055 DDG Large Destroyer Thread

[Lethe]

I think that 6 additional 052Ds will be commissioned before then and might replace the remaining 051s.

It's possible, but unlikely I think. PLAN hasn't been in any rush to decommission 051s thus far, and has been slowly growing the destroyer fleet instead, and I expect this to continue. Currently the oldest 051 is 35yrs old; if all 051s are decommissioned by 2019 the youngest would leave service after only 29 years, which would be record turnover for PLAN.

The other reason I suspect PLAN will continue to "drag its feet" on retiring 051s is because there are relatively few ships due for retirement in the years after the 051s leave service, while construction of new destroyers is expected to continue. That is to say, if PLAN decommissions all 051s by 2020 then the years after that will be defined by almost continuous growth in fleet numbers (two 052s were the only destroyers commissioned between 1991 and 1999). It is more likely that PLAN will, consistent with current practice, seek to cushion or "smooth" the growth that is coming, minimising the rate of change to prevent bottlenecks in e.g. personnel management, which implies continuing to retire 051s at the current desultory rate.

I think it is most likely that there will still be two or three 051s in service when the first 055 is commissioned. But there will almost certainly be at least one.

 

[Richard Santos]

051 has very little combat value to the modern Chinese fleet, unless it is to just perform low demand, coast guard type duties. Right now the Chinese navy is not just building much more capable ships. They are also expanding the total number of these new ships far beyond the size the Chinese navy had ever seen before. Training personnel to man a fleet that is larger than it has ever been and still growing at prodigious rates must be a severe challenge. In this circumstances, it seem to make little sense to divert trained personnel from the expanding fleet of vastly more capable ships just to allow a few antiquated 051 ships to serve out their remaining hull lives.

 

[Iron Man]

Well it would be a spectacularly grand sendoff for these veteran vessels to at least do one photo op taken by helicopter with a row of 051, 052, 051B, 052B, 051C, 052C, 052D, and 055 ships all steaming at sea side by side, representing an almost 40 year history and evolution of PLAN destroyer technology.

 

[Richard Santos]

Well it would be a spectacularly grand sendoff for these veteran vessels to at least do one photo op taken by helicopter with a row of 051, 052, 051B, 052B, 051C, 052C, 052D, and 055 ships all steaming at sea side by side, representing an almost 40 year history and evolution of PLAN destroyer technology.

That would be a nice picture.

 

[A.Man]

You Can't See Too Much These Days

 

[Lethe]

Training personnel to man a fleet that is larger than it has ever been and still growing at prodigious rates must be a severe challenge. In this circumstances, it seem to make little sense to divert trained personnel from the expanding fleet of vastly more capable ships just to allow a few antiquated 051 ships to serve out their remaining hull lives.

Look at it this way:

There are 8 destroyers currently in service that will be decommissioned by mid-2020s: 6x051s, 2x052s. The same period will see a minimum of 12 new destroyers inducted (8x052D, 4x055) and those are just the ones we know to be under construction today. So we know in general terms that the fleet is expanding, and PLAN almost certainly knows in quite specific terms how many destroyers and of what types it will have in 2025 and therefore the personnel and other requirements it will have to meet in order to maintain and employ those ships effectively.

The start and end points are fixed, the question is how best to get from A (the present) to B (the future). If PLAN accelerates retirements of 051 then it maintains stable numbers in the short-term (i.e. to 2020) but sees rapid growth thereafter. On the other hand, if PLAN extends 051 service beyond 2020 then the fleet grows constantly, but at a slower and steadier pace that allows more time for personnel and other relevant support structures to adapt to changing circumstances and make adjustments as necessary.

The other factor is that 051 retirements could be scheduled to mitigate a potential surge in destroyer numbers over the 2019-2022 period where 052Ds and 055s may be inducted simultaneously at 3 units per year.

 

[timepass]

You Can't See Too Much These Days

View attachment 38679

Two 055s....

 

[Terry Cotter]

Global Times article on destroyer construction in Dalian includes statement "Equipped with 112 launch units, the 055 destroyer will greatly enhance PLA Navy's combat capability in the open sea, and ground attack capability, as its higher tonnage will enable it to be more versatile...."
(

Please, Log in or Register to view URLs content!

)

 

[antiterror13]

Global Times article on destroyer construction in Dalian includes statement "Equipped with 112 launch units, the 055 destroyer will greatly enhance PLA Navy's combat capability in the open sea, and ground attack capability, as its higher tonnage will enable it to be more versatile...."
(

Please, Log in or Register to view URLs content!

)

I'd be surprised if it is not 128 VLS

 

[latenlazy]

Your ignorant summary of the last few pages in this thread is amusing but if you have anything to add that's actually substantive, go ahead and surprise me. The fact remains that we have a big shrimp making intentionally ambiguous statements as well as articles suggesting an 8-cell module Tico upgrade is either ongoing or impending (or both). That there aren't (yet) photos of this upgrade easily searchable on the internet is not evidence against their existence; if they have already been happening it would certainly be recent and would not necessarily have been captured with photos; if they are impending with the latest upgrade then obviously no photos will be forthcoming until 2019 at the earliest. Regardless of 122 vs 128, my original reply to Insignius remains valid as both numbers are still greater than 112. Problem?

Man, you really can't seem to just get along can you?