055 DDG Large Destroyer Thread

[PeoplesPoster]

One could charitably interpret what you just wrote as you having difficulties with the language. So in the interests of clarification, I think you should answer whether you think that the US built more ships per year on average during the Cold War than China built per year on average since 2003, or whether you think the US built more ships per year on average during the Cold War than China has over the entire period since 2003.

Pretty sure he is saying the US between 1959 and 1989 built more ships than china has between 2003 and 2021. And even if you average the total number of ships built by the US between 59 and 89 it would still be more ships per year than China built on average per year between 03 and 21.

 

[sinophilia]

Pretty sure he is saying the US between 1959 and 1989 built more ships than china has between 2003 and 2021. And even if you average the total number of ships built by the US between 59 and 89 it would still be more ships per year than China built on average per year between 03 and 21.

That would be fine if he clarified, but instead he doubled down by responding with the same nonsense to my rebuttal (which itself through implication said that what I understood was the same as what everyone else understood, which is that he claims the US in one year outproduced China in all 17).

 

[banjex]

Triggered

 

[akinkhoo]

i actually was amuse and did some digging. while number wise the US appears to have build many ship, when you look at the actual tonnage, those cruiser are smaller than type-52s. the fact is back in those days, ship are small so the number is misleading when you argue about tonnage. the actual tonnage of the US ship production does not exceed that of the entire Chinese production on a year by year basis. IF you took out carriers and sub. but the question is, why would you exclude carrier and sub if you want to measure total production capabilities. basically it is a weird flex that doesn't make sense.

BUT, if we look at the peak of US ship production near the end of the cold war, US ship production is in fact higher than China. we should not see the cold war as 1 single state of reality, policy has change greatly during the period, China ship production today does not match the Reagan era.

here's is some numbers, at the Reagan era, US can put 3 10000ton major surface combatant in the water annually and sustain it for a decade. while we see that China has the same production capability, we do not see the same sustain effort in say the production of Type 055 that are in the same 10000ton class. it seem to be on and off production with China just building what it need then what they can...

 

[davidau]

Quite far from it. US built 15 carriers, 54 cruisers, 82 destroyers, 110 full sized frigates between 1950 and 1989. The US not only built far more in total during the Cold War, but built more major surface combatants by hull count or displacement each year, even excluding carriers, then what China built the last 17 years. Furthermore, it is quite arguable a large fraction of the ships the US built were technically considerably more cutting edge for their time during the Cold War than what China had built during their time in the last 17 years.

What basis of comparison are you talking about? In fact your presentation is a lot of bullshit! Your shipyards have deteriated so badly that you could't even repair your own ships, let alone bulding new ones.

 

[sinophilia]

What basis of comparison are you talking about? In fact your presentation is a lot of bullshit! Your shipyards have deteriated so badly that you could't even repair your own ships, let alone bulding new ones.

Just an example of why this comparison is so silly. He says the US built 54 cruisers in that period.

Well, the Belknap-class cruiser had a full displacement of 7,900 tons, Leahy-class cruiser that came after it 7,800 tons. These cruisers are closer in displacement to a destroyer like the Type 052D than a Type 055.

Perhaps @Richard Santos should use a consistent definition of what a cruiser, destroyer, and frigate are, rather than using terms that meant different things over different timeframes.

Using a tonnage definition, the US built maybe 25-30 cruisers in almost 40 years of a buildup where they averaged maybe 5x as much of their GDP on defense as China does today. The lower number excludes WW2 ships that were later converted to cruisers, the upper number includes most of those ships.

So, at America's height she was launching a cruiser every 16 months or every 1.3 years (upper number figures). From what we've seen the last few years I don't think China would have much trouble doing the same with a Type 055 lol...

 

[ZeEa5KPul]

Pretty sure he is saying the US between 1959 and 1989 built more ships than china has between 2003 and 2021. And even if you average the total number of ships built by the US between 59 and 89 it would still be more ships per year than China built on average per year between 03 and 21.

I have no idea of the veracity of either of the claims you made as I couldn't care less about US historical shipbuilding capabilities. If I'm concerned with anything of America's, it's its present and future capacities. Furthermore, this is getting way off topic in a flagship (literally and figuratively) thread (nudge to @Bltizo).

I do, however, want to point out two important factors that are being overlooked. The major shipbuilding drive in China didn't start in 2003, but after 2010. One could choose several starting points around that period, be it technical ones like the launch of the first 052D DDG Kunming in 2012, or political ones like the start of the first term of the Xi Administration in 2013. Starting the count at 2003 seems odd to me - perhaps that has something to do with the launch of the corvettes/frigates 056 and 054/A, but I'm not terribly interested in little ships so the rationale eludes me.

The second and more important factor is shipbuilding capacity utilization. Any which way you slice it, the inescapable conclusion is that China is using nowhere near dedicating its full shipbuilding capacity to naval modernization and expansion. By percentage of GDP, China doesn't even meet the NATO minimum of 2%, let alone Cold War spending levels which reached double-digit percentages. I've heard it mentioned off-hand by someone I consider the height of reliability that China could expand its current construction rate of major combatants by 10x using its existing capacity. While that would entail dedicating all national shipbuilding to the navy (which is what the US, having no commercial shipbuilding industry to speak of, implicitly does), there's still a lot of scope between that and what China currently commits. China has a lot of room to expand its buildup if it feels it's in a "Cold War" scenario and must respond militarily.

 

[Riverman]

Quite far from it. US built 15 carriers, 54 cruisers, 82 destroyers, 110 full sized frigates between 1950 and 1989. The US not only built far more in total during the Cold War, but built more major surface combatants by hull count or displacement each year, even excluding carriers, then what China built the last 17 years. Furthermore, it is quite arguable a large fraction of the ships the US built were technically considerably more cutting edge for their time during the Cold War than what China had built during their time in the last 17 years.

2003 is to early to start counting numbers, the PLAN didnt start its present ship building speed until after 2010. Before that it was mostly small numbers of vessels that was constructed.
From 2010 the numbers should be 2 carriers, 3 Type-75, 7 Type-71, 8 Type-55, 25 Type-52D, 4 Type-52C, ~20 Type-54A, 72 Type-56/A.
Thats 141 vessels in 11 years. Not including subs, auxiliaris and smaller amphibious vessels.

 

[Philister]

Ah ok, in that case, yes I agree it is likely as well

Highly likely

 

[iantsai]

Quite far from it. US built 15 carriers, 54 cruisers, 82 destroyers, 110 full sized frigates between 1950 and 1989. The US not only built far more in total during the Cold War, but built more major surface combatants by hull count or displacement each year, even excluding carriers, then what China built the last 17 years. Furthermore, it is quite arguable a large fraction of the ships the US built were technically considerably more cutting edge for their time during the Cold War than what China had built during their time

1950-1989 means a fourty years period.

For comparison, China had speeded up their building of navy surface combatant ships significantly since 2005. It had built 3(take Liaoning for one, or, one vessel in 6 years and at least 2 shipyards capable of that) carrier in 18 years(2005-2023), 8 cruisers in 9 years(055s, 2015-2023), 29 destroyers in 11 years(4 052Cs and 25 052Ds, 2005-2022), 3 LHD in 6 years(075s, 2018-2023), 104 frigates in 18 years(054As and 056/056As, 2005-2022).

So I think it's VERY possible for PLAN to catch up with the USN's building records during 1950-1989 in most surface combatant ships during 2005-2044 (except the carrier vessels, they are really too expensive and difficult to build, I don't think it possible for China to build another 12 vessels by 2044).