Are you sure they aren't in for decommissioning? The two 051Cs carry the pennant number 115 and 116 which will be taken by the new batch of Type 055s.
Ask anything Thread
- Thread starter Jeff Head
- Start date
lcloo
Major
It is rare to decommissioning 19 year old DDG (it will be the first for a DDG in PLAN service), unless they are to be sold to a foreign navy. And if they are for sale, I wonder which country would it be? An oil rich country or Pakistan?
What's the probability of the 051C DDG pair having their pennant numbers changed? Haven't seen this move being done on DDGs before (based on recent memory), although there have been notable examples in other ship class(es) operated by the PLAN (e.g. Type 903 AOEs).
In the meantime, perhaps it's time for the PLAN to consider new leading digit for the pennant numbers (2XX, 3XX etc) of their future 055-successor larger DDGs/CGs...
Last edited:
How strong is PLAN really? Does it have any bluewater capabilities or is it entirely to be used within the first island chain and south china sea? Is it still far off from the US navy and how much longer before it can ensure a victory inside China's backyard?
lcloo
Major
How strong is PLAN really?
World #2.
Does it have any bluewater capabilities or is it entirely to be used within the first island chain and south china sea?
They have been deployed beyond 2nd island chains, do convoy patrols in Africa/Middle East for a few decades now, and recently sail down to seas off Australia in a U shape tour. And also an exercise beyond 2nd island chain with 2 aircraft carrier groups just very recently.
Is it still far off from the US navy and how much longer before it can ensure a victory inside China's backyard?
The gap is closing fast between the two navies. It is a peer level match between them inside China's backyard, China has more advantage due to shore based aircraft and long range anti-ship missiles.
Last edited:
How much does the yj-18 differ from the Klub which I assume it is based on? Do we know how much more of an improvement the 18a is?
Why doesn't China pour a lot more investment into submarines than they do for surface ships? Wouldn't having a mammoth amount of subs be impossible for anybody to take on?
What makes you think China doesn't?
To start - The reason on the seeming boom in surface combatant production rates versus the rather dull production rates of submarines mainly lies on the fact that the required technological mastery and maturity in the domain of submarine development and manufacturing - Which can produce submarines that are near-peer (or even peer) to the current world standard - Wasn't achieved by China until the last few years. The same was achieved for the surface combatants much earlier (in the late-2000s if not early-2010s), which is why the PLAN can induct the 052D/DGs and 055s en masse since then.
If anything - The recently-completed eastern section of the Huludao Shipyard certainly isn't for show.
(Every one of the submarine + launching barge represents one assembly bay)
If anything - Huludao alone likely has more nuclear-powered submarine assembly bays than all the other P5 members' nuclear-powered submarine assembly bays, combined. Plus from my calculations - Should the production capacity be put into good use, Huludao can actually produce 5x nuclear-powered submarines (SSN + SSBN) per year, which is significantly higher than every other the P5 members.
This hasn't yet consider that there are two other shipyards in China that are responsible for submarine construction (Jiangnan and Wuchang), albeit they only produce conventionally-powered SSKs (thus far, for Jiangnan's case).
Also, did you miss out on the 8x 093B SSNs that were launched in the past ~2.5 years? As a matter of fact, Huludao actually launched more SSNs in ~2.5 years that they have ever been in the past 3 decades.
And with the 095-class SSN getting ready (expected to be early-Virginia-equivalent, and its iterative development in the works), we could be seeing the first 095 boats (alongside potentially the next batch of 093B boats) pretty soon.
Last edited:
I've only seen a video from a while ago about China's navy and I remember their submarine fleet being quite poor. Nice to see it's changing. Not a navy person, I don't understand why modern navys don't just spam 200 subs instead of a bunch of frigates and cruisers.
Money. Submarines are extremely expensive machines, which is why only a few navies even could afford large AIP/Diesel-electric submarines even less with nuclear. While PLAN's sub fleet was considered poor even 10-15 years back, but with recent 093B SSGN(688i if not slightly better level of performance) and 039Cs should bolster PLAN's fleet significantly. We should be seeing the first 095 anytime now and with the surfacing of 095 I believe they'll kick nuclear sub manufacturing into high gear. From what I know, there has been a shift to focus more on the nuclear fleet, so I'd expect the Chinese underwater fleet to be mostly nuclear with some AIP submarines to patrol the shallower parts of the SCS.