AAD warship comparison exercise - type 051C and 052C in context of world navies

Some of you may recall my fantastically controversial and generally misread attempt to rate world navies in the context of anti-ship missile punch.

For all its limitations, the exercise did demonstrate that China fields a massive arsenal of MODERN anti-ship missiles, generally modern YJ-83s. This was against the popular notion that 99% of PLAN vessels are old Ludas with Styx-Lee. But it also showed that Japan and India are nearby in the ratings.


Well I'm going to attempt a similar exercise rating Air Defence destroyers (/"Frigates") to see, in objectibe terms, how the Type-051C and Type-052C match up.

The way to look at it is this: Not who would win a war, but rather if you were a navy buying a warship, which would give you the most capability. Thus we'll ignore that some navies prefer aircraft carriers for air defence (India notably), etc etc.

Although the exercise should focus on air-defence, obviously it should factor in every other relevant facet of capability.

So we need to consider multipliers (weightings in statistical sense) for various qualities.

Air defence missile factors that need to be given a weight:
Range (minus any minimum range/2?)
Speed
Max altitude
Warhead
Fuse(?)
Bonus for active seeker
Date of last significant upgrade/fitting(?) -i.e. how modern is the system
Capability against ballistic missiles
Capability against anti-ship missiles
Range of search radar
Number of missiles claimed to be controlled at once
Number of targets claimed to be able to handle
Wildcard - adjustible score that reflects sophistication etc


Similar score for anti-ship missiles, main guns, CIWS
Also factor in
Displacement(?)
Crew (fewer = better?)
number of helicopters
Stealth

etc

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Vessels which come to mind:

Type 051C
Type 052C
--------
Al'Burke (I,II,III)
Trig'
Perry - (Plus all those Standard SM-1/2 equiped versions sold arond the world)
--------
Kongo (Japan)
Atago (Japan)(?)
Tachikaze (Japan)
Hatakaze (Japan)
--------
KDX-II (Korea)
KDX-III (Korea)(?)
--------
Horizon (France/Italy)
Daring/Type-45 (UK)
Sheffield/Type-42 (UK/Argentina?)
De Zeven Provincen (Netherlands)
Cassard (France)
Suffren (France)
De La Penne (Italy)
F-100 (Spain)
Sachsen class (Germany)
TF-2000 (Turkey)(?)
--------
Slava (Russia/Ukraine)
Kirov (Russia)

what's Trig? Tico?

What about that Norwegian ship using Spy-1F radar?

ignoring kdx-3 since it's a little further away. I would go with the following top 5 without actually carefully analyzing.
1. Kirov (96 cell VLS for rif, 4 x 24 cell VLS of kinzhal SA-N-9, 6 kashtan, 2 AK-130, 20 Granit, 3 helicopters) - theoretically a great ship in terms of number of missiles and such
2. AB flight 2A - (96 cell MK-41 VLS that can launch SM-2ER, SM-3, essm, tomahawk, asroc, latest Aegis system using SPY-1D, 2 SH-60)
3. Atago class - (96 cell MK-41 VLS, Aegis baseline 7.1, harpoon, 2 helicopters?)
4. Type 45 - (using PAAMS, 48 cell VLS with Aster 15/30, using Sampson radar)
5. Horizon - (like type 45, uses EMPAR radar)

Nansen's SAMs are evolved Sea Sparrow only as far as I recall, hence I didn't include it.

No F125?
You need to factor in Min. altitude of operation also. And I think the HQ-9 has a problem there. I don't think their Min. Alt is low enough to shoot at ASMs.

(Uh, what is the TF-2000?)

sumdud said:

No F125?
You need to factor in Min. altitude of operation also. And I think the HQ-9 has a problem there. I don't think their Min. Alt is low enough to shoot at ASMs.

(Uh, what is the TF-2000?)

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F-125 as in the German F-125 land-attack frigates that are being built? -not sure if they can be described as area air defence with only RAM, CIWS and probably Evolved-Sea-Sparrow-missile (ESSM).

TF-2000 is the next generation Turkish "frigate" (i.e. read destroyer). It hasn't been built yet and most of everything on the web about it is speculation. But it is likely to have AEGIS and will probably look like Nansen/F-100 design IMO. Outside chance they could go for Aster I suppose.

PS. I don't think I'll ever get around to doing this....

tphuang said:

What about that Norwegian ship using Spy-1F radar?

ignoring kdx-3 since it's a little further away. I would go with the following top 5 without actually carefully analyzing.
1. Kirov (96 cell VLS for rif, 4 x 24 cell VLS of kinzhal SA-N-9, 6 kashtan, 2 AK-130, 20 Granit, 3 helicopters) - theoretically a great ship in terms of number of missiles and such
2. AB flight 2A - (96 cell MK-41 VLS that can launch SM-2ER, SM-3, essm, tomahawk, asroc, latest Aegis system using SPY-1D, 2 SH-60)
3. Atago class - (96 cell MK-41 VLS, Aegis baseline 7.1, harpoon, 2 helicopters?)
4. Type 45 - (using PAAMS, 48 cell VLS with Aster 15/30, using Sampson radar)
5. Horizon - (like type 45, uses EMPAR radar)

Click to expand...

I personally believe that the latest upgrades to the TRico cruisers and the latest flight Burke's are the best air defense warships on the planet at this time. I believe following that you would have the JMSDF AEGIS vessels, and then the new European vessels. After that I would put the Kirov. It is true that the Kirov has more missiles...but you also have to cosider their effectivness in a modern ECM environment...and in that regard the US and new European systems are going to really excel IMHO.

I'd expect the USN Aegis ships to come out tops followed by the Japanese AEGIS and then Type-45/Horizon.

The European vessels' Aster SAMs are super-duper but compariatively shorter ranged than the Standard and although they are probably better at intercepting ballistic missiles within the atmosphere, they lack the exo-atmospheric intercept capability of the Standard SM4.

On the other hand, the USN has neglected Anti-ship SSMs for their AEGIS boats relying on the Standard's secondary capability.

I'm surprised at the Eurpean's going cheap on the CIWS' for the new Aster equipped destroyers though. The British will install the questionabe Phalanx rather than the more expensive and capable Goalkeeper. And the French/Italians are going for medium calibre DP guns. Mind you, if OTO-Melara has their way they'll flog the Italian (/French?) navy a job lot of DART gun fired SAMs which'll make the OTO-M 76mm guns very impressive close in defence weapons.

One area where the European designs have the up on both the Chinese and the USN is in implementing radar cross section reduction on these AAD destroyers. How big a factor that is in servivability I'm not sure, but whilst the Al'Burke family has some reductive measures, they are a long way short of this beaut:


EDIT: OTO Melara DART ammunition which might make those 76mm super-rapids the bees knees of CIWS:

This is basically a cross between a SAM and a smart gun round. It's stll under development at OTO-Melara but seems to be progressing well. The 76mm has a range of 17km with normal ammo. Range of this round is not stated but should be way further than current CIWS' and probably has a very high kill probability.

DAVIDE System represents the evolution of the 76/62 Gun for employment as an inner layer antimissile defence system.

It provides the gun with the capability to defeat supersonic or subsonic missiles, seaskimming or diving.

It has been conceived as an add-on equipment, to allow retrofitting on the in-service 76/62 Super Rapid or Compact Gun Mounts.

DAVIDE System provides an RF guidance link to the projectiles in flight.

DART (Driven Ammunition Reduced Time of flight) is the smart ammunition fired and guided by the DAVIDE System.

A sub-calibre guided projectile with canard control and with high terminal manoeuvrability.

Guidance system characteristics:

No limitation to number of projectiles in flight
Data link to the projectiles
All-weather
Projectile main characteristics:

Full compatibility with existing 76/62 gun and FCS
Proximity programmable digital microwave fuze
Notched warhead
Effective range > 5 Km
Fuze main characteristics:

Radial sensitivity: > 10 m
Operating altitude (above sea level): down to 2 m
High reliability
Burst point optimization
System performance:

High effectiveness against all missile and aircraft threats
Secondary role against small fast patrol boats
Average number of rounds per engagement = 3

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