055 DDG Large Destroyer Thread

[ZeEa5KPul]

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

The JL-2 is a 2m missile while the JL-3 is very likely >2m. Therefore, it's unlikely that the Type 09-IV will be retrofitted with JL-3s since they wouldn't fit the launch cannisters. There's already an upgraded JL-2A that's been MIRVed and has a longer range than the original JL-2.

 

[AndrewS]

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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).

Couple of points. I see the Type-054 frigates mainly working as the ASW screen in a Chinese CSG. You can see frigates screening each of the picket destroyers and also an inner screen frigate for the core ships.

Remember that the frigates are operating alongside AAW destroyers anyway

 

[antiterror13]

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.

Great. I haven't read any stat that 055 is twice the cost of 052D, can you please give me the source?

I read somewhere a while ago that 055 is 30-50% more than 052D

Considering how big Chinese economy is, in my opinion China should build and focus more on 055. 055 is a clean sheet design with so much more potential to add more features. While 052D is basically like 30 yrs ago design when Chinese technology was very backward and almost no more potential to add more features. I am not saying 052D is a bad destroyer, it is excellent multi purpose destroyer, perhaps in the top 5-7 in the world right now, but 055 is the best in the world currently or the 2nd (after Zumwalt perhaps)

 

[AndrewS]

Great. I haven't read any stat that 055 is twice the cost of 052D, can you please give me the source?

I read somewhere a while ago that 055 is 30-50% more than 052D

Considering how big Chinese economy is, in my opinion China should build and focus more on 055. 055 is a clean sheet design with so much more potential to add more features. While 052D is basically like 30 yrs ago design when Chinese technology was very backward and almost no more potential to add more features. I am not saying 052D is a bad destroyer, it is excellent multi purpose destroyer, perhaps in the top 5-7 in the world right now, but 055 is the best in the world currently or the 2nd (after Zumwalt perhaps)

Figures of 6 billion RMB for the Type-055 and 3.5 billion RMB for a Type-052D are floating around.

The question to ask is whether you need a top-class destroyer like the Type-055 for all situations

 

[FairAndUnbiased]

Figures of 6 billion RMB for the Type-055 and 3.5 billion RMB for a Type-052D are floating around.

The question to ask is whether you need a top-class destroyer like the Type-055 for all situations

055 is all gas turbine engine, 052D is gas + diesel. Diesel engine is much cheaper to both build and operate than gas turbine, doesn't need much dry dock maintenance, so reliable that all cargo ships use diesel, and provides acceptable cruising speed for patrols.

This means that you can not only build more 052Ds but keep them deployed more often between maintenance. Uptime and availability are hugely important, an improvement from 30% availability to 50% availability is going from 15/50 destroyers being deployed to 25/50 destroyers being deployed, it is huge.

You can look at it from engine perspective too: 054A -> all diesel, 052D -> diesel + gas, 055 -> all gas. It is also in increasing order of size and cost.

 

[antiterror13]

Figures of 6 billion RMB for the Type-055 and 3.5 billion RMB for a Type-052D are floating around.

The question to ask is whether you need a top-class destroyer like the Type-055 for all situations

of course not all situations need 055, how about baby 055 or 054B and for littoral region, 056A should do the job

 

[tphuang]

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.

I'm not saying they should throw a 054A/052D out there as a sacrificial lamb. I'm saying if they lose a 052D because a Virginia class go past the outer ring of ASW sweep, I think PLAN can live with that if they end up finding and sinking a Virginia class. For example, if they have 30 052C/D and 40 054A and loose 1/3 of them in a high intensity conflict but end up taking out most of the US SSNs and Japanese SSKs operating in the region while maintaining control of SCS route and Philippine Sea. That's a trade off I think PLAN would take any day. They are building up so many of these ships because they know they might suffer large losses in a drawn out war. If I were them, I'd do a lot of practice on rescuing crew members from a sinking ship.

You just don't want to loose many 055s or 075 or carriers. The fire power of 112 9 m UVLS vs 16 9m/48 7m UVLS is pretty large difference.

Couple of points. I see the Type-054 frigates mainly working as the ASW screen in a Chinese CSG. You can see frigates screening each of the picket destroyers and also an inner screen frigate for the core ships.

Remember that the frigates are operating alongside AAW destroyers anyway

I don't see 054As to be much better than 056A in the ASW role actually. Both can carry 1 ASW helicopter, have TAS sonar and bow sonar. Both of them have diesel engines, which are not ideal for ASW.

I think 054A has large role in just intercepting missiles coming at the wide fleet and also just providing additional sensors.

Figures of 6 billion RMB for the Type-055 and 3.5 billion RMB for a Type-052D are floating around.

The question to ask is whether you need a top-class destroyer like the Type-055 for all situation

I remember 054A was said to be 1.6 billion RMB when it was getting mass produced around 2010. Seems like 3.5 billion is a little high for 052D, but maybe that includes all the expensive missiles.

055 is all gas turbine engine, 052D is gas + diesel. Diesel engine is much cheaper to both build and operate than gas turbine, doesn't need much dry dock maintenance, so reliable that all cargo ships use diesel, and provides acceptable cruising speed for patrols.

This means that you can not only build more 052Ds but keep them deployed more often between maintenance. Uptime and availability are hugely important, an improvement from 30% availability to 50% availability is going from 15/50 destroyers being deployed to 25/50 destroyers being deployed, it is huge.

You can look at it from engine perspective too: 054A -> all diesel, 052D -> diesel + gas, 055 -> all gas. It is also in increasing order of size and cost.

055 also has about the same number of crew members as 052D. From that perspective, there are reasons to believe that it might not be that much more expensive to operate than 052D. At the end of the day, 055 and 052D share the same gas turbines, the same missiles, similar sensors and same guns. With that type of commonality, there is a lot of reason to believe they can keep the maintenance cost down.

 

[FairAndUnbiased]

I'm not saying they should throw a 054A/052D out there as a sacrificial lamb. I'm saying if they lose a 052D because a Virginia class go past the outer ring of ASW sweep, I think PLAN can live with that if they end up finding and sinking a Virginia class. For example, if they have 30 052C/D and 40 054A and loose 1/3 of them in a high intensity conflict but end up taking out most of the US SSNs and Japanese SSKs operating in the region while maintaining control of SCS route and Philippine Sea. That's a trade off I think PLAN would take any day. They are building up so many of these ships because they know they might suffer large losses in a drawn out war. If I were them, I'd do a lot of practice on rescuing crew members from a sinking ship.

that's a good point. US only has 21 Virginias. But it is still ideal for them to get taken out by mines, corvettes, conventional subs or helicopters, rather than be forced to trade 1-2 destroyers for them.

another good point is that Chinese crews may survive in battle if their ship gets sunk since they're closer to land, uncontested territory, and there's high shipping density in the region, both military and commercial. They can either get found, or maybe boat back if they have a powered lifeboat. Even some submarine crews might survive being hit since being ~20-30 m deep in the Yellow Sea or East China Sea isn't all that bad in terms of pressure.

meanwhile enemy crews are casualties when hit, 100%. they're either in deep water in the Pacific and nothing else is nearby, or they are captured as POWs when found.

 

[Tam]

Great. I haven't read any stat that 055 is twice the cost of 052D, can you please give me the source?

I read somewhere a while ago that 055 is 30-50% more than 052D

Considering how big Chinese economy is, in my opinion China should build and focus more on 055. 055 is a clean sheet design with so much more potential to add more features. While 052D is basically like 30 yrs ago design when Chinese technology was very backward and almost no more potential to add more features. I am not saying 052D is a bad destroyer, it is excellent multi purpose destroyer, perhaps in the top 5-7 in the world right now, but 055 is the best in the world currently or the 2nd (after Zumwalt perhaps)

I heard the same things about the cost. But I also heard the 055s have force multipliers that the 052D doesn't have. This clearly implies the ship's CEC capabilities, along with its IFF and EW systems.

As more ships with the same CEC system comes online, the multiplier gains momentum. Not just referring to carriers having the same system but also frigates, like the 054B that will have it.

 

[Tam]

Also, the fact that the carriers have the same fire control radars for the HHQ-9 as the destroyers leads me to suspect they are potentially capable of hand over. This does not mean they have made a formal or officialublic announcement of such capability yet and as far as I know, the PLA does more to hide its actual capabilities more than any service branch in the world. It does mean that all the pieces are in place, and it only takes a bit of software to connect them.

With the missile being actively guided in terminal, and datalink updated in the initial and midphase, the carrier or the remote or second fire control radar does not need to illuminate the target for the missile. Instead it takes control of the data link. From there on, missile control is transferred from the FCR of the first ship, to the FCR of the second ship. This enables the group to target a threat that is beyond the radar horizon of the first ship, and given the FCR's sheer height from the carrier island to the sea level, the carrier has tremendous radar horizon which can be augmented by planes flying from a distance from the ship with look down radars. The second ship drops the datalink when the missile goes active and autonomous.