055 Large Destroyer Thread II

[Shimakazerun]

sure but it's still a miracle why DDG-104 use WuXi,and DDG-108 use XianYang.
WuXi is just a city too ordinary to be ordinary. And for Xianyang. It's a far more small city which is surrounded and swallowing by Xi'an——the capital of ShanXi province（years years ago,there's rumour said Xianyang will merged by Xi'an ）. If anything made the city diffirent, It's the capital city of Qin dynasty.But I don;t think that's the real reason.

and there's some convention in PLA navy to name a warship——"dual support"——means support the army and give preferential treatment to the families of revolutionary soldiers and martyrs, and support the government and cherish the people. or in short: city provide relocation expenses and job for soldiers retired in that ship.And the ship named after that city.

For WuXi, It's a very rich city to do that—— WuXi 2021 GPD per capacity is 187k CNY ranked 1st in all Chinese Cities.
But for XianYang, only 61k CNY.

 

[taxiya]

It's interesting that China seems to have run out of unused Tier 1 and Tier 2 city names for destroyers, which is resulting in China's largest and most advanced destroyers being named after decidedly third and fourth tier cities like Anshan and Zunyi.

Perhaps it's time to retire the four Sovremenny class ships to free up a new names.

The so called tiers are nothing but commoners denomination of economical status (richness), the concept is formed from housing prices. The concept has no meaning in official categorization therefor no meaning in naming PLAN ships.

sure but it's still a miracle why DDG-104 use WuXi,and DDG-108 use XianYang.
WuXi is just a city too ordinary to be ordinary. And for Xianyang. It's a far more small city which is surrounded and swallowing by Xi'an——the capital of ShanXi province（years years ago,there's rumour said Xianyang will merged by Xi'an ）. If anything made the city diffirent, It's the capital city of Qin dynasty.But I don;t think that's the real reason.

and there's some convention in PLA navy to name a warship——"dual support"——means support the army and give preferential treatment to the families of revolutionary soldiers and martyrs, and support the government and cherish the people. or in short: city provide relocation expenses and job for soldiers retired in that ship.And the ship named after that city.

For WuXi, It's a very rich city to do that—— WuXi 2021 GPD per capacity is 187k CNY ranked 1st in all Chinese Cities.
But for XianYang, only 61k CNY.

In Chinese administration division, the order is province, provincial capital city, prefecture level city (地级市), county level city (县级市) and township. XianYang, WuXi, Anshan, Yanan and Zunyi are all prefecture level cities. Zunyi and Yanan are specially symbolic therefor they are at the very front of the queue, but even without that symbolism they are still qualified to name 055.

Also, the boundary of naming DDG or Frigate is not clear cut. As the PLAN naming rules says that DDG is named after large and medium sized cities, Frigate is named after medium and small cities.

• 驱逐舰：以“大、中城市”命名。如：“沈阳”号驱逐舰 DDG, a provincial capital
• 护卫舰：以“中、小城市”命名。如：“东莞”号护卫舰 Frigate, a prefecture level city.

There are close to 300 prefecture level cities, China will never run out of naming for DDGs.

To sum up, there is no mystery or limitation of ship naming in PLAN. The mystery is only because of people from different regions compete for bragging right.

 

[abc123]

They will probably build 8 more (including the 1 confirmed) with some modification of course.

All the kinks discovered in the first 8 will be tweaked out. I see no reason for PLAN to stop at just 16. They have the capacity to build more and they will.

Considering China has 2+1 carriers, why build more than 7-8 of them?

 

[taxiya]

Considering China has 2+1 carriers, why build more than 7-8 of them?

Because China is going to have more CVs? Because China is going to re-categorize 052Ds as Frigate therefor need more DDGs?

 

[abc123]

Because China is going to have more CVs? Because China is going to re-categorize 052Ds as Frigate therefor need more DDGs?

Well, when they do have more than 3, then they can build more of them. I mean, cruisers mainly in the USN have role of AAW protection of a carrier battle group. Of course, they can be used for other purposes too, but there are smaller and cheaper ships that can also used for these tasks.

 

[ChongqingHotPot92]

Keep in mind that this ship (106) is named after the CPC's spiritual wartime capital of Yan'an! This is arguably same level of ideological significance as the name Yamato to the IJN. The other names of similar significance are Nanchang (101) and Zhunyi (107). Lhasa (102) symbolizes national unity and struggles against West-sponsored separatism.

 

[Cloud_Nine_]

Well, when they do have more than 3, then they can build more of them. I mean, cruisers mainly in the USN have role of AAW protection of a carrier battle group. Of course, they can be used for other purposes too, but there are smaller and cheaper ships that can also used for these tasks.

Combat systems can be updated to negate the need for Tico-type AAW command ships, but 055 still has a fleet action command center which 052C/Ds don't, we already see 055s leading SAGs operating independently of CVBGs. Also if the number of 055s needed is intrinsically linked to the number of carriers need (i.e. the role of 055s defined by their role in CVBGs), 8 is a lot for 2 carriers I'd say.

By comparison, when in 1975 USN reclassified frigates as cruisers, USN operated 27 cruisers and 15 carriers; in 83 when CG-47 was commissioned USN operated 28 cruisers and 13 carriers; and before this year when the Tico class began to decommission, 22 cruisers and 10 carriers. Obviously, this is very much a rough comparison but generally speaking, USN maintains a 2:1 ratio of cruisers and carriers, corresponding with what usually, or ideally, is a 2-cruiser composition in each CVBG/CSG.

So obviously 055 has more roles besides just protecting carriers, and the number of 055s PLAN need probably is related more to overall fleet fighting capabilities. Considering the current PLAN distribution of the first batch of 8 055s by 4 and 4 for Destroyer Flotillas 1 and 9, I'd go with the common speculation that PLAN might intend to arm each of its Destroyer Flotillas with 4 Type 055s. At the very least, 4 more for the Eastern Theatre Command. Besides, we already know for high certainty that Jiangnan is building at least 1 new 055.

 

[taxiya]

Well, when they do have more than 3, then they can build more of them. I mean, cruisers mainly in the USN have role of AAW protection of a carrier battle group. Of course, they can be used for other purposes too, but there are smaller and cheaper ships that can also used for these tasks.

I think 055 was not meant exclusively for CV. 055 is a "reused" designation which appeared in PLAN's plan many decades ago, it was even larger than what we are seeing today. So apparently a very large surface ship in PLAN is not only to defend a CV group, but also be the command ship for a task force without CV.

 

[ironborn]

and there's some convention in PLA navy to name a warship——"dual support"——means support the army and give preferential treatment to the families of revolutionary soldiers and martyrs, and support the government and cherish the people. or in short: city provide relocation expenses and job for soldiers retired in that ship.And the ship named after that city.

For WuXi, It's a very rich city to do that—— WuXi 2021 GPD per capacity is 187k CNY ranked 1st in all Chinese Cities.
But for XianYang, only 61k CNY.

XianYang is the capital of the first imperial dynasty of unified China.

 

[Cloud_Nine_]

I think 055 was not meant exclusively for CV. 055 is a "reused" designation which appeared in PLAN's plan many decades ago, it was even larger than what we are seeing today. So apparently a very large surface ship in PLAN is not only to defend a CV group, but also be the command ship for a task force without CV.

According to the history of PLAN destroyers from "中国近代舰艇工业史料集", a design by 701st Institute in July 1978, one of the first concrete ones, weighed 7,800 tons. I'd say DDG 055 would be the much larger one, but perhaps comparatively not as large since then the largest PLAN surface combatant only weighed no more than 4,000 tons.

Also, I do think that the "10,000-ton destroyer" is just the new norm for a top-of-the-line surface combatant, i.e just the larger surface combatant and not the capital ship of the fleet. Generally speaking, major or "flagship" surface combatants have been getting larger. Leahy class cruisers don't weigh much more than a Type 052D, and California and Virginia class nuclear cruisers weren't larger than a Type 055 either. Even though USN is pushing for the so-called distributed fleet structure, the 10,000+ ton DDG(X) is still the second most important program in development according to CNO Gilday at SNA 2023.