shen
Senior Member
since the aft superstructure is included in this mockup to test electromagnetic performance, there is going to be a radar on top the aft superstructure.
055 DDG Large Destroyer Thread
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since the aft superstructure is included in this mockup to test electromagnetic performance, there is going to be a radar on top the aft superstructure.
AssassinsMace
Lieutenant General
I know it's not as visible as these mockup structures to get an idea of what's going on, but I hope they're devoted in ASW technologies just as much if they want to keep these things around.
I think that for the PLAN quality of manpower is secondary to pace of force buildup right now. They can probably afford to train in parallel to their acquisition of new hulls through a 15-20 year span and continue that training after all hulls have been delivered. They may even take a rolling ladder approach where the most experienced officers on older smaller hulls are moved up to the new ones, while newer crew are trained on the older hulls, before they too take the step up.
Also keep in mind that China has a very large pool of talent to draw from, which helps the PLAN scale both its recruitment and training over time (potentially more students and more teachers), so long as they have the available hardware and environment to train around. In that sense, it may be smarter to push your fleet sizes and have the quality of your sailors catch up rather than vice versa (after all, it's hard to train sailors if the hardware isn't there). If China wants a sizable navy and intends to grow its fleet size to the level some of us suspect it's aiming for that kind of training load is unavoidable with or without 30 type 055s.
Finally, it might be more accurate to say that it's not how many hulls they build over all that determines the training and recruitment load, but the pace of construction. 30 over a span of 15-20 years isn't such a prodigious pace that the preparation of personnel isn't manageable (though of course the PLA will also be trying to expand in other classes of ships at the same time).
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Depends on what level of training we're talking about. Maybe for general preparedness that's the case, but for actual
operations it's impossible to be ready for the gadget before you can actually play with it.
Having crew ready to start to train for a new gadget and having a crew already trained in a new gadget and ready to operate it at "go" are two different things.
The latter is impossible for a new type of equipment because you need to train yourself on the equipment first before you are ready and able to train others on it as well.
Engineer
Major
If the user interfaces for those new components were designed well, the changes should be transparent to the operators. Additionally, PLAN can pull experienced crew members from existing 052Cs. It wouldn't be difficult for a crew on the 052D to be ready to go.
Verum
Junior Member
Chinese weapon industry isn't really famous for its automation compared to other countries. If 055 is really going to be around 11,000 tons or even the extreme 13,000 tons, it would be comparable to King Sejong Great Class Destroyer. It's the latest batch of the Arleigh Burke, yet it still require 300-400 crews (according to Wiki). Even the super avant-garde Type 45 has regular crew size of 191. It's able to have so few crews due to much smaller displacement and its avant-garde internals, mostly electric with high level of automation.
Judging by PLAN's relative conservatism with utilizing new technologies, 055 probably won't be near the level of Type 45, probably most likely to be similar to later batch of Arleigh Burkes. If so, given the rumoured displacement of 13,000 tons, each ship would require at leat 300-350 crews. Then multiplied by 30, that's minimum 10,000 plus another 3000 to 4000 needed for rotations.
15 years isn't really that long. Training a generation of experienced and capable sailors require minimum 7 - 8 years. Even if China starts now, that's only 2 training batches. Considering this, each batch will be about 6000 - 8000 students. Does China even have that many naval academies to train this many sailors at the same time? Especially considering that they will be trained towards using the same equipments?
Even if that's achieved, which isn't too hard given China's enormous resources, that means PLAN will have 30 055's on top the 28+ modern destroyers (including 052 and newer). That's about 60 - 65 (if more 052D's are built) modern destroyers in the PLAN. Then adding on another 33 modern frigates that's already in service, that's about close to 100 modern warships. Even USN only has 84 current surface combatants (Cruiser + Destroyer). A lot of those are retiring so the new addtions of Arleigh Burkes will only maintain the current status quo. Does China really need that many big warships? Considering it's not the world police nor is it going to "liberate" any rogue states.
When digging deep into the matter and really thinking about it, the claim of 30 ships in 15 years becomes a bit too overwhelming to take-in.
By no means am I saying China won't have a big navy. China will become a formiddable power along with the US to form the new duopoly and it will have an armadda to match it. However, this takes time and the advancement will be evolutionary rather than revolutionary.
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antiterror13
Brigadier
nope, it would be 8 batches if PLAN starts now, but I believe PLAN has started long time ago
China is no America (China has 4x population) .. heaps of highly educated, hard working and enthusiastic young men/women available
The Chinese weapons industry isn't famous for a lot of things that they now seem to breaking into. They're also becoming less conservative as their confidence in modern technologies grow. Just broadly speaking, I think we're going to have to modify some of our basic assumptions as the PLA evolves. Patterns of development that used to be reliable predictors may not be as much in the future.
I'm not sure the count of future surface vessels you did is completely on the dot. For example, if they do acquire 30 Type 055s, it'd probably be in lieu of more Type 052s. Furthermore, some of the older frigates and destroyers would begin to see their retirement in 15-20 years time. You do make a good point about 30 being a very ambitious number, but I think the main contention here is whether it's doable or not. In my opinion, it's probably the upper limits of what's possible in that span of time, but it is doable.
With regards to training, as I mentioned earlier it's completely reasonable to have less capable sailors that continue to build their experience on a new ship a few years after it's completion while you're still growing your fleet. Having green soldiers is inevitable when you're growing your forces rapidly.
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