ship. But there's been almost no mention of 055 period. One lone rumor about 12000 tonnage, and that's it.
What's more likely? That it will turn to be true and china will build and operate the largest fleet of largest ships in modern naval history? Or that china will model its fleet after other navies with same or even bigger blue navy aspirations? We can see that 7000-8000 ton ships are quite enough as ocean going ships. There's plenty of such ships around in various blue water navies. There are some 9 and 10 thousand ton ships, too. That's perfectly plausible as well. But once we go over 10.000 tons we go into uncharted territory. And then Occam's razor comes into play.
