055 DDG Large Destroyer Thread

[kwaigonegin]

I think what many of you have failed to realized is that regardless of the effectiveness of her weapon systems at present (or lack therof) the Zumwalt represents a leap in naval technologies and capabilities that can only be gained building something like it. Obviously one would hope that any class of warship launched will ultimately become successful however regardless of whether the specific class ends up being successful or not is not always the point. The knowledge and experienced gained from building her and her sisters is far from forgotten. The do's and don;t, the EBI (even better ifs) etc all plays a significant role in building better future assets.

Also not just from the point of specific military capabilities but also from the project management, supply chain, vendors, knowledge base and skill sets of each individual dock workers in making her.

All the thousands of subsystems and the stealth technologies will not go to waste and can and will be applied to future or even current warships. Tribal knowledge and knowhow often time can only be gained from experience and from being the pioneer of things.

 

[AndrewS]

I think what many of you have failed to realized is that regardless of the effectiveness of her weapon systems at present (or lack therof) the Zumwalt represents a leap in naval technologies and capabilities that can only be gained building something like it. Obviously one would hope that any class of warship launched will ultimately become successful however regardless of whether the specific class ends up being successful or not is not always the point. The knowledge and experienced gained from building her and her sisters is far from forgotten. The do's and don;t, the EBI (even better ifs) etc all plays a significant role in building better future assets.

Also not just from the point of specific military capabilities but also from the project management, supply chain, vendors, knowledge base and skill sets of each individual dock workers in making her.

All the thousands of subsystems and the stealth technologies will not go to waste and can and will be applied to future or even current warships. Tribal knowledge and knowhow often time can only be gained from experience and from being the pioneer of things.

It's $22 Billion for 3 ships. Count it.

And the great leap in naval tech and capabilities made today, won't be implemented until the Arleigh Burke successor in the 2030s, some 15 years into the future.

By that time, most of the Zumwalt tech could well be obsolete and the construction experience forgotten.

If the USN wanted a technology demonstrator to test and refine, they would only have needed a single ship and definitely less than $5billion.

And yes, it will be a learning experience for the USN.

But more importantly, the experience and lessons of the Zumwalt design will be invaluable to the Chinese Navy for its Type-55 programme which is in mass-production today.

 

[latenlazy]

I would regard 1500km as the outer range of the Su-27/J-20, so 1000km is not too far.

Still quite a limit to operational flexibility. Dogfighting and dashing are both less fuel efficient than cruising. Forcing your fighters to operate on a fuel budget puts them at a large disadvantage.

Plus look at what a Chinese carrier would face if it was parked off the Kyushu some 1000km from Shanghai. Each Chinese carrier would have some 24-48 fighter jets, yet would face 300-odd F-15/F-35/F-2/F-4 in the Japanese AIr Force who would be operating right next to their own airbases.

Again, if China were fighting with Japan, carriers wouldn't be operating alone. If we removed carriers from the equation, a larger fleet of destroyers with no close air support would be just as, if not more, vulnerable to Japanese fighters operating right next to their own air bases. If you used ground based fighters to provide that support they would, once again, be operationally limited compared to carrier based fighters. Those ground based fighters would be at a significant fuel disadvantage against fighters flying close to home base. Persistence is essential. This point not only makes the case for why China needs carriers to contest the first island chain, but why they probably need carriers that can field a larger air fleet than just 48 fighters. If China only built a small number of carriers the size of 001 or 002 and spent more money on a larger fleet of destroyers/cruisers, I would argue they would still not be in a position to contest the first island chain effectively.

And if you park that carrier in the middle between Japan and China, it's 500km to either side. Aircraft launched from an airbase with tankers probably have better range than navalised fighters.

Tankers can also fuel carrier fighters.

If you were contesting the first island chain with a fleet of destroyers, would you park your fleet in the middle to provide better air defense for them? No, because that would defeat the point. The goal is to contest the first island chains, not to occupy the middle of no man's land. If you can only go as far as middle distance toward the area you're trying to contest before you lose effective close air support, that's a case for needing carriers, not against.

Plus I doubt the carrier would survive. If China plans on sinking carriers that come within 500km of its coast, is there any doubt that the US/JP can sink Chinese carriers some 500km from the Japanese coast?

500 km is the edge of China's missile deterrence. It's a bit imprecise to say that's where they "plan" on sinking US carriers. The likelihood of China sinking a US carrier at 500 km off shore is rather slim. The odds get better as carriers get closer. Note though, any missile deterrence that can sink carriers can just as easily sink a fleet of destroyers. This is not a great argument for why you should build more destroyers over carriers.

Furthermore, to pose that threat China has had to make significant and deliberate investments in ground and air launched missile capabilities at high volume, which we haven't seen Japan do yet, and which the US isn't positioned to do as it's presence in the region is based on forward deployment. The missile capabilities each side poses are not congruent.

Chinese carriers operating within the First Island Chain face exactly the same issues that US carriers do, and the US doesn't plan on sending its carriers that close to the Chinese coast because of the very high risk of them being sunk.

For the reasons mentioned in the previous paragraph, Chinese carriers do not face exactly the same issues that US carriers do. Until US security partners and allies make the same investments in missile defense China has, Chinese carriers contesting the first island chain do not face the same kind of threats US carriers face going up against China. Furthermore, those missile threats aren't isolated to carriers. They apply to any naval asset that floats. This is why despite China's deliberate investments in carrier sinking capabilities, the US's answer isn't to not send carriers in a conflict with China but to enhance their CIWS and naval missile defense capabilities. (every bit of evidence we have on the Pentagon's thinking suggests this).

And let's go with the 3 SCS bases just being pitstops as you say.

Then they just become permanent refueling pit-stops for fighters operating from Hainan. It's only 1 hour from Hainan to the SCS, then afterwards you've got a fully tanked up fighter which is ready to go.

The bases are small. That's why they can't be the main center of operations. You can't field China's air force with them at significant volume, and being small makes them vulnerable. Furthermore, they may help with the southern part of the chain, but not the eastern parts of the chain. They matter if the area of contest is SEA, but not Japan, which is the scenario we were discussing earlier.

On the topic of destroyers and surface strikes, remember that cruise missiles typically have a range of 1500km. So $1million CJ-10 cruise missiles mounted on trucks (on mainland China or the SCS) can strike every land target in the first island chain.

They could, but you have to account for accuracy and target survivability. Cruise missiles are good for fixed targets, but not moving ones. You also need to be able to occupy an area once you've successfully destroyed its assets if you don't want your adversary to redevelop the area you just destroyed. That's why militaries don't just invest in long range cruise missiles to perform their land strikes.

So the destroyers would be concentrating on the anti-ship and anti-air mission.

Depending solely on destroyers to both attack ships and planes looking to sink them is a recipe for low survivability and failure.

The real anti-air mission is not about Chinese fighter jets (either from land or a carrier) shooting it out. It would be building masses of cheap cruise missiles to overwhelm every air base and destroy the air force on the ground.

China building 3000 cruise missiles (like the US) would only cost $3billion max.

Cruise missiles can't do everything. They may be necessary, but they aren't sufficient.

 

[Iron Man]

The Arleigh Burke class set the standard for large surface combatants in the late 20th and early 21st centuries. But going forward that is no longer the case. European nations introduced modestly more refined medium-sized warships in ~2010, and with 055 China is translating that standard to the big leagues, while USN is muddling through with a design that goes back 30 years.

Your use of the term "large surface combatants" is a slippery nonspecific means of describing the AB. "Large" means what? Destroyer? Cruiser? If you meant one of those then why didn't you just choose one of those instead of "large surface combatant"? If you had said "cruiser", I would have pointed out to you that it is neither the size of a cruiser nor is designated a cruiser nor does it have the functions of cruiser. If you had said "destroyer" I would have pointed out to you (a SECOND time) the 8 new build destroyers that I have already listed that ACTUALLY set the "standard" for modern destroyer construction, with 6 of the 8 currently under construction or soon to be under construction. Lo and behold, they actually all fall into the traditional 6-10kt range. You have hitherto advanced nothing more than a personal opinion as a "simple fact" while I have simply pointed out to you the actual simple fact of all these destroyers under construction in various countries that even right this moment don't actually follow your fantasy scenario.

You evidently believe that AB3 sets the upper bound for a mass produced destroyer type. Anything larger than that is apparently a "cruiser" type that cannot possibly serve as China's standard large surface combatant going forward.

Clearly I didn't even believe that by just the numbers that I already gave you. Were you not even bothering to read my post before you responded? Atago is actually larger than the Flight III by 200 tons. Regardless, the range of 6,000-10,000t for destroyers has held true to this very day, despite your unsubstantiated fantasy about the 055 being some kind of avant-garde trendsetter for the new millennium. And you aren't just talking about a ship that's slightly larger than a Flight III or an Atago, you are advancing the proposition that a ship that is 20% larger than the largest production destroyer currently is somehow the "new" standard for destroyer production. While this is not theoretically impossible, it certainly isn't the default proposition or the obvious or "simple" truth.

Yeah, ok. So the fact that DD(X) was meant to be larger than it is, that there was meant to be a 15-25,000ton CG(X) program as well, and that fact that AB3A is acknowledged to be bursting at the seams and unable to meet future requirements such that USN is planning a replacement before the first ship has even hit the water is somehow not evidence enough of USN's future directions?

Yes, and how well did that go for the DD(X) and CG(X) programs? Ambition met Reality and Reality won. AB Flight III is the (properly) scaled down ambition of the USN for destroyer production. BTW, Flight III is no longer going to be mounting the SPY-3/4 DBR (with its associated massive power requirements) and will instead be mounting the single band SPY-6, so it isn't quite "bursting at the seams" as you portray. OTOH, USN future ambitions clearly lie in capabilities found in nascent form in the Zumwalt and will possibly result in a ship near that size, but that doesn't mean this ship will be the destroyer descendant of the AB, as their production timelines may actually overlap depending on how many dozen Flight IIIs the USN ends up purchasing. Given how many Flight IIIs the USN is already set on getting now, the AB as the USN's destroyer class will be represented in the OrBat of the USN until the 2060s at the earliest.

There are a lot more Burkes retiring between now and 2040 than there are Ticos. In fat, there are almost as many Burkes retiring between now and 2030 as there are Ticos. That's why it's called the "Future Surface Combatant" program, not the "Ticonderoga replacement program".

Four Flight IIAs are currently under various stages of construction (with 11 total IIA Restarts scheduled) currently and the first Flight III is expected to be constructed starting this year or next year, with 42 Flight IIIs total planned to be built. If you build 2 a year that's going to be about 21 years of construction which means they will be built all the way out to 2038 or thereabouts. By that time only the first 40 (mostly Flight Is and IIs) will have been retired, assuming none of them undergo any kind of SLEP. So no, there will not be any AB replacement needed for decades into the future from now.

And it's call the Future Surface Combatant program because the USN likes to sound fancy and forward-thinking, which has less than nothing to do with what ship it is replacing. Was the AB listed as the "Kidd Replacement Program", or the Tico listed as the "Virginia Replacement Program", or the GRF listed as the "Nimitz Replacement Program", or the Virginia listed as the "Seawolf Replacement Program"? No, no, no, and no. Columbia is actually listed as the "Ohio Replacement Program" but we can clearly see by the other examples that a specific title of "XXX-class Replacement Program" has nothing to do with whether a ship is or is not actually replacing any previous class, either by its existence or lack thereof.

Unless 055 has magically regressed from 052D such that it can no longer fire HHQ-9s it is guaranteed to be a more effective AAW platform than Zumwalt. I suspect that spending twenty years and tens of billions of dollars to end up with a warship less capable than it's predecessor is a trick only USN can pull off.

I think you're still stuck in 2008 here. The Zumwalt has since had orders (verifiable on the internet) for SM-2 missiles. Multiple website descriptions commonly state the Zumwalt can launch the full range of ESSM, SM-2, and SM-6. A future BMD upgrade could also make it compatible with SM-3. While it will definitely be a less effective AAW platform than the 055, it is certainly not toothless.

 

[Iron Man]

That depends on the calibre and force disposition of the enemy you are facing.

Yes, IF you are actually fighting them. Again, you are proposing to essentially tie up several carriers at the docks waiting for the ONE single contingency that the USN attacks China on a massive scale.

Fortunately, my description of a carrier's utility in a high intensity near seas contingency is not limited only to using a carrier force to escort an MPA. In fact I think "escorting" MPAs isn't even an accurate descriptionfor what I envision, as it is more about being able to attain air superiority and control and being able to contest airspace at greater distances from China's coast than what land based aircraft alone can provide.

There is no doubt a carrier can contest airspace at greater distances than what land-based aircraft can provide, but that isn't even my point. The point is that you are actually talking about contesting airspace WITHIN the range of land-based aircraft, which I pointed out is a waste of money and resources. Yes, a carrier can contest airspace better at 500km distance compared to a similar number of land-based fighters. OR, you can just buy more land-based fighters and achieve the same thing. Once again, the raison d'etre of a carrier isn't to pansy around in one's near seas, unless under dire circumstances (such as an all-out USN attack on the Chinese homeland). It's to project (and on occasion merely display) your military power in distant lands i.e. non-near seas e.g. Arabian Sea, Malacca Strait, SCS, Westpac. But you don't keep half of your carrier force lying in wait for that black swan moment that is almost certain never to come. It's just too much of a waste of resources.

Do I need to demonstrate it? After all I have consistently described my proposal as that, a proposal.

Yes, yes you actually do. Anyone can make a proposal. For example I can "propose" that PLAN carriers be run on nonstop deployments for 50 years each, which would allow for the PLAN to only need 2 carriers since they would be constantly deployed. I don't need to demonstrate whether this would work (apparently), I just need to make the proposal. Right?

I think one would be hard pressed to find any one example of a switch of such an absolute magnitude, but relative magnitude is easier.
That said, the point is that not every navy is experiencing such an increase of relative magnitude across all surface combatant classes which weakens that premise of his. But I think his other premises and overall conclusion is sound.

Why bring any of his "other premises" or "overall conclusion" into the discussion of THIS premise unless you can't defend it on its own merits? And yes, no other navy is experiencing this kind of growth, either relative or absolute, since you would also have to discuss total ship procurement plans. Even if you brought up a 4,000t to 7,000t transition (e.g. Adelaide to Hobart) and tried to claim victory by pointing out this is a 75% increase in destroyer tonnage, you would still have lost because 1) the Adelaide is actually just a Perry frigate, not actually a destroyer, and 2) the Australians are only planning to build THREE Hobarts. The scale that Lethe is trying to portray 055 construction is so massive it even outmatches the USN in ambition, while spending a third of what the USN spends now. Even your proposed numbers for the 055 are rather quite impressive; there is simply no comparison to be made to Europe, Japan, or Australia as he claimed earlier. Actually forget your numbers; even my 055 numbers are simply not comparable to any of these countries/regions.

And as I said, and as Lethe as said, there is no reason to think why China cannot adopt a force structure between now and in the medium term and long term future where 12k ton destroyers make up a significant part of its orbat fleet as suggested by the orbats that he and I have proposed.

Sure, one can say no other navy in the world would adopt 12k ton cruiser sized ships in such large numbers/proportion of their overall fleet, but consider that the USN has had the vast majority of its surface fleet made up of combatants between 9k to 10k tons in the form of Ticos and Burkes with only a few hundred tons difference in displacement between the various types, and with a barely relevant number of frigate displacement ships in its orbat until recently. And this is keeping in mind their Ticos and Burkes are also heavier than any recent/modern European or UK destroyer/frigate class which were of course produced in much smaller numbers than Ticos or Burkes, including compared to JMSDF and ROKN, which until the Chinese Navy and their 055s were the only navies in the world outside of USN to field modern surface combatants in the over 9k ton range.
So if the USN in the recent past/present is able to adopt an almost all 9k-10k ton surface combatant fleet despite most of the world's most capable navies only having a few very limited numbers of modern combatants of that displacement, then why is it unreasaonable to think the Chinese Navy cannot induct a significantly proportion of its fleet of 12k ton 055s as part of a medium term three tier fleet of equal numbers of ton 055s, and equal numbers of 052D along a large number of 054A/B, and then eventually in the long term transition to a fleet made up only of 12k to 055s and a new 6k ton ship (succeeding the 052D and 054A/B)?

I guess you forgot that the USN had 51 Perry frigates at the height of the Cold War, and only block-retired the last of them TWO years ago? And it isn't that the USN hasn't wanted to have smaller warships, it simply encountered the same financial debacles with the LCS program that it encountered with the Zumwalt program, though on a somewhat lesser scale, resulting in significant delays and cutbacks to both LCS classes. Had the USN had its way and things worked out between them and LM/Austal the LCS program would have introduced ships at a near replacement pace for the Perry, though admittedly not one-for-one or exactly at the pace of Perry retirement. So no, an "almost all" 9k-10k fleet has certainly not been entirely intentional, though this lopsidedness has been tolerated (until recently), like I said before, due to USN hubris about its force requirements and its capabilities vis a vis its potential adversaries. China has never had this luxury and does not now or will in the forseeable future, so there is no reason to believe it has any intention to adopt a similarly high end force structure that is even remotely inspired by the USN.

At the end of the day, isn't it all about how the number of 055s fits into the Navy's overall force structure? Having 24 055s would be stupid if they had only a dozen frigates or destroyers or something, as that would make their force ridiculously top heavy, but what if they had 24 055s but also another 24 052Ds and another 50+ 054A/Bs on top then isn't that a force structure that could make sense? Or having a fleet of 1/3 055s and 2/3 of a new class of 6k ton frigate?

Who said China CANNOT adopt a force structure that you and Lethe imagine? Nobody, including me. We are speculating and disagreeing on whether it actually WILL adopt this or that force structure. I don't feel it's sound to go to a two-tier navy, and you do. That is all.

 

[Blitzo]

Yes, IF you are actually fighting them. Again, you are proposing to essentially tie up several carriers at the docks waiting for the ONE single contingency that the USN attacks China on a massive scale.

Sure, and that depends on how much we think China may be willing to commit forces in peacetime depending on what the assess the likelihood of one contingency versus another and the risks and benefits of being more prepared for one contingency versus another.

My proposed deployment pattern puts the preparednes for a high intensity near seas conflict at a higher level than having more carriers at sea continuously whether in blue water or near seas, but it also provides a single carrier at sea continuously in blue water at a strategic region of water (Indian Ocean) while retaining enough carriers at home to be able to respond to blue water contingencies as well as being able to respond to a near seas conflict.

There is no doubt a carrier can contest airspace at greater distances than what land-based aircraft can provide, but that isn't even my point. The point is that you are actually talking about contesting airspace WITHIN the range of land-based aircraft, which I pointed out is a waste of money and resources. Yes, a carrier can contest airspace better at 500km distance compared to a similar number of land-based fighters. OR, you can just buy more land-based fighters and achieve the same thing. Once again, the raison d'etre of a carrier isn't to pansy around in one's near seas, unless under dire circumstances (such as an all-out USN attack on the Chinese homeland). It's to project (and on occasion merely display) your military power in distant lands i.e. non-near seas e.g. Arabian Sea, Malacca Strait, SCS, Westpac. But you don't keep half of your carrier force lying in wait for that black swan moment that is almost certain never to come. It's just too much of a waste of resources.

"Within" the range of land based aircraft is a rather deceiving term when used in the context you used, because that makes it seem like fighters deployed from land will have a similar flight/mission profile to a given distance from land, as fighters deployed from a carrier which is operating at that same distance.
For example, a fighter operating from a land air base wanting to conduct CAP say, around the Miyako strait would have a significantly shorter endurance and persistence during its mission over the strait compared to fighter aircraft launched from a carrier which is deployed at or very near that strait.

This isn't to say that there isn't also a significant role for land based aircraft, and their persistence or endurance or range (or a mix of them) can be enhanced by land based tanker aircraft,

Yes, yes you actually do. Anyone can make a proposal. For example I can "propose" that PLAN carriers be run on nonstop deployments for 50 years each, which would allow for the PLAN to only need 2 carriers since they would be constantly deployed. I don't need to demonstrate whether this would work (apparently), I just need to make the proposal. Right?

Yeah that's right. From there, people who disagree with your proposal can argue why they don't think it makes sense and people who agree with your proposal can argue why they support your idea.

There's only a certain level of detail that we can discuss to for hypotheticals, whether it's future fleet orbat or future deployment patterns or what not. Expecting evidence for a hypothetical or a proposal to "actually work" is a bit silly.

Why bring any of his "other premises" or "overall conclusion" into the discussion of THIS premise unless you can't defend it on its own merits?

? Just because one premise of an argument is illogical does not make other premises illogical and it does not invalidate one's overall conclusion.

And yes, no other navy is experiencing this kind of growth, either relative or absolute, since you would also have to discuss total ship procurement plans. Even if you brought up a 4,000t to 7,000t transition (e.g. Adelaide to Hobart) and tried to claim victory by pointing out this is a 75% increase in destroyer tonnage, you would still have lost because 1) the Adelaide is actually just a Perry frigate, not actually a destroyer, and 2) the Australians are only planning to build THREE Hobarts. The scale that Lethe is trying to portray 055 construction is so massive it even outmatches the USN in ambition, while spending a third of what the USN spends now. Even your proposed numbers for the 055 are rather quite impressive; there is simply no comparison to be made to Europe, Japan, or Australia as he claimed earlier. Actually forget your numbers; even my 055 numbers are simply not comparable to any of these countries/regions.

Well, seeing as how you've argued that the 055 should be considered a cruiser, wouldn't the Adelaide/Perry/FFG to Hobart/DDG transition in terms of relative weight transition as well as a transition from an FFG class ship to a DDG class ship be surprisingly similar to a transition from the 052D/DDG to 055/CG in terms of relative weight transition as well as DDG to CG class ship?

One could also bring in the RAN's SEA5000 frigate programme which is looking to replace their 3600 ton ANZACs with a much more capable design that is currently downselected to either a Type 26 variant, or an Italian FREMM variant, or a redesigned F-100 variant (which is the same class design that the Hobart class is based on), and all three of those ships are significantly larger than the ANZAC frigate that they're meant to be replacing.

Similarly, on the subject of Type 26, it is much larger than the Type 23 it is meant to be replacing (though of course the Type 26 class is truncated down in number with the less capable Type 31 to make up some of the numbers)


That said, this isn't a premise that I believe in because there are many navies whose replacement surface combatants don't fulfill this trend. I'm just pointing out in this case that there are also a few navies whose replacement surface combatant programmes do fulfill this trend.

I guess you forgot that the USN had 51 Perry frigates at the height of the Cold War, and only block-retired the last of them TWO years ago?

Of course I haven't forgotten, but why would the height of the Cold War be relevant for my discussion? They only commissioned the first Burke in 1991, after the Cold War was over.

Besides, the purpose of my example was not to suggest that the US Navy was always a top heavy navy, but rather simply to demonstrate that if there is a period of time where USN could have a significantly top heavy Navy that is much more top heavy than basically every other Navy in the world and have more modern surface combatants of the 9k-10k weight class than basically every other navy in the world, then I don't see why it would be unreasoanble for the Chinese Navy to have a significant number of 055s in service when complemented by a similarly large medium destroyer force and a significantly larger frigate force as part of their orbat, and then eventually transition to a two tier fleet of 055s and majority 6k ton or so frigate, both which are much more reasonable force distributions than what the USN has found itself in over the last decade or so with their Burkes and Ticos.

And it isn't that the USN hasn't wanted to have smaller warships, it simply encountered the same financial debacles with the LCS program that it encountered with the Zumwalt program, though on a somewhat lesser scale, resulting in significant delays and cutbacks to both LCS classes. Had the USN had its way and things worked out between them and LM/Austal the LCS program would have introduced ships at a near replacement pace for the Perry, though admittedly not one-for-one or exactly at the pace of Perry retirement. So no, an "almost all" 9k-10k fleet has certainly not been entirely intentional, though this lopsidedness has been tolerated (until recently), like I said before, due to USN hubris about its force requirements and its capabilities vis a vis its potential adversaries. China has never had this luxury and does not now or will in the forseeable future, so there is no reason to believe it has any intention to adopt a similarly high end force structure that is even remotely inspired by the USN.

See the above part.

Who said China CANNOT adopt a force structure that you and Lethe imagine? Nobody, including me. We are speculating and disagreeing on whether it actually WILL adopt this or that force structure. I don't feel it's sound to go to a two-tier navy, and you do. That is all.

Okay, fair enough no problem with that.

If you're not saying that China CANNOT adopt a force structure like what Lethe and I imagine (i.e.: that it is plausible) then I have no further disagreement.

 

[Jeff Head]

Yes, the combined fleets elsewhere are significant...

...

And if SK, JP and Aus think this way, what are the chances of Europe declaring war on China?

They would probably sit out a US-China war because the stakes are just not high enough and they don't want to risk being on the losing side.

The value of US alliances in a war with China is over-stated.

But thankfully, we will probably never see these scenarios tested because China has clearly chosen economic development and leadership.

Well, we are not going to discuss a direct war scenario.

But we can talk about the fact that the US has these alliances...that they train hard with all of these countries and that their naval forces fit seamlessly. Believe me, they are NOT over stated, and the Chinese planners know this.

Having siad that, I do not expect war either...the fact is that one of the reasons (of many) that it is so unlikely is that precisely because of the NATO and other alliances these nations are tied by agreement to come to the other nations aide in the even of war.

They would not sit it out because they would never want the US to "sit it out." Those alliances do mean something...and China knows it as well as the other nations.

As you said, for many other reasons...but never forget or discount that one too...it is very unlikely that such a large war would materialize.

There may be incidents...but we have already had a couple of those. On the US side when it sailed through the Taiwan straits several years ago. On the PRC side when its plane ran into a US surveillance aircraft and when its ships bumped US Naval vessels.

Ina ll of those incidents which could have led to much worse conditions, the nations figured out ways to talk together and get past them.

I expect we will continue to see that precisely because:

1) The US advantage of its own, but especially with all of its allies ic compelling...and,

2) The Chinese have developed their own assets so efficently that it would, short of something incredibly unlikely, simply be too expensive to start shooting over it.

Let's hope it stays that way.

 

[Jura The idiot]

I think what many of you have failed to realized is that regardless of the effectiveness of her weapon systems at present (or lack therof) the Zumwalt represents a leap in naval technologies and capabilities that can only be gained building something like it. Obviously one would hope that any class of warship launched will ultimately become successful however regardless of whether the specific class ends up being successful or not is not always the point. The knowledge and experienced gained from building her and her sisters is far from forgotten. The do's and don;t, the EBI (even better ifs) etc all plays a significant role in building better future assets.

Also not just from the point of specific military capabilities but also from the project management, supply chain, vendors, knowledge base and skill sets of each individual dock workers in making her.

All the thousands of subsystems and the stealth technologies will not go to waste and can and will be applied to future or even current warships. Tribal knowledge and knowhow often time can only be gained from experience and from being the pioneer of things.

of course you're predicting a tremendous success ultimately achieved (what else to say after tens of billions sank
but in fact the Zumwalts, LCSs, the Fords are products of so called Rumsfeld era when only "trasformational", "game-changing", "revolutionary", "concurrently rapidly designed", "concurrently constructed" projects had a chance to get financed so ... so the vendors offered them

the relevance for this thread: I guess the Chinese, while looking at Zumwalts, see what NOT to do

 

[Blitzo]

I think what many of you have failed to realized is that regardless of the effectiveness of her weapon systems at present (or lack therof) the Zumwalt represents a leap in naval technologies and capabilities that can only be gained building something like it. Obviously one would hope that any class of warship launched will ultimately become successful however regardless of whether the specific class ends up being successful or not is not always the point. The knowledge and experienced gained from building her and her sisters is far from forgotten. The do's and don;t, the EBI (even better ifs) etc all plays a significant role in building better future assets.

Also not just from the point of specific military capabilities but also from the project management, supply chain, vendors, knowledge base and skill sets of each individual dock workers in making her.

All the thousands of subsystems and the stealth technologies will not go to waste and can and will be applied to future or even current warships. Tribal knowledge and knowhow often time can only be gained from experience and from being the pioneer of things.

The R&d and experience from developing the Zumwalt class probably won't go to waste.

But the cost effectiveness of developing a new class of warship that's only produced in small numbers without a sensible concept of operations is one that suffers quite widespread skepticism.

There's also the issue of the opportunity cost and the road not taken -- whether a different model of procurement from the 1990s could have allowed the development of a different ship class that could've achieved both a mass producible class of warship with a sensible concept of operations while also fielding new generation technologies, instead of the mess that the Zumwalt class became.


So yes, the Zumwalt class isn't a complete waste of resources and they've been able to gain experience and R&D for subsystems that they can apply to future warships classes. But that's an awfully low bar of expectations to set

 

[Iron Man]

Sure, and that depends on how much we think China may be willing to commit forces in peacetime depending on what the assess the likelihood of one contingency versus another and the risks and benefits of being more prepared for one contingency versus another.

My proposed deployment pattern puts the preparednes for a high intensity near seas conflict at a higher level than having more carriers at sea continuously whether in blue water or near seas, but it also provides a single carrier at sea continuously in blue water at a strategic region of water (Indian Ocean) while retaining enough carriers at home to be able to respond to blue water contingencies as well as being able to respond to a near seas conflict.

Clearly we differ in our assessment of how prepared the PLAN feels it needs to be in the future for an all-out US military assault on the Chinese mainland. Personally I feel that even now the USN will have to go all-in to prevail in a conflict against China. By the time China has 6-7 carriers 30? years from now, the USN will not even consider assaulting China, let alone a China with 3-5 carriers waiting at the docks. Again, carriers aren't meant to sit at docks waiting for some worst case scenario to occur.

"Within" the range of land based aircraft is a rather deceiving term when used in the context you used, because that makes it seem like fighters deployed from land will have a similar flight/mission profile to a given distance from land, as fighters deployed from a carrier which is operating at that same distance.
For example, a fighter operating from a land air base wanting to conduct CAP say, around the Miyako strait would have a significantly shorter endurance and persistence during its mission over the strait compared to fighter aircraft launched from a carrier which is deployed at or very near that strait.

This isn't to say that there isn't also a significant role for land based aircraft, and their persistence or endurance or range (or a mix of them) can be enhanced by land based tanker aircraft,

How is it a "deceptive term"? Even a target at the extreme range of 1,500km is within range of land-based aircraft. Yes, their endurance will be quite short at that distance, but again, all you need to compensate for that is to buy more fighters and more tankers; if you even anticipate or want to routinely patrol out that far in the first place. That is the point. There is no need to resort to a full-on carrier program in order to somehow make land-based aircrafts' lives 'easier'. Carriers aren't there to make land-based fighters' lives easier by relieving them of the need to do CAP at long ranges or to escort sensor platforms at long ranges, something that is surely more within their scope than it is within a carrier's scope in any case.

Yeah that's right. From there, people who disagree with your proposal can argue why they don't think it makes sense and people who agree with your proposal can argue why they support your idea.

There's only a certain level of detail that we can discuss to for hypotheticals, whether it's future fleet orbat or future deployment patterns or what not. Expecting evidence for a hypothetical or a proposal to "actually work" is a bit silly.

A "certain level of detail"? It sounds like you don't know whether and how your proposal would "actually work" out in real life, yes? So if you are unable to provide this reasoning (I'm NOT even asking for "evidence"), why would you expect that any other "people" would be able to argue anything substantive about your proposal that you could not yourself, especially a strange carrier deployment cycle that nobody's ever heard of and no navy has ever tried? This is about as useful as me throwing out a random proposal that life exists on a planet surrounding the star SDSS J1229 and then asking people to "discuss".

Well, seeing as how you've argued that the 055 should be considered a cruiser, wouldn't the Adelaide/Perry/FFG to Hobart/DDG transition in terms of relative weight transition as well as a transition from an FFG class ship to a DDG class ship be surprisingly similar to a transition from the 052D/DDG to 055/CG in terms of relative weight transition as well as DDG to CG class ship?

One could also bring in the RAN's SEA5000 frigate programme which is looking to replace their 3600 ton ANZACs with a much more capable design that is currently downselected to either a Type 26 variant, or an Italian FREMM variant, or a redesigned F-100 variant (which is the same class design that the Hobart class is based on), and all three of those ships are significantly larger than the ANZAC frigate that they're meant to be replacing.

Similarly, on the subject of Type 26, it is much larger than the Type 23 it is meant to be replacing (though of course the Type 26 class is truncated down in number with the less capable Type 31 to make up some of the numbers)

That said, this isn't a premise that I believe in because there are many navies whose replacement surface combatants don't fulfill this trend. I'm just pointing out in this case that there are also a few navies whose replacement surface combatant programmes do fulfill this trend.

I have already pointed out that a "trend" of FFGs being replaced by DDGs isn't comparable to DDGs being replaced by CGs. How is it a comparison when one ship is a destroyer and the other is a cruiser??? Just because one country is building destroyers where before they were building frigates, means it's somehow a "trend" or justifiable that the PLAN is following by switching from destroyers to cruisers? There is no such "trend". There is no trend of a destroyer to CG transition; there is not even a trend of a frigate to destroyer transition that even remotely involves anywhere near the number of 055s that even _I_ am proposing, to speak nothing of the swarms of 055s that you and Lethe are proposing.

Of course I haven't forgotten, but why would the height of the Cold War be relevant for my discussion? They only commissioned the first Burke in 1991, after the Cold War was over.

Besides, the purpose of my example was not to suggest that the US Navy was always a top heavy navy, but rather simply to demonstrate that if there is a period of time where USN could have a significantly top heavy Navy that is much more top heavy than basically every other Navy in the world and have more modern surface combatants of the 9k-10k weight class than basically every other navy in the world, then I don't see why it would be unreasoanble for the Chinese Navy to have a significant number of 055s in service when complemented by a similarly large medium destroyer force and a significantly larger frigate force as part of their orbat, and then eventually transition to a two tier fleet of 055s and majority 6k ton or so frigate, both which are much more reasonable force distributions than what the USN has found itself in over the last decade or so with their Burkes and Ticos.

Oh, 1991. Your nitpick is so right on. Cold War over. Wait, let me check Perry construction dates. Yep. They were all still there in 1991. Every single last one. Oliver Hazzard Perry itself was commissioned in 1977. In any case, you are essentially using the USN's RECENT historical pattern of top-heavy structure to somehow valid a proposal for the PLAN to create a non-top heavy structure. Why should the PLAN reference the USN's non-similar force structure AT ALL? Your vision for the PLAN is somewhat more top heavy than mine but let's not start citing the USN as the authoritative source for naval force structure when even the USN itself has acknowledged its own recent shortsightedness. Like somehow yours is more reasonable than mine because it's closer to the USN's lack of vision - I mean force structure.