055 DDG Large Destroyer Thread

[antiterror13]

wondering how mant qualified welders the Chinese shipyards have? ... must be tens of thousands at least ...

but mind you, the slow down of commercial ship order would help this as well ... in a way it is like government support ... so the skills and expertise won't be gone

 

[Iron Man]

I'd say .. it looks much more modern than Sejong also ..... of course much stealthier

The 055 is not really any stealthier than a Sejong. The mast maybe, but this is not a major contributor to RCS compared to the rest of the hull.

 

[Blitzo]

The 055 is not really any stealthier than a Sejong. The mast maybe, but this is not a major contributor to RCS compared to the rest of the hull.

I do think if 055's hull features careful signature management in terms of things like exposed bow, and other parts of the weather deck, that may be a meaningful difference between the previous generation of say 052C/D, Burke IIA, Sejong etc, to what I consider to be a slightly higher level of signature management like Type 45, Horizon, FREMM etc, the latter group of which I think 055 might have a chance of ending up being.

Of course, one could argue that the difference between those two "categories" are negligible, compared to a more extensive stealthy ship like Zumwalt class, and I wouldn't necessarily disagree on that count.

 

[antiterror13]

The 055 is not really any stealthier than a Sejong. The mast maybe, but this is not a major contributor to RCS compared to the rest of the hull.

if you look again Sejong and 055 (from CGI #2405 ) and compare it side by side ... you will see the differences ... very obvious and these two are from different generation. Sejong is from 1990s design and 055 is from 2010s design

 

[Iron Man]

I do think if 055's hull features careful signature management in terms of things like exposed bow, and other parts of the weather deck, that may be a meaningful difference between the previous generation of say 052C/D, Burke IIA, Sejong etc, to what I consider to be a slightly higher level of signature management like Type 45, Horizon, FREMM etc, the latter group of which I think 055 might have a chance of ending up being.

Of course, one could argue that the difference between those two "categories" are negligible, compared to a more extensive stealthy ship like Zumwalt class, and I wouldn't necessarily disagree on that count.

if you look again Sejong and 055 (from CGI #2405 ) and compare it side by side ... you will see the differences ... very obvious and these two are from different generation. Sejong is from 1990s design and 055 is from 2010s design

I know exactly what a Sejong looks like. Cleaner foredeck and (possibly) slightly better mast RCS than the Sejong does not a "much stealthier" ship make. IMO all the ships including 052D, 055, Burke, Sejong, Kongo/Atago, Type 45, etc. are all the same generation of RCS reduction. Some are slightly better than others but to suggest any one of them are much stealthier than any of the others is to exaggerate their differences.

 

[dingyibvs]

The 055 is not really any stealthier than a Sejong. The mast maybe, but this is not a major contributor to RCS compared to the rest of the hull.

Why wouldn't the mast be a major contributor to RCS? Given the curvature of the earth, the hull wouldn't be visible to other shipborne radars until they're only a couple dozen kms away, while the mast would be visible from much farther distance. I'd think that mast stealth would be more important, and the 055 appears to have significantly improved mast stealth.

 

[kwaigonegin]

Only if you use 1950/60s era surface search radar tech LOL
While 055 may technically have less RCS than Sejong, Burke etc, it's return signature is negligible and will be picked up just the same up on any decent naval radar models developed since the 1990s. It's like going from a Chevy surburban to a Honda Accord not to a matchbox car.

But that's OK because PLAN never intended the 055 to be a 'stealth' ship. I'm pretty sure they have something akin to the Zumwalts or at least 'stealth focused combatants' in the drawing board for future generation of warships or other specialized vessels.

 

[Blitzo]

I know exactly what a Sejong looks like. Cleaner foredeck and (possibly) slightly better mast RCS than the Sejong does not a "much stealthier" ship make. IMO all the ships including 052D, 055, Burke, Sejong, Kongo/Atago, Type 45, etc. are all the same generation of RCS reduction. Some are slightly better than others but to suggest any one of them are much stealthier than any of the others is to exaggerate their differences.

I agree that the difference between the categories probably is not "much stealthier" but at the same time i think there is a difference between classes like 052d/sejong/Burke compare to type 45/horizon/fremm/potentially 055.

In other words I agree we shouldn't exaggerate the difference in extent of signature reduction, but I also think there is a meaningful enough difference between the ships I had mentioned such that I think it is not correct to say "055 is not really any stealthier than a sejong" -- assuming 055 maintains a similar degree of signature management to the likes of type 45/horizon/fremm etc.

 

[Iron Man]

Why wouldn't the mast be a major contributor to RCS? Given the curvature of the earth, the hull wouldn't be visible to other shipborne radars until they're only a couple dozen kms away, while the mast would be visible from much farther distance. I'd think that mast stealth would be more important, and the 055 appears to have significantly improved mast stealth.

We are talking about the differences of a few dozen additional km of detection which in the real world is meaningless, and this is assuming a 100% stealthified mast (i.e. completely undetectable). Just use a radar horizon calculator and see for yourself.

I agree that the difference between the categories probably is not "much stealthier" but at the same time i think there is a difference between classes like 052d/sejong/Burke compare to type 45/horizon/fremm/potentially 055.

In other words I agree we shouldn't exaggerate the difference in extent of signature reduction, but I also think there is a meaningful enough difference between the ships I had mentioned such that I think it is not correct to say "055 is not really any stealthier than a sejong" -- assuming 055 maintains a similar degree of signature management to the likes of type 45/horizon/fremm etc.

AFAIK the major contributor to RCS reduction is hull shaping and the degree of slope of the hull WRT the vertical. A possible clean foredeck and a possible partially embedded mast are literally the only possible differences that we currently know of between the 055 and the Sejong. IMO these minor RCS improvements even if they are borne out in the actual ship don't deserve a separate category of stealthification like you are asserting.

 

[Blitzo]

AFAIK the major contributor to RCS reduction is hull shaping and the degree of slope of the hull WRT the vertical. A possible clean foredeck and a possible partially embedded mast are literally the only possible differences that we currently know of between the 055 and the Sejong. IMO these minor RCS improvements even if they are borne out in the actual ship don't deserve a separate category of stealthification like you are asserting.

I think that the slope of a ship's hull and controlling that continuous slope is the lone greatest and most obvious contributor to RCS that can be controlled to reduce RCS, yes.

But there are also a significant amount of smaller exposed features that collectively contribute to RCS which can be controlled for as well to reduce RCS.
In the case of ships like burke/sejong/052D etc, I do think they do sit in a different, lesser category of RCS reduction compared to the likes of type 45/horizon/fremm etc.

The differences between 055 and Sejong may be more than merely an enclosed foredeck and integrated mast.
If 055 adopts the same degree of signature reduction as say, type 45, then other differences may include reduced presence of antennae atop the deckhouse/below the mast, reduced presence of railings, reduced sources of RCS due to features on the side of the hull/amidships region, greater integration of the deckhouse superstruture with the smoke stack structure and topside weather decks into a single more continuous and slanted design as well etc.

Of course, I'm not saying Type 45's RCS reduction is anywhere near as comprehensive as that of Zumwalt, but I think the attention to minimizing RCS at the details of the ship like Type 45/horizon/fremm etc do put them in a separate category to burke/sejong/052D, even if those ships do not have the continuous slanted hull of Zumwalt class.


Or, if we simply look at pictures, I think it displays the two ships with different degrees of RCS management.