China receives 4 naval ships from Russia

Thanks for your input..Exspecially the name clarification. But it still doesent mean that the Navy enjoys a status independent from the land forces. Its still esentially a small navy, coastal defence flotilla, albeit, the world largest one. Even the fact that chinas maritime modernisation program is to focus on small ship classes...which is still rather obscure and weird way to build up a fleet, but anyway, quess they need to go on what they get from the main chair...

Also I must wonder the fact that only one big ship desing burey exist. Its certainly a big fault, as in Soviet union, several buryes existed and those actually competed against each other, despite all the sosisialistic doctrines.

But what comes to the steam engines, I would still think them as a emergy solution, not some waiting for nuclear porpulsion. Nuclear porpulsion onboard surface ships isent practical unleas we are talking about super size carriers or ice breakers. As Chine clearly hasent got either or need for those two ship calsses, your claim seems bit too excuse. Nuclear power onboard normal warships are not cost effective and doesent offer even good trhust-to-weigth ratio compared to normal engines. All they serve is long endurance and non-stop round the world cruises, and china isent heading to that direction at this moment (as you clearly pointed out). And this all in the ligth that if the Luhais steam plant is same as in the floating-museums of Luda class, they certainly arent forth of preserving that thecnology for anything.

And what I meant about 052 class engine proplems, I didnt say that the engines arent working well, but the powerplant solution of GODOG whit underpowered ukranian gas turbines. What China needs is engine level of LM2500, or destroer with desing similar to USSR Udaloy class (whit GOGOG)

Also, China needs to mass product attleast some major surface comabatant, otherwise it is facing huge infrastructual proplems when the 50's level tonnage are finally given peace and place in the history, not in current fleet srength.

I think both designations for the air/sea forces are wrong.

The name for the ground forces, or really, the ALL EMCOMPASSING term for the Chinese military, is, LITERALLY, China's People's Liberation Army. HOWEVER, THIS IS A TRANSLITERATION. Army, in Chinese, does not actually denote which of the branches the force is in. So a better translation is Chinese People's Liberation MILITARY. Now PLAAF doesn't really sound so insignificant when compared to the ground forces, does it?

To be honest, a lot of the military terms are explained by people with no obvious linguistic backgrounds.

yeas, the name are different thing. But the fact is that when PLAN was formed, it followed the old soviet doctrine where the navy was substidory for larger strategical echelon that emphasised army (or ground force) as the most important branch (despite the soviet VMF was its own branch and all other branches were under Soviet Army command). I made a missconclusion of the PLAN name but it doesent change the doctrinal fact....

it sure is different now. Military Region commands have always integrated the 3 branches. Now the fact that the head of the command has traditionally been an army officer is due mostly to necessity, as the army was the strongest of the 3 branches. Well, technically speaking the head of an MR is the head of the CMC, but that's beside the point. It just shows that political control of the military is first and foremost in the organizational structure of the PLA.

I think your theory about China facing a technological bottleneck in propulsion technology is very persuasive.

This reminds me of the guy who has been accused of being a spy for China -- he was the head of the propulsion unit for the development of DD(X).

It is likely that China got a motherload of information from him about advanced US propulsion technology. Of course, it takes a long time to absorb these technologies, but if the alleged transaction took place about 1-2 years ago, then we should start seeing a big leap forward in Chinese propulsion technology in the next 3-5 years.

Gollevainen said:

With destroyers the story wasen't as happy as with the frigates. The first ship, 112 had 2 US made LM2500 gasturbines but the seccond ship 113 has Ukrainian gasturbines. Apparently the later is inferior to the american engines and thus not liked by the PLAN. This led us to the biggest single factor of chinese shipbuilding industries defaults, shipengines.

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From what I understand 113 is also equipped with LM2500 gas turbines. The funnel of the 113 was modified to reduce the IR signature generated by the exhaust, and this led to the speculation over the years that the 113 has a propulsion system different from that of the lead ship.

It is true, however, that construction of the Luhu class was halted due to the unavailability of the LM2500 engines. What puzzles me is that since the Chinese are the experts at reverse engineering, how come they haven't managed to come up with a Chinese version of the LM2500?

zyun8288 said:

couple of points I want to add:
2. "Small batches and quick runs", that's the publiclly declared modernisation strategy for PLAN since 1980s. In other words, it's exactly PLAN's strategy to only build small number of ships per class and try to produce more classes of ships. I think it's rather simple to understand that, if you are lagging behind by several generations, you need to cover those generations(classes of ships) in order to catch up. And you would be extremely foolish to produce large number of ships of some interim classes.

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i kind of agree with this, it's a different development cycle. a combination of incremental and prototyping. Although eventually, you will get to the final production copy. Jiangwei II was actually that for a long time

3. This particular strategy is of course not perfect, but I think it's appropriate for PLAN. Just compare what they have done in the last 20 years, I give them a much higher marks than PLAAF.

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It's not that PLAN has improved, but rather that Chinese shipbuilding industry has improved and is far more capable than Chinese aerospace industry.

5. PLAN's long term planning actually is quite impressive. The current 052C(which is the old 052B) was first initiated in the late 80s, like a cut down Arleigh Burke. But they know the gap was too big and the only viable solution is to achieve the goal in phases and each stage only cover certain percentage of new techs.

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80s? what are you talking about?

6. Although china has quite a number of ship builders, there's only ONE military ship designer. All of the destroyer and frigates, 051, 052, 053, 054, they are from one designer institute. Dalian and JN only compete for the construction, not the design. They follow the design accepted by PLAN. (That's why all those critics on Dalian's ship design is not valid, those designs are not their works and not even chosen by them). The 051B(DDG167)'s hull is derived from 052. ) 052B/C's hull design is derived from 051B, although from outside they may look different. 051 and 052, although have different engine types, they are of the same family tree.

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yes, but the shipyards themselves are capable of different things. You are only kidding yourself if you think Dalian is the same level as JN.

11. In the foreseable future, there won't be mass production of any destroyers, definitely not 052C, very slim chances of 052D. 052E may be.

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most reports have been that the next variation of 052 could be the mass production one. Of course, there will still be modifications, but that's to be expected. As I said, you are beginning to finally see PLAN settling with 052D and 054A

14. All these small batches do create maintanence problems, and much higher unit prices. But, China has not reached most other established marine powers' stage yet. China will only follow the common sense when she significantlly narrowed down the gaps of technology and the gaps remain stable for a while. If she follows the common sense, she will not be able to catch up with leader, unless the leader makes huge mistakes continously, which you really shouldn't take that kind of things into your planning.

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well, PLAN does have a lot more money these days + it doesn't have to worry about maintaining a huge and modern fleet like USN.

tphuang said:

well, PLAN does have a lot more money these days + it doesn't have to worry about maintaining a huge and modern fleet like USN.

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Assuming money is not the issue, the other significant bottleneck is manpower. With the expanding economy, the PLAN may have problems competing with the private sector for qualified personnel to man those new ships coming off of the slipways. It seems to me that all the threads in this forum tend to overly focus on the equipment, and not enough attention is being given to personnel. The navy is not an infantry unit, in which any (well, pretty much) 18-year-old who does not necessarily have a high school diploma can be transformed into a battle ready soldier after 8 weeks of basic training. Compared with offers from the private sector, the disciplined lifestyle onboard a cramped combat vessel with lower pay does not sound appealing to too many qualified individuals.

The PLAN needs to think ahead and address this issue before embarking on its next phase of expansion. More funding is needed, not just for systems procurement. Higher salaries, better benefits, college and postgraduate educational scholarships would be one approach. I don't mean to sound like a leftwing liberal, but the PLAN can certainly use an outreach program. There are plenty of gifted and aspiring kids in rural China who have the desire to pursue a better life. The PLAN (or any branch of the military) should realize such a vast pool of potential talent, and recruit from these individuals with incentive packages, and retain them to become career NCOs or officers upon the completion of their obligatory service period.

If you are referring to the older Sovs, the 136 and 137, I don't regard them to be better than the newer Chinese ships. The Sunburns in those things only 120km in low to low mode. This in comparison to the standard YJ-83 being equipped in most Chinese ships can go 180-200km and they can fire a lot more of these. The seekers and electronics of the YJ-83s are probably more modern as well.

The newer Sovs changes things however. The Sunburns are the new variant with 240km range. They got the new SA-N-12 missile, and Kashtans for CIWS. The Russians have offered to upgrade the two older Sovs to the same standard, obviously for a fat fee.

I don't believe the Chinese are purchasing new Sovs after this despite what Goll thinks. In fact, it's likely that the era of Russian ship purchases is over. If the Chinese wanted more destroyers, and if Russia is the only source for them, they would already be logging more orders. The Chinese have not logged any orders for frigates as well or even the new Tarantul variant using the improved longer range Sunburns.

I think the Chinese are continuing to evolve their surface ship design instead of making too much of one kind. Build too much of one type and you get a lot of obsolete inventory in the future. Rather, they have chosen to gradually evolve their ships. There is probably a 052D or 051D in the design works by now.

But it can also be that the PLAN, after exercises and so, are starting to figure out that surface ships are on a whole, quite vulnerable, and it may not be a wise idea to invest too much of them. The new PLAN direction should be small, fast and stealthy. For that reason expect more subs.

For me the best threat the PLAN has are those Type 22 FACs. Twin catamarans, main hull above the water, with water jet propuilsion, those things must move pretty fast. Couple that with a design truly meant for stealth---it even got the serragated window edge styles used in the F-117 and B-2---those thing would be very difficult to detect by radar in addition to which they would already be masked by the horizon and the surface clutter. The only thing that would tell you they're here is when you would spot their 8 AshMs already flying through the air. Now each ship has much as AshM firepower as a destroyer or frigate these days.

Now for the YJ-62 AshMs, I heard they got seekers that boast frequency agility. That sounds to me they're using TTL modules for the seekers, the same kind of modules you see with AESAs. That can make these missiles very hard to detect by RWRs, and the radar emission isn't going to warn the target. The documented 280km range of these missiles is more likely just code words for not-violating-MTCR-Treaty-restrictions for missile exports. This number is only worth its weight in paper and the true range of the missile is likely to be greater than 300km. With long wings, it's more like a cruise missile, something more akin to a Tomahawk converted to an antiship missile. If the missile is fairly stealthy and cruises very low, I don't regard this missile to be less deadlier than the Sunburns, whose seeker is a generation behind that of the YJ-62.

Now if that is the naval variant, one wonders about the ground based surface to surface variants of the same missile.

Wll 113 doesent have LM-2500, not according to any realible source. Its generally knowlidged that it features Ukranian build engines, so If you (guitarjeff) have anything to contradict this, i would love to see your evidence....

But what comes to russian build destroyers, I wouldnt be supraised att all, if china goes for them in the future, thougth Im not hoping it. It would only mean that the issues of engines and other proplems are more severe than just normal delays in producment. But then again, Engines are the most important factor of a ship after a hull, so this cannot be overlooked. Also, it migth explain the 115 and 116, as their Luhai class steam engine-arragment offers still better performance than the ukranian gas turbine part in GODOG arragment of 052B/C classes, remember, those ships barely reach over 29 knots... and Luhai still is the most endurable ship in PLANs fleet....One migth speculate that 052C hasent got enogh endurance to fit the new needs of PLAN, and therefore the 051C desing needed to go fovard.
But if PLAN decides to choose good old, proven and realible russian destroyers to over vome these difficoultyes, I would like to see Udaloy desing chosen. By that ship, PLAN would get world class ASW suite and four gas-turbine GOGOG arragment that migth prove valuable for any new chinese own destroyer desings.

You seems to focus too much SSMs on PLAN strengths and emphasism. Its quite understandaple as they are the most modern and advanced part of PLAN, but alone they doesent make obsolete ships any more better than placing them onboard civilian merchants. Chinas ASW, AAW and most importantly coastal defences are well behind that of other larger navyes and I must confess, that recent accustions are not showing good signs in that field.

1) Type22. Inspite its surface effect hull and "sthealth" that makes kids go ballistic, It presents a 50 year old thinking in coastal defence. Fast small vessels were good turn-gap when SSMs entered into scene, but it was soon realised that small fast moving hulls limits their missile capability too much that their efectivenes comes to question. Ships of type22 size needs cannot carry strongth enough mast for giving their radars stable enough platform. This becouse strong mast structures are heavy, and we all know that placing heavy structures, specially mast makes ships topheavy and with too much top-weigth, ships arent sea-worthy. So in order to keep top-weigth in check, the mast needs to be ligth, and therefore they cannot be used in high speeds due vibration. This also goes for other equipment and weapons themselves.

Also Type22 have 1 optically controlled AK-630, which is as usable as BBgun against the single weapon that has put old-school missile FACs into scrab yard; the helicopter launched SSMs. Sthealth and speed are passive defence against them, but that isent sufficent enough. They need good radar controlled CIWS or more properly, a anti-missile SAM system. Thats why all other major navyes that have FACs in their inventory are slowly going for bigger corvette size ships that have substantial space for AAW and stronger mast structures. ....But china still stalls in early 60's thinking...

2) 054 hasent got a bow mounted hull sonar. What more can I say, We dont know its sensor suite that well, but lets be honest, What other fleet ASW ship relyes on belly flat mounted modell??? This isent good direction

3) MCMs. Sure there is two new hulls laid down and another of them looks like it could be mine hunter. After 30 years behind rest of the world.... Mines are most important asset of naval warfare and the number one in the class of 'supraises' that have disabled larger navyes by the hands small, gnat size enemy. imidiate post WWII era type-43 class sweepers are bad and dangerous joke, than anything valuable arm against modern magnetic and acustic bottom-mines