It is relevant in stating that you don't have rights to any default assumptions here, which to be perfectly honest, you really don't.
Actually I think I do have some rights to default assumptions here, because information from big shrimps can change the newest up to date information quite quickly, and their ambiguity means we have to try and apply some common sense to them.
Also, just for the record the suggestion of an 8 ship first batch goes back to 2015 from fzgfzy
The more you hype his ambiguity the less of an argument you have for any kind of insinuation that he implied greater than 8, or even worse double-digit.
I'm not hyping up "his" ambiguity. I'm saying that ambiguity is part of big shrimp statements in general, especially for earlier programmes. That means we need to apply some common sense and logic to their statements to reach a likely conclusion for what they mean.
If anything the reason I'm able to logically argue that he implies greater than 8 or that it may be double digits is because he was ambiguous. If he stated that 055 will simply be 8 as he has done before then that offers no other form of interpretation.
And your argument that what we see of the program so far portends more or less than 8 ships is utterly irrelevant, since we are NOT talking about total ships in program (which is clearly what you are implying with your "Chinese Navy's overall trajectory in the foreseeable future"), which I personally do believe will end up being more than 8 (double digits even), but rather FIRST BATCH production, which isn't even remotely the same thing, so I don't like that you are now trying to conflate the two.
FYI, for my last post where I wrote "Instead, let's take a step back and think what his statement means -- is it that there will be more than 8 ships or less than 8 ships?" I was obviously talking about it in context of "will there be more than 8 ships or less than 8 ships [in the first batch]". I wasn't talking about the entire 055 programme/production run -- who knows how many 055s and various 055 variants may be built in future.
And, what I implied by "Chinese Navy's overall trajectory in the
foreseeable future" I was talking about near term future, like say half a decade or slightly more, like which is about the time period where we will likely see the first batch of 055s enter service, whether they are 8 ships or slightly more. And when I talk about overall trajectory I mean the increase of Chinese Navy's blue water deployments, carrier/amphibious assault ship escort, and likely plans for overall advancing combat capability, all of which 055s would facilitate and where it would be logical to consider an increased demand of 055s for those missions.
I'm obviously not trying to conflate the two, what good would that do me when the consistent position I've held has been always about the first batch? What good would it do me to argue that the overall production run would be more than 8 ships, that would just be silly and frankly over-ambitious for me to try and predict how big the entire production run may be at this stage.
I now have to provide you a proper name for this modernization program? No, I really don't have to. Not at all. All recent mentions of crane deletion have only been in the last several years, so obviously whatever modernization program that is most recently and currently active for the Ticos is the modernization program that is relevant as far as crane deletions are concerned.
You don't "have to" but I think it would definitely be quite helpful for both of us if you knew which modernization programme had supposedly replaced the VLS crane as you have suggested. It's not like that is such hard of a thing to do either.
For example, in my last post and in a post before that I was able to name the modernization programmes of relevance -- the "CG Phased Modernization Programme" which is what the USS Cowpens, Gettysburg and so on are being modernized under. Before that, there was the "Cruiser Conversion Programme" that I posted in #3092, which is the only programme name that has been linked with the notion of a VLS crane replacement ("CCP probably will include AEGIS upgrades (bringing all ships to a common baseline), removal of the VLS reload cranes (providing 6 additional VLS cells), replacement of CIWS by ESSM, addition of Cooperative Engagement Capability (CEC)")
However I was never able to find what the finalized details of the Cruiser Conversion Programme was nor the ships that were modernized under it, although some articles at the time also did not mention a VLS crane replacement, and I've found no photos of Ticos between 2002 and now have shown a replacement of the VLS crane module, making me wonder if the original CCP VLS module replacement plan had :
The most recent link I found which talked about VLS crane deletion was this link from 2014 (
), however again it doesn't mention a specific programme nor does it mention a given ship name, and with the photos that I had before including the oldest, newest and a middle Tico class cruiser all still retaining their VLS crane modules I think
Let's recognize that YOU have the burden of proof here, not me. We have multiple articles on the internet from recent years all saying the same things about crane deletion, with at least one article (from 2014) UNAMBIGUOUSLY stating that cranes are actively being deleted as Ticos come in for modernization. All you can cite is some articles that didn't mention crane deletion one way or the other, which is not any actual contrarian evidence, just logical fallacy repackaged as evidence. To be perfectly honest crane deletion is not exactly very sexy, and not mentioning whether it happened or not is not exactly a score for your side. Really the only way for you to have any kind of point is if you found a photo post-recent modernization that shows cranes still present, or excepting that, an article unambiguously stating that cranes were NOT in fact deleted with the most recent modernization program, in which case we would have to weigh the merits and veracity of said article against the rest of the articles which state otherwise.
On the contrary I would say that increasing the Ticonderoga class' armament from 122 to 128 VLS cells most definitely is sexy and would be worthy a mention or even its own bullet point in any sort of article about its modernization.
I've provided recent photos of various different aged Ticos all still retaining their VLS cranes, as well as articles detailing various modifications over the years including the CCP from 2002 (of which one article mentions a VLS replacement but which others do not and where I can find no photos of any Ticos with VLS crane replacement), and the CG PMP from 2015 (which do not mention a VLS replacement).
The fact that there are a few articles which seem to suggest that a modernization programme does include a replacement of their VLS crane means I am willing to entertain the possibility that there may be some Ticos with VLS cranes that have been replaced, or that maybe the VLS crane replacement is included as part of the CG PMP, but the absence of a clear statement in official USN, industry and affiliated media about what is quite a significant modification is rather suspect.
With the photo and article evidence I've laid out, I would argue that the burden of proof lays as much on
you as me, or even more so on you than me, considering the evidence for your argument is looking rather slim -- from what I see, the only basis of your position is that 2014 article, with few recent articles elsewhere backing that position up. For all we know that 2014 article might have been a mistake by the author, or maybe in 2014 they were considering replacing the VLS crane module but by 2015 they had decided against it. Who knows.
Heck, that 2014 article even says that the crane "continues to be removed from the Ticonderoga class ships" suggesting that the cranes have already been removed from existing/past Ticonderoga class ships. In that case, shouldn't it be rather easy for you to find a photo of a Tico class' VLS bank without the crane module, and shouldn't the burden of that evidence lay with
you?
(of course I would retract if you provided a link demonstrating Ticos now have 128 cells ready to use ... from what I read/saw, 128 is, ehm, wishful thinking, but I might be wrong)
