055 DDG Large Destroyer Thread

[ShariQ Ansari]

Does 055's has four X-band arrays providing 360 degree coverage...just like the AMDR?

 

[Insignius]

It should. But it is unconfirmed so far, since the EM testing mockup in Wuhan hasnt been updated at all.

 

[Iron Man]

Instead, what I'm arguing for is the principle that the subsystems I mentioned can produce advancements in a new warship class's warfighting capabilities even if it retains the same weapons/radars/propulsion as an existing class of warship, as a matter of general principle.

Uh huh. So unquantified advancements can produce unquantified advancements. Got it, thanks.

Actually, there is a misunderstanding -- because while it is correct to interpret his statement that he sees 055 as the "fruition" of these technologies, it does not exclude 052D as having also benefitted from those technologies.
That is entirely consistent with my position that the 055 is "more compelling evidence" of the advancement of those technologies, and that 052D benefitted from those same or similar degree of advancements, but its manner of production is a far less compelling display of the fruition of those technologies compared to the manner of production of 055 we are seeing.

So then, how to reconcile the idea that the "fruition" of the advancements in design/tech/etc is attributed to 055 as described by him, with the idea that the advancements had also existed before 055 probably as early as 052D's production or earlier? Well as I've written, it's because of 055's manner of production that we've seen (rate of initial production/outset production + it being a clean sheet hull design + along with I suppose the fact that it is also the largest surface combatant from the Navy they've ever produced) -- in other words, 055s manner of production is very impressive, creating the most convincing display of those advancements, relative to previous classes of warship's manners of production.

NO. The most honest reading most DEFINITELY excludes the 052D in the timeline of the statement. I don't even feel the need to argue this point with you because in my view including the 052D in his original statement requires such a massively warped and logically stretched interpretation that to make it is to be unabashedly intellectually dishonest straight from the outset. You clearly recognize this here, though your exquisitely tenuous attempt to "reconcile" what is so obviously the most straightforward interpretation with what is so obviously the wrong interpretation was not EVER mentioned by him initially or subsequently, nor is it accepted as correct by me, nor was it even explicitly mentioned by you until much later into our own discussion in this thread and therefore represents a RETROJECTION of your own views into his statement. This "reconciliation" does not pass my BS meter. Sorry.

My assertion is not that the production rate of 055 is faster than the 052D, it is that the "rate of initial production" aka production of the ships at the outset of production, is faster than that of the 052D at its outset of production.

"Rate of initial production" is the term I have used, as well as the phrase "straight off the bat".
In other words, the number of ships that they have started to produced at the initiation of production of this warship class, along with the number of sites they are producing them at.

As for 052D, the dates for all their launches are well tabulated in wikipedia (as well as many other Chinese ship classes) and photo confirmation of sighting modules for new ships for DL and JN can be seen in number of threads over at CDF.

Oh man, seriously??? Talk about a series of inconsequential statements. Here is yet another one. Who in the world gives a rat's behind what the "rate of initial production" is???? Do you really care if I can start building 10 cars simultaneously but can only finish 1 in my lifetime? How is that ANY kind of useful metric of production? What anyone really cares about is results: how many ships can you FINISH building in what period of time? It would be catastrophically stupid for a shipyard (or the PLAN) to judge "success" based on 50 ships started at 25 shipyards simultaneously, only to have 1 ship per decade actually finish building. Not knowing a single shipmaker or a single person working in the PLAN acquisitions department, I can feel confident in saying that none of those people care that the 055s started 3 at a time if they subsequently can only finish building at a far more pitiful rate, or even just a more standard rate. This discussion is now diving full speed ahead into the realm of the utterly surreal.

 

[Blitzo]

Uh huh. So unquantified advancements can produce unquantified advancements. Got it, thanks.

So long as you agree that those unquantified advancements in the aforementioned subsystems can potentially produce unquantified advancements in warfighting capability which are not "meh" despite having same subsystems of weapons/radar/propulsion as an existing class of warship, then great, settled.

NO. The most honest reading most DEFINITELY excludes the 052D in the timeline of the statement. I don't even feel the need to argue this point with you because in my view including the 052D in his original statement requires such a massively warped and logically stretched interpretation that to make it is to be unabashedly intellectually dishonest straight from the outset. You clearly recognize this here, though your exquisitely tenuous attempt to "reconcile" what is so obviously the most straightforward interpretation with what is so obviously the wrong interpretation was not EVER mentioned by him initially or subsequently, nor is it accepted as correct by me, nor was it even explicitly mentioned by you until much later into our own discussion in this thread and therefore represents a RETROJECTION of your own views into his statement. This "reconciliation" does not pass my BS meter. Sorry.

Well this is an area where our views will have to fundamentally diverge.

I view his statement as being one about the relation of advancements enabling 055's manner of production, but not that such advancements only emerged between the 052D's production and 055's beginning production.

In fact, in neither of his two posts does he bring up 052D, nor does he say that the advancements in computing/modelling etc only emerged after 052D, so I see no basis to interpret his posts as excluding 052D from his timeline.

Oh man, seriously??? Talk about a series of inconsequential statements. Here is yet another one. Who in the world gives a rat's behind what the "rate of initial production" is????

I care.
In fact, I've taken great care to use it as much as possible in the many pages of our back and forth posts because it is an important part of my position.
The next part of my reply goes into why.

Do you really care if I can start building 10 cars simultaneously but can only finish 1 in my lifetime? How is that ANY kind of useful metric of production? What anyone really cares about is results: how many ships can you FINISH building in what period of time? It would be catastrophically stupid for a shipyard (or the PLAN) to judge "success" based on 50 ships started at 25 shipyards simultaneously, only to have 1 ship per decade actually finish building. Not knowing a single shipmaker or a single person working in the PLAN acquisitions department, I can feel confident in saying that none of those people care that the 055s started 3 at a time if they subsequently can only finish building at a far more pitiful rate, or even just a more standard rate. This discussion is now diving full speed ahead into the realm of the utterly surreal.

It is a useful metric -- in fact, it is arguably one of the most useful metrics -- because it is the basis for subotai's statement relating to the advancements.

Remember what advancements he is talking about -- advancements in computing/modelling/design. He goes into more detail in his second post in #2673, where he sums up by saying "The results of this end in much higher confidence in your design and a design that does not require lots of one-off builds of something that you need to sail and observe"

Why does the rate of initial production matter? Because it reflects a willingness to put into mass production at two different shipyards, at the outset, before the first ship has even entered the water -- and thus reflecting the confidence in this design (a new clean sheet hull of the largest surface combatant the Navy has developed!), the confidence which arose from the advancements of computing/modelling/design that subotai was talking about.


In my opinion, the overall production rate of the 055 is irrelevant to the discussion or subotai's point, because the production rate of 055s over a couple of years or longer, does not reflect the advancements-in-computing/modelling/etc-endowed-confidence in the ship's design and design process. Instead, what reflects confidence in the design and design process in the most significant way, is the manner in which production begins (initial production rate, clean sheet vs iterative design, no. of shipyards where production is occurring in).

 

[nethappyg4]

It been years seem I post here. Anyway I was chatting some guy in Shanghai China over dinner last week some of them were military officers. A interesting thing they said was there already plan for more then one version of 055 and like the 052D until they prefect the design they are not going to start massive building. We shouldn't be expecting a lot of new tech on the frist few 055 but for A B C D or whatever there should be new stuff added and tested each each time.

 

[Iron Man]

So long as you agree that those unquantified advancements in the aforementioned subsystems can potentially produce unquantified advancements in warfighting capability which are not "meh" despite having same subsystems of weapons/radar/propulsion as an existing class of warship, then great, settled.

Again, who can disagree with "5 is greater than 4"? You've reduced your claims to something so obviously true and yet so simultaneously meaningless that agreeing that the earth travels around the sun isn't much of a claim at all. When I said "meh" to those particular 055 subsystems I was giving my personal guesstimation of their likely advancement over the 052D. Your response is essentially that IF the advancements are advanced enough, then these advanced subsystems could theoretically result in some kind of advancement in 055 warfighting capability over the 052D. WOW, that's a truly incisive and meaningful riposte right there.

Well this is an area where our views will have to fundamentally diverge.

I view his statement as being one about the relation of advancements enabling 055's manner of production, but not that such advancements only emerged between the 052D's production and 055's beginning production.

In fact, in neither of his two posts does he bring up 052D, nor does he say that the advancements in computing/modelling etc only emerged after 052D, so I see no basis to interpret his posts as excluding 052D from his timeline.

You can disagree all you want, but it doesn't change the facts of the matter or the most straightforward interpretation of the initial post. This post was made in the 055 thread. The poster was expressing his general admiration of the 3 055 hulls being simultaneously produced, and saying that advancements in technology allowed this to happen. It takes a truly biased mind to think that this same gushing enthusiasm would have been applied to the 052D's construction schedule; in fact as far as I can tell, it was NOT. You are just plainly and obviously wrong here.

I care.
In fact, I've taken great care to use it as much as possible in the many pages of our back and forth posts because it is an important part of my position.
The next part of my reply goes into why.

It is a useful metric -- in fact, it is arguably one of the most useful metrics -- because it is the basis for subotai's statement relating to the advancements.

Remember what advancements he is talking about -- advancements in computing/modelling/design. He goes into more detail in his second post in #2673, where he sums up by saying "The results of this end in much higher confidence in your design and a design that does not require lots of one-off builds of something that you need to sail and observe"

Why does the rate of initial production matter? Because it reflects a willingness to put into mass production at two different shipyards, at the outset, before the first ship has even entered the water -- and thus reflecting the confidence in this design (a new clean sheet hull of the largest surface combatant the Navy has developed!), the confidence which arose from the advancements of computing/modelling/design that subotai was talking about.

In my opinion, the overall production rate of the 055 is irrelevant to the discussion or subotai's point, because the production rate of 055s over a couple of years or longer, does not reflect the advancements-in-computing/modelling/etc-endowed-confidence in the ship's design and design process. Instead, what reflects confidence in the design and design process in the most significant way, is the manner in which production begins (initial production rate, clean sheet vs iterative design, no. of shipyards where production is occurring in).

Wrong again. "Initial rate of production" is a completely fabricated term that you made up in this very thread to describe "going to be built faster initially but will somehow end up having an underwhelming launch rate". I have no doubt nobody else views 055 construction in this surreally artificial, fabricated manner. Also, what people who matter in the industry are impressed with is results, meaning how fast can you put hulls into the water; I'm guessing they also don't make this kind of weird artificial distinction. I'm pretty sure this is also the basis of everyone on SDF's satisfaction (except yours) with the appearance of 3 055 hulls. Unlike you, we do not distinguish some kind of "initial" rate of production with rate of launch and our being impressed with the 055's rollout is as contingent on initial build rate as it is on launch rate, because as I said, there should be no need to distinguish between the two. Who here has ever expressed such a queer distinction until you did in this very thread???

It been years seem I post here. Anyway I was chatting some guy in Shanghai China over dinner last week some of them were military officers. A interesting thing they said was there already plan for more then one version of 055 and like the 052D until they prefect the design they are not going to start massive building. We shouldn't be expecting a lot of new tech on the frist few 055 but for A B C D or whatever there should be new stuff added and tested each each time.

"Confidence" indeed. Spin away, Bltizo.

 

[latenlazy]

Nah, I don't think so. What we can identify definitively so far are the main gun (same), AESA MFR (same), CIWS (same), SRSAM (same), countermeasures rocket launchers (same). What we can reasonably infer to be the same are the gas turbine engines and the universal VLS; if you disagree I would like to ask you to provide evidence that the PLAN has developed any kind of other VLS or naval GT recently that might be present on the 055. You and I both know that this particular VLS (the one seen on the 052D) will almost certainly be on the 055, but you are casting doubt here merely for the sake of arguing this thread. Same goes for the GT. In any case, these systems already identified are easily, as far as hardware goes, the prime movers of a surface combatant. You are saying that just because they look the same doesn't mean they function the same. Ok fine, but really, the burden of proof IS on you to demonstrate that they look the same but somehow function differently on the 055, whether part of some "integrated" "system" or otherwise. If you somehow disagree with that, it doesn't matter to me either way, but I think the average person wouldn't agree with you that the burden of proof isn't on you.

We don't actually know if the MFR is the same. The cutout we saw on the Type 055 mockup which we've presumed to be for the MFR, if I recall, appears to be bigger than the space allocated for the 052D's MFR, and there's not a whole lot that we can distinctively discern from the fact that both ships have square shaped arrays.

I am not casting doubt merely for the sake of arguing, and it's quite presumptuous of you to make such a brash accusation. I actually do not know if the 055 will have the same VLS as the 052D. It might, but we don't have any actual documentation that the type 052D's VLS will be the one used in the 055. That's speculation on our part based on the presumption that the 052D's VLS is meant to be the standard VLS used by the PLAN going forth, but that presumption itself isn't based so much on an identifiable VLS model used by the 052D as on the presumption that 052D's VLS was built on the GJB 5860-2006 standard. While not a bad piece of speculation, that the 052D's specific VLS model will be the standard model used across the PLAN isn't a sure thing either. Since the GJB 5860-2006 is a standard and not a specific model, that means there could be upgraded models built to this same standard (much like how the MK57 VLS is an upgrade of the MK41 VLS). After all, the PLAN has to date made VLS upgrades to each subsequent generation of DDG since the 052A. I obviously don't have evidence for the 055's VLS being different from the 052D's since Chinese VLS development is pretty opaque, but we also don't have evidence that the 052D's VLS is actually the standard model! That was speculation too, so the basis of the presumption isn't really that evidentially strong.

Again, given that my main point is that a lot of features on the ship *don't* look the same as the Type 052D, the burden of proof isn't really on me?

 

[nethappyg4]

Well Just note I am not taking part in any of your argument it just something I hear and though it was interesting. Not sure if anyone remember the name but I was on this post years ago but haven't post anything since the updated version.

 

[Iron Man]

We don't actually know if the MFR is the same. The cutout we saw on the Type 055 mockup which we've presumed to be for the MFR, if I recall, appears to be bigger than the space allocated for the 052D's MFR, and there's not a whole lot that we can distinctively discern from the fact that both ships have square shaped arrays.

I am not casting doubt merely for the sake of arguing, and it's quite presumptuous of you to make such a brash accusation. I actually do not know if the 055 will have the same VLS as the 052D. It might, but we don't have any actual documentation that the type 052D's VLS will be the one used in the 055. That's speculation on our part based on the presumption that the 052D's VLS is meant to be the standard VLS used by the PLAN going forth, but that presumption itself isn't based so much on an identifiable VLS model used by the 052D as on the presumption that 052D's VLS was built on the GJB 5860-2006 standard. While not a bad piece of speculation, that the 052D's specific VLS model will be the standard model used across the PLAN isn't a sure thing either. Since the GJB 5860-2006 is a standard and not a specific model, that means there could be upgraded models built to this same standard (much like how the MK57 VLS is an upgrade of the MK41 VLS). After all, the PLAN has to date made VLS upgrades to each subsequent generation of DDG since the 052A. I obviously don't have evidence for the 055's VLS being different from the 052D's since Chinese VLS development is pretty opaque, but we also don't have evidence that the 052D's VLS is actually the standard model! That was speculation too, so the basis of the presumption isn't really that evidentially strong.

Really. How about we make a wager on what kind of VLS will be on the 055? I'll even give you FIVE TO ONE odds. $500 my risk, $100 your risk. Let's put our money where our mouths are. I'm absolutely serious here.

Or, are you just going to admit that you know as equally well as I do what kind of VLS is going to be on the 055?

As for the MFR, I don't know if we are looking at the same MFR, but I literally have no idea what you are talking about here.

Again, given that my main point is that a lot of features on the ship *don't* look the same as the Type 052D, the burden of proof isn't really on me?

Oh, it's "a lot" now? Which ones constituted "a lot" for you, again? Because I didn't see any kind of list in your post here that would suggest "a lot", whereas I definitely did give you a lot on my list.

 

[Jura The idiot]

now went through the next round; currently the most important point seems to be:

...

Why does the rate of initial production matter?

Bltizo
claims this rate is very important; it's unimportant according to
Iron Man

Because it reflects a willingness to put into mass production at two different shipyards, at the outset, before the first ship has even entered the water -- and thus reflecting the confidence in this design (a new clean sheet hull of the largest surface combatant the Navy has developed!), the confidence which arose from the advancements of computing/modelling/design that subotai was talking about.


...

I have no idea if the rate of initial production is important in the context of Chinese Navy/shipbuilding, but I noticed a program (before somebody jumps at me I immediately repeat I said a program, not a Chinese Navy program) still could turn into a mess despite 'mass production at two different shipyards' (the specific example can be discussed in
Littoral Combat Ships (LCS)
thread)