055 DDG Large Destroyer Thread
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I don't see the LSC as being spurred on by the introduction of a few Type-55.
I see it as primarily being from:
1. replacing the Ticonderoga cruisers and their air-defence command role.
2. the overall growth of the high-end Chinese destroyer fleet, and it is the Type-52D which has been built in much larger numbers.
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From 1900-1940s, ships kept getting larger because ship size translated directly into combat power eg.
1. Guns were the primary offensive armament. Larger guns which meant more range and the ability to strike first.
2. More armour also meant more survivability
But we now live in an age of missiles as the primary offensive and defensive armament - which is largely independent of ship size.
The targeting of those missiles is now dependent on the sensor suite available.
But once you reach Zumwalt/Type-55 levels, you gain very little benefit from adding additional sensors or electrical power onto a bigger hull.
So I don't see a spiral of larger ships being introduced
The addition of the Type 055 certainly adds incentive. Originally there was no plans to replace the Ticos, allowing the Flight III Burkes to replace them. 052D is supposedly countered by the Burkes.
Spurt in size has more to do with armor and survivability followed by guns and supporting armament.
That is completely incorrect by a full 180 degrees. It is missiles by far and large that spurred ship size.
We always had large sensors even in older ships. Note the Slava and Kirov classes.
Missiles will continue to spur warship growth, but . Bigger missiles and more of them. I am not completely sure if the current U-VLS can employ ballistic hypersonics, but a small increase in depth so it will be close to UKSK-M might be in order to allow for ballistic hypersonics. Another is the Type 055 currently employs 112 cells. 128 cells would increase its size obviously. If you want to lower the cost of each launch, you can freeze the sensor suite and raise the missile complement to as much as 200. This ship is more and more a bit of an Arsenal Ship, namely an Arsenal Ship wedded with the Type 055's sensors, which remains spec frozen.
The increasing use of stealth means bigger and bigger sensors to counter, although I would say the 055 is pretty gigantic. But if you are going with L-band or metric band AESA you're going to get even bigger still.
Then you want to increase the ship's own survivability. Means not just more armor and bulkheads, but close range armament CIWS guns and missiles. A huge part of the Kirov and Slava's armament is close range.
These sensors and weapons will have to be wedded with server rooms, which means an increase in the electronic equipment as a whole.
The increase of power required by all these means you need more power generation.
All these weapons, sensors, electronics, additional power equipment, armor, close range weapons, ESM, ECM, means more weight, that requires stronger but heavier engines in larger hulls. Which in turn spurns the ship to be bigger and heavier.
The addition of capability means weight, which in turn creates a cyclical loop to other parts of the system that requires more capability and weight.
Then you are going to add drones and UUVs on top of that.
This could easily be nothing more exciting than future-proofing the design, such as for a time when railguns and/or lasers will be needed. The excess power does not have to be explained by a super-powerful main 346B AESA.
It is not proven the that thicker units are the IFF. Actually I think the thinner units are the IFF (they are about the size seen on 052C/D, etc.), and the thicker units are some other kind of new emitter that we haven't seen before.
That is quite a bit of excessive future proofing.
The IFF units on the 052D is located right on top of the Type 346A above the bridge windows. This is the same position as these large emitters are on the Type 055. IFF units on the 052C are likely to be strips inside the panel situated on top of the array, which is the way these units are also arranged on the MPQ-53 of the Patriot systems and the HT-233 on the land based HQ-9. This gives the IFF units the same field of view as the scanning radar and allows them to interrogate anything within this FOV.
The IFF units on the 052D are also physically thinner in thickness than the smaller units on the 055, which in my opinion is more similar to the SR2410C search radars used in export vessels. The export search radar is essentially a budget single faced version rotating version while the 055's quartet is a much more expensive fixed four face version covering front, back, left and right.
Define "excessive", especially when you are supposed to be thinking ahead to high power requirement technology like DEW and railguns.
This is all pure speculation, of course. There are clearly two different flat rectangular hardware sets on top of the 055. Both of them provide a complete 360 coverage around the ship since they are both made of 4 'bars' set at 90 degree angles around the top of the bridge. Their exact position is completely irrelevant going just by common sense sniff test, so I'm not sure why you are making a mountain out this particular molehill. Just because the 052D's IFF units are situated over the 346A panels doesn't mean they also have to be situated over the 346B panels on the 055. In fact their identical sizes (to my eyes) suggest to me that they are one and the same IFF units, and that they have actually been rotated 90 degrees relative to their position on the 052D. I think the larger flat rectangular structures serve some other purpose that we do not yet know. Perhaps a dedicated surface search radar. Perhaps something else.
Jura The idiot
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Six generators is still speculation, of course. All based on an infographic disseminated by Chinese TV. Until we get an official confirmation that's all we have. However, when I look at the intake/exhaust vents on the aft section where the three generators are supposed to be housed, they appear rather small for something that's supposed to service 3x5MW prime movers, as some have suggested. On the lower end, the prime movers could be 2MW units, which would put the total available power to 12MW, same as on the Flight III. However, running generators in parallel gets more difficult the more generators you have and while at it your efficiency drops. I think that we can safely assume that 2 of 6 are for redundancy purposes and no more than 4 are ever run in normal operations.
Assuming that the large Type 346B is comparable in power consumption to SPY-6, we are looking at something in the range of 3.0-3.5 MW input power, not accounting for the cooling power needed. The cooling for the radar would add another 800kW or so. That leaves slightly less than 4MW available for the remaining radars, electronics, hotel load and future growth.
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I am not alone in that opinion those bricks above the main radars are IFF.
The smaller units to my eyes have thick backs. Not to mention there is something behind them. That looks more like a full radar set to me.
It reminds me more of this. This is kind of like the single faced rotating version versus a fixed four faced version.
The IFF on the 052D looks like this. It has a thin structure without the heavy backend.
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