Ask anything Thread

[Tam]

Amur/Lada class of submarines were a disaster in terms of their AIP system, not the rest of the sub. But if the sub was converted back to conventional diesel-electric without AIP, there is no reason for China to get this when China already has AIP submarines and the 039B is also a much bigger sub with the advantages of the size increase brings.

As for developing newer submarines, Chinese availability when it comes to supercomputers will give the Chinese an edge in doing CFD towards hull design.

 

[KlRc80]

Anybody knows how prevalent are vending machines on the larger PLAN ships?

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Below is supposedly to be on a PLAN destroyer.

 

[Nill]

Is there any recent information on the development of the type 075? The Launch, in particular.

 

[H2O]

Is there any recent information on the development of the type 075? The Launch, in particular.

The Type 075 haven't been built yet.

 

[Rachmaninov]

Anybody knows how prevalent are vending machines on the larger PLAN ships?

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Below is supposedly to be on a PLAN destroyer.

I personally have seen one on board a Type 052D and a Type 052C so presumably they're quite common.

 

[Biscuits]

What will become of future PLAN ship names?

China is running out of major cities to name destroyers after. There's a total of 34 provinces, with maybe an average of two prominient cities in each. Right now the PLAN has 33 destroyers and is readying 8 055s + 12 052Ds. That means almost every city name would be taken.

Would names of past presidents be used? Or just cool sounding random names like the Royal Navy has?

 

[Bhurki]

What will become of future PLAN ship names?

China is running out of major cities to name destroyers after. There's a total of 34 provinces, with maybe an average of two prominient cities in each. Right now the PLAN has 33 destroyers and is readying 8 055s + 12 052Ds. That means almost every city name would be taken.

Would names of past presidents be used? Or just cool sounding random names like the Royal Navy has?

Likely to use names from "non prominent" cities, as the number of ships in a class increase, the relative importance of each ship decreases as a capital ship.
The flagship destroyers like type 055 may be restricted to metropolis/province names but the smaller destroyer class is more likely to choose names from smaller cities, if anything, it increases a sense of stake that people have in a ship represented by a familiar name.
The larger 'capital' ships are likely to recycle 'major' names from de commissioned ships of past, thats what normally happens in western navies like RN eg daring class

 

[mys_721tx]

Likely to use names from "non prominent" cities, as the number of ships in a class increase, the relative importance of each ship decreases as a capital ship.
The flagship destroyers like type 055 may be restricted to metropolis/province names but the smaller destroyer class is more likely to choose names from smaller cities, if anything, it increases a sense of stake that people have in a ship represented by a familiar name.
The larger 'capital' ships are likely to recycle 'major' names from de commissioned ships of past, thats what normally happens in western navies like RN eg daring class

There are precedents for the name recycling. Many Type 051's name were recycled for newer ships: Jinan (105 -> 152) Xian (106 -> 153), Yinchuan (107 -> 175), Nanjing (131 -> 155), Guangzhou (160 -> 168), etc. There are still five Type 051 in service (105 Kaifeng, 110 Dalian, 164 Guilin, 165 Zhanjiang, 166 Zhuhai). Should they be decommissioned, their names should became available.

There was a tradition that each fleet names their ships by the cities in their jurisdiction. However, this was mostly ignored now as we can see in the case of 169 Wuhan (South Sea Fleet), 170 Lanzhou (SSF), 533 Taizhou (SSF), 569 Yuncheng (SSF), 559 Foshan (Ease Sea Fleet), 566 Huaihua (ESF). This change should make more names available too.

 

[Tetrach]

Hello.

I always wondered on the designs of ships radar, and why even with numerous technical and technologies breakthroughs, there are still many different patterns.

British SAMPSON installed on the type-45:



Chinese Type 346A on the type 052D:



APAR radar on the German F-124:



why so many different designs ?

 

[Iron Man]

Sampson is a rotating dual-face S-band AESA, hence its location inside the spherical dome on top of a mast. The idea was a lightweight radar that could be placed as high as possible on a ship without seriously affecting ship roll stability. In essence the Brits sacrificed the surety and size of fixed panels for improved horizon coverage. The 346A is a fixed quad-face S/C-band AESA, hence its lower position on the ship's hull. It sacrifices horizon coverage in exchange for preventing a single-point failure (radar rotation) and the ability to mount massive panels with more T/R modules. I have no doubt it's definitely less complex software-wise as well, though I have no idea how much more money this would save compared to a rotating radar. The APAR is a fixed quad-face X-band AESA. It can be quad-faced and still sit on top of a mast simply because the T/R modules for X-band radars are much smaller and lighter than those for an S-band radar like the Sampson. I suspect the "bubble" shape of each APAR panel may be related to cooling, specifically air-cooling of the T/R modules instead of or in addition to liquid cooling, in the same vein as the "bubble" that we see on 346 panels on the Type 052C.