Reading through the recent pages I was under the impression that people only talked about DDGs and rarely gave their opinions on them. That's why I said I was interested in people's personal opinions and didn't bother going through this thread.
I did a search for "Burke" and read through the pages.
The general consensus is that the 055 is equal to a Flight IIA Burke. Would you agree?
I would not agree, not after I saw the generator setup on the 055. If the various pictorials and design videos we have seen in the aftermath of the 055's rollout are correct, then the 055 has SIX GT generators. Even if each of them only output 3MW of power, that would still make 18MW total available generator power. By comparison the Flight IIA Burke has 9MW available power and the Flight III has 12MW available power. This says to me that the 055 is very likely using GaN technology in its AESA(s), which improves power density by several dozen times and effectively more than doubles the range and sensitivity of radars using the older GaAs MMIC technology. If the big rectangular plate on the mast is an X-band AESA like many of us think it is, that means the 055 has a powerful X/S-band GaN AESA combo. By comparison the Flight IIA uses the older GaAs S-band PESA (AN/SPY-1D), while the Flight III will use a GaN S-band AESA (AN/SPY-6), eventually coupled also with a fixed X-band AESA.
Now all this does not automatically make the 055 superior to the Flight IIA, but the 055 also has the benefit of additional (U)VLS cells that in addition to that could also theoretically pack more missiles per tube than the Mk 41 cells. If the depictions of the 055's stern are correct, then the 055 will have a VDS in addition to its TAS, which combined with the dual helicopters will make the 055 definitively superior to the Flight IIA in ASW; the Flight IIA in case you didn't know not only does not have VDS, it does not even have TAS (TACTAS was deleted from all Burkes starting with Flight IIA).
The intangibles unfortunately are things we have no ability to gauge on the internet as military enthusiasts, and by that I am referring to software and overall crew effectiveness. I would have to give the edge to the USN in both of these areas given their significantly longer history of operating modern ships and designing radars and combat systems. Then again, nobody really knows how much the PLAN has been able to catch up in these areas. I would have to say from a purely military enthusiast's mostly uninformed opinion, the 055 is almost certainly superior to the Flight IIA and at least the equal if not superior to the Flight III, when viewed in the context of only the ships themselves. When you add in crew effectiveness, software, weapons, and fleet coordination (e.g. CEC, Link 16, ISR, etc), the ignorance on our part grows to the point of utter useless speculation.
I now reported
cunnilingist
for hideous nickname; let's wait and see if my English failed me
I think "cunninglinguist" would have been less offensive (and simultaneously more humorous and subtle), but I do agree the current username is rather blatant.
