055 DDG Large Destroyer Thread

[AndrewS]

Look at the carrier escorts diagram.

For inner-zone coverage, there are two Type-055s
For middle-zone coverage, there is a Type-052D and a Type-054A
For picket duty, there are a 2 sets of [Type-054A and Type-052C]

If you start using Type-055s as pickets, they become a juicy target in their own right, whilst adding little to the picket role over a Type-052C

Just to expand on using a Type-055 instead of a Type-052C as a carrier escort picket.

1. Detection of sea-skimming missiles is determined by the radar horizon. There's only a marginal improvement with the Type-055
2. Detection of low-flying and high-flying aircraft is determined by the radar horizon. There's only a marginal improvement with the Type-055
3. Detection of low-flying and high-flying missiles is determined by radar strength and also radar horizon. There should be a marginal improvement with the Type-055

4. In terms of ASW sensors, the Type-055 might have a better bow sonar, but again the actual improvement in overall ASW sensor capability is marginal.
5. In terms of ASW helicopters, the Type-055 has 2 helicopters, but remember a combination of Type-052C and Type-054 already has 2 helicopters
6. In terms of VLS loadouts, can a picket ship actually use a huge Type-055 VLS loadout? Or is the primary purpose to shoot down solitary recon/surveillance aircraft.

Using a Type-055 which is twice as expensive as a Type-052C/D isn't worth the negligible gains.

 

[pakje]

(2) SM-6 Ib will have it increased specifically against surface/land targets, both in range and in warhead type(with smart fuze ofc). Probably to 125-150kg range, which is broadly comparable to Fort/HHQ-9* and lighter ASCMs.
*should be noted those are DP in the first place - the new thing is OTH ASM capability.

Isn't the mk41 tiny compared to the chinese uvls? How can they up the payload without giving up something elsewhere

 

[tphuang]

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Regarding sm6 ability to sink frigates, you may want to read this article (SM6 was one of the missiles that hit OHP). There are a lot of people with incentive to overstate it's anti ship lethality, because it's desirable to have a jack of all trade missile that can intercept everything and attack everything. With it's extremely high cost ($5 million per), this is a good way to justify continued investment and production in there. Keep in mind that standard missiles with secondary anti-ship missiles isn't a new development. SM-2s were commonly thought of in the same role. But I don't believe its uses sea-skimming mode, which means it's very easy to track and intercept. Therefore, it's main asset is just quantity. As our friend Patchwork Chimera would say, SM-6s launched from Burkes have wide breadth.

You really can't compare something like 055's Anti-ship and land attack capabilities to Burkes. Shilao's podcast compared 055 to both Kirov class and Ticonderoga class. I would entirely agree with that. The difference is that China can mass produce 055s and the Soviets could not mass produce Kirov class. The Chinese UVLS is significantly wider and deeper than MK-41. I'm also in favor of developing an even longer 11m variant in the future 055s. But even if they don't have that and just have 128 9m UVLS in the second batch, the attacking breadth of each 055 would be equivalent to several PLARF brigades.

All of which show the difference in the Chinese and Western philosophy in naval combat. With 055s, China is adopting a more Soviet approach in utilizing surface warship as the primary attacking platform. a USN CSG will be using Submarines, escorted B-52s and super hornets as main attacking platforms. The Chinese approach is basically designed to overcome PLAN's historical weakness in submarines and carrier operation via surface combatants. This is where China's ability to outbuild America in surface combatants really show up. It also plays to China's strength in missiles and C4ISR.

So if we look at a possible conflict against an equal or superior air wing, a Chinese carrier wing + nearby aerial assets will be mainly expected just to protect the fleet. They are likely to not be tasked with stand off attacks and ASuW until they can neutralize the attacking threat of opposing air wing first. The 052Ds and 054s are likely to be tasked with mostly AAW duties. ASW will be provided by MPAs, ASW helicopters and nearby submarines. In such a setup, a large portion of 055 VLS could be devoted to land attack and ASuW.

I think that's why they have been building 052D/054As on steroid. They need a good number of them to help protect the fleet. 055s are also capital ships. If you loose a few 052Ds/054As, it's not a big deal. If 055s don't get a chance to fire off their attacking missiles, that's a big problem.

Of course, a lot of this also revolves around them being able to lower the cost of production on long range hypersonic missiles and anti-ship missiles and even subsonic cruise missiles. If you combine high production of good missiles with 055s and ISR capability (through satellites and WZ-8 and High new series aircraft), you can deliver a lot of fire power against moving and fixed targets. It's surprising to me that many Western analysts haven't caught on to 055's importance.

Also regarding damage control, this is definitely an area that China had been behind on. 052D and 054A would generally still follow their earlier ship design principles. I would expect 075, carriers and 055 to be much better in damage control than 052D/054A. That's why I favor the need for a new class of destroyer to replace 052D. I would also expect 054B to have significant changes that will have better damage control design, greater automation, larger berthing section (for long deployment) and more modern propulsion compared to 054A. If a warship gets hit by SM-6, it really should be able to continue to operate (unless the strike hit a sensitive spot).

 

[ACuriousPLAFan]

The Chinese approach is basically designed to overcome PLAN's historical weakness in submarines and carrier operation via surface combatants. This is where China's ability to outbuild America in surface combatants really show up. It also plays to China's strength in missiles and C4ISR.

This may be off-topic, but is there viable possibility for China to quickly pluck the weakness gap in her PLAN Submarine Force within this decade or so?

Can the introduction of newer 095s, 096s and 039Cs/041s be significant enough in accomplishing such goals in the given time frame?

 

[Tam]

Just to expand on using a Type-055 instead of a Type-052C as a carrier escort picket.

1. Detection of sea-skimming missiles is determined by the radar horizon. There's only a marginal improvement with the Type-055
2. Detection of low-flying and high-flying aircraft is determined by the radar horizon. There's only a marginal improvement with the Type-055
3. Detection of low-flying and high-flying missiles is determined by radar strength and also radar horizon. There should be a marginal improvement with the Type-055

4. In terms of ASW sensors, the Type-055 might have a better bow sonar, but again the actual improvement in overall ASW sensor capability is marginal.
5. In terms of ASW helicopters, the Type-055 has 2 helicopters, but remember a combination of Type-052C and Type-054 already has 2 helicopters
6. In terms of VLS loadouts, can a picket ship actually use a huge Type-055 VLS loadout? Or is the primary purpose to shoot down solitary recon/surveillance aircraft.

Using a Type-055 which is twice as expensive as a Type-052C/D isn't worth the negligible gains.

In terms of radar horizon, the 052C/D actually has a slight advantage over the 055. Radar horizon is about the sheer vertical height of the surface search radars not the main big aesa panels of both ships, plus the height of the ESM mast that are used to pick up the signals from the active guided and data linked antiship missile skimming low over the sea. In which case you're comparing the height of the dome that contains the Type 364 radar on top of the mast on the 052C/D vs.the four fixed X-band arrays on the 055's integrated mast. In this case, the Type 364 wins. The 052C/D also has its ESM mast higher than the 055's but the 055 ESM mast is a newer design. Finally the 052C/D has the Type 366 OTH active and passive radar that is said to be able to detect low flying objects over the horizon.

But where the 055 totally crushes the 052C/D is that it's CEC is generationally more advanced and it's integrated to work with ships that have the same feature. This takes the form of four small phase array triangles set above the four X-band AESA panels in the integrated mast. Similar panels appear on the Liaoning as a retrofit and is installed on the Shandong. The 075 also has similar looking panels. The Fujian looks to have them too.

With this, the 055 can have networked data fusion with the sensors of the carriers which have a much higher mast height for their radars, giving the carriers an enormous radar horizon that the 055 can use on its own. So the 055 can use the radars and other sensors of the carriers. The Liaoning/Shandong not only has the Type 346 AESAs but the Type 382 search radar and two Type 364 SSRs located even higher than the Type 346s. The Fuijian also has X-band AESA located higher than its main radars and an entire crown of ESM.

The 055 can operate as far as there is a direct line between between its CEC arrays and the carrier's CEC arrays which can be calculated by the height of their respective CEC arrays as long as a direct line of sight is present with them.

 

[FairAndUnbiased]

This may be off-topic, but is there viable possibility for China to quickly pluck the weakness gap in her PLAN Submarine Force within this decade or so?

Can the introduction of newer 095s, 096s and 039Cs/041s be significant enough in accomplishing such goals in the given time frame?

The relevant area is the littoral regions. These are shallow except for the South China Sea. Yellow Sea is merely 40 m deep, East China Sea 200 m.

If a SSN was stuck vertically in the Yellow Sea it would rise above the water like a 5 story building. SSNs are too big due to their elongated aspect ratio to really maneuver in such shallow waters, pitching can crash them.

This is the environment in which small conventional subs dominate. Even a 1960s North Korean midget sub can sink a relatively modern South Korean anti sub frigate (Cheonan). Imagine what a Chinese SSK can do, especially the recently revealed small sub. But even a 70m long 039C has significantly better flexibility here than a 100+m long SSN.

As for surface fleets, the combination of being close to the shore and shallow water means big SSNs are detectable by MAD more easily, create a more noticable wake, and cause a more noticable rise in water level locally. You can even see larger subs with your eyes if the water is clear enough.

In terms of sonar, it is a complex environment due to multi reflection effects in the bottom-surface waveguide, as well as high background noise. Not an expert.

What 055 can do is deploy their helicopters to scout ahead and create a safe zone out of torpedo range, in cooperation with 056 054A, etc. Conventional subs can also do this but due to communication difficulties is practically harder to implement fleet cooperation. Here the contribution of 055 is to keep enemy MPAs away.

 

[vincent]

That is the figure being mentioned by the big shrimps in China...

But perhaps that is just for the DF-ZF glide vehicle, with rocket stages costed separately?

Big shrimp only said DF-17 cost 1/10 of DF-26.

 

[sunnymaxi]

This may be off-topic, but is there viable possibility for China to quickly pluck the weakness gap in her PLAN Submarine Force within this decade or so?

Can the introduction of newer 095s, 096s and 039Cs/041s be significant enough in accomplishing such goals in the given time frame?

by 2030, PLAN Submarine force will be on another level.

Bohai Shipyard, they've largely finished the new construction and began another new assembly hall on the same site. biggest ever expansion. new hall, can fit 20 SSN sized hulls. now you can imagine the production scale in coming years.

https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1438968515399065602

 

[tphuang]

This may be off-topic, but is there viable possibility for China to quickly pluck the weakness gap in her PLAN Submarine Force within this decade or so?

Can the introduction of newer 095s, 096s and 039Cs/041s be significant enough in accomplishing such goals in the given time frame?

096s are not really needed yet. 094s are fine once they get refitted with JL-3.

As for other platforms, I think we will have to see how they turn out.

055s indirectly contributes a lot of ASW effort. It's huge firepower means that it can take out runways that are used to launch aircraft. Which means, Chinese MPAs and ASW helicopters will carry free reign in nearby waters.

To me, if a Virginia class gets close enough to sink a 054A or 056 or even 052C/D, it's really not that bad, because that would give away it's general position. With aerial ASW assets, they'd be able to locate it. PLAN would trade a 054A or even 052D for a Virginia class any day of the week. That's why you see such a huge buildup right now. Numbers do matter.

I think long term, they will be going for 20 to 30 055s. Short term, even 16 055s would pack a whole lot of power. Remember, Soviets only ever completed 3 Kirov class (4th one was completed in 98) and each Kirov could only carry 20 P700. With 055, you can easily see them carrying 3 times that many long range anti-ship missiles.

Big shrimp only said DF-17 cost 1/10 of DF-26.

That just means they haven't managed to lower the cost DF-26. This is China we are talking about. If there is one thing it knows, that's keeping cost down. I'd expect the air launched and sea launched hypersonic land attack and anti-ship missiles to see significant cost reductions over the next few years. Again, you don't conduct over 300 hypersonic tests unless you can produce things cheaply.

 

[FairAndUnbiased]

096s are not really needed yet. 094s are fine once they get refitted with JL-3.

As for other platforms, I think we will have to see how they turn out.

055s indirectly contributes a lot of ASW effort. It's huge firepower means that it can take out runways that are used to launch aircraft. Which means, Chinese MPAs and ASW helicopters will carry free reign in nearby waters.

To me, if a Virginia class gets close enough to sink a 054A or 056 or even 052C/D, it's really not that bad, because that would give away it's general position. With aerial ASW assets, they'd be able to locate it. PLAN would trade a 054A or even 052D for a Virginia class any day of the week. That's why you see such a huge buildup right now. Numbers do matter.

I think long term, they will be going for 20 to 30 055s. Short term, even 16 055s would pack a whole lot of power. Remember, Soviets only ever completed 3 Kirov class (4th one was completed in 98) and each Kirov could only carry 20 P700. With 055, you can easily see them carrying 3 times that many long range anti-ship missiles.


That just means they haven't managed to lower the cost DF-26. This is China we are talking about. If there is one thing it knows, that's keeping cost down. I'd expect the air launched and sea launched hypersonic land attack and anti-ship missiles to see significant cost reductions over the next few years. Again, you don't conduct over 300 hypersonic tests unless you can produce things cheaply.

Losing a 052D immediately is IMO a bad trade because the Virginia might still take 1 more ship down with it before going down. Trading a 052D + 054A or 2x 052Ds for a Virginia is not good. 055s contribute tons of strike power but so do 052Ds which have the same VLS. You can position 052Ds more aggressively than 055s, because they are indeed more expendable, but they're not truly expendable, just moreso than a 055. 054As are even more expendable than 052Ds, but they're also not truly expendable.

Because of how shallow the Yellow Sea and East China Seas are, you can use 037 and 056 as minelayers at the edge of the continental shelf and turn the Yellow Sea and East China Sea into a Chinese lake, then set them up as the antisub screen. No need to risk relatively expensive and valuable 052Ds and 054As. In addition, the new conventional mini-sub and existing 039A/B/C can serve as a screen. It's much more worth it to lose a few $100-300 million assets than to risk a $4-500 million frigate or destroyer.

Basically I envision 052Ds and 055s to be a combination of air defense escort (the US way) and basically super long range naval artillery (the Russian way) with ship launched SRBM based hypersonics. They're protected in an "inner" control zone (<100 km) by 054As which intercept close (<100 km) threats like missiles that got through, tactical air and subs. The 054As are spaced maybe 20-30 km away to be forward positioned towards threats. The "middle" control zone (~100-300 km) is managed by 052Ds, 055s, etc organic SAMs and radar in the air and 056s far forward deployed. The "far" control zone (>300 km) is managed by aviation, subs and mines.