All I can find about this is a which attributes the percentage of aluminum to an anonymous source. Since she didn't bother to cite her source, we shouldn't bother to take her work either.
055 DDG Large Destroyer Thread
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All I can find about this is a which attributes the percentage of aluminum to an anonymous source. Since she didn't bother to cite her source, we shouldn't bother to take her work either.
Hendrik_2000
Lieutenant General
Minnie Chan get all of her info from Kanwa pinkov
The radar horizon gain from raising a shipborne radar higher is negligible under any sane set of assumptions. I don't know precisely how high above the waterline a Type 055's radar is (or even which of the radars he's talking about), but let's call it 25m. Let's say, for a fortiori argument's sake, than another ship's radar is 50m above the waterline. Let's assume further that both ships are scanning for targets flying at an altitude of 10km. More realistic numbers would be welcome here.
Do you know what gain in spotting distance the latter radar gets over the former? Less than 2%. Which also means a less than 4% gain in search area. This is militarily insignificant.
As for the aluminium alloy, that's what advanced warships are made out of (including those in the USN). The Zumwalt's superstructure is made out of resin-infused wood. It's not clear that steel can take a Mach 4 missile hit any better than aluminium or wood. A modern warship utilizes active defences (missiles and bullets), not an armoured hull.
Word to the wise: any time you see an article on the Chinese military with the terms "Anthony Wong Dong", "Minnie Chan", or "Kanwa", click that little x in your browser tab.
The LCS ships are also made highly of aluminum even if those ships are criticized for that. I would think many ships need to use aluminum, magnesium and even composite to reduce top weight. In the case of stealthy minded ships I would also expect the use of radar absorbing composite panels.
As for the radar panels, keep in mind the Type 346B panels are not the only radars the ship has. Low position does not affect detection range per se, what it affects is low flying detection by threats under the radar horizon. The lower the radar is, the shorter the radar horizon. But there is the smaller, likely X-band radar (4) on the top mast that has a much farther radar horizon, and on top of the bridge, those wide arrays (8)(9) also does surface scanning from a height higher than the Type 346B. At the very top of the mast, you got a tower (1) most likely with passive sensors that will detect the radar signals from enemy planes and missiles flying low, probably the first thing that will warn you of a threat.
Keep in mind also that with older ships, such as the Type 052C/D, which has the Type 346 radars on a lower position, that there are other radars above it, such as the Type 366 and 344 above the bridge, and the Type 364 on a globular radome on top of the mast. The Type 364's main job is spotting then tracking threats at the edge of radar horizon. Keep in mind also that the Arleigh Burke and the Ticonderoga also has small secondary radars, SPS-67 and SPQ-9, on high on the mast for spotting sea skimming threats at the edge of the radar horizon despite the SPY-1 on a lower position.
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The radar height is about detect a sea skimming anti ship missile flying low like 10 meters above the water. Due to the radar horizon, a radar at a height of 25 meters will detect the antiship missile flying 10 meters above the water at 33 km. If the missile is flying close at Mach 0.9. lets say 300 meters per second, you have about 110 seconds to respond to that threat. If the radar is at 35 meters, the detection range is extended to 37.44 km, and your response time is up to 124 seconds, at 40 meters height, the detection is at over 39km, the response window is now at 130 seconds. If the missile is flying at 1000 meters per second, or near Mach 3, cut all those response windows to only a third.
Of course, you don't need your main radar to be sitting high, you can put a smaller radar high above the mast to do the job of scanning the surface to the edge of the radar horizon. That makes all arguments about how low your main radar is, completely moot.
by78
General
(1) as stated above, not true. Calculating visual horizon shall be against target flying at certain altitude.
(2) it's much more significant if you aren't defending just yourself.
Not the most crucial parameter, though. More of a choice.
No, it's perfectly true. The other poster changed the question I was considering. I made very clear that both radars were tracking a target 10 kilometres above sea level, not sea-skimming missiles. For the assumptions I made the calculation it is correct.
It's a ridiculous number anyway, since no American warship carries its air defence radars twice as high as an 055's. Any realistic number would be far less than 1%.
Prove it. Present a plausible, realistic scenario where a 2% linear increase in the radar horizon presents "a significant difference" in the respective defensive capacities of the destroyers against high-flying targets.
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