corvettes instead of frigates?

Jeff Head · Sep 23, 2006

joshuatree said:
It seems large blue water navies like the US Navy is moving away from frigates. There's the CVN-21 to replace the current Nimitz, the CG(X) to replace the Ticonderogas, the DD(X) to replace the ABs. But I don't see any direct replacements for the Oliver Hazard Perry class frigates unless you count the LCS but the LCS's role seems to move away from the traditional frigate role. Infact, the CG(X) is rumored to be cancelled which would mean the DD(X) would seem to replace both the cruiser and destroyer classes in the US Navy. In the past, navies worked on building specific classes for specific duties but given the cost of developing modern day weapons, the trend is to share common components and to consolidate the line of weapons. Maybe PLAN would do well with a very well designed line of destroyers and corvettes, a hi-lo doctrine? Part of developing a world class navy isn't just to match what the current world-class navies have but also to anticipate future naval trends.

I agree in general with these sentiments. The LCS has a multi-mission role, built on a rather robust platform itself. Coastal patrol, anti-drug/contraband, ASW, ASuW, and mine duties. It will be great for the litorral regions, but will not be as capable, or have the endurance for long, blue-water escort duties IMHO. My guess is that the Burkes, in their numbers, will fill this role, and do it more capably than the Perrys could.

Having said that, the DD(X) is not a replacement for the Burkes IMHO. Too few of them, and a different mission. There are, and will be over 50 Burkes that will be with us for the next 30+ years. In my estimation, we haven't really seen its replacement on the drawing boards yet. The CG(X), depedning on its size, mission, and cost, may fill the dull role of replacing both the Tcios and Burkes...but a lot of them would have to be built to do so. But that's way out in the future at this point as regards the Burkes.

Gollevainen · Sep 23, 2006

joshuatree said:
The ongoing uptonnage of all classes of ships and the blurring of the lines between them is what I am trying to get at. Of course, each nation will have their own exact definition of what is a corvette, frigate, destroyer, etc, but these days, I'm seeing less and less distinctions between destroyers and frigates as frigates grow larger and larger. Therefore, is there even a need for 054 or 054As? Why not just focus on building better destroyers whether they be 052Bs, 052Cs, or 051Cs and crank them out to fulfill the blue water ambition?

well the general terminolgy among some NATO countryes with different warship pre-ordering and naval budget enverioment likes to call small AAW destroyers as frigates but lets not jump into generalisation, expecially when the things are different for china.
Modern frigates havent lost their main task as fleet ASW asset (either as an escort for other ships or as main element of surface hunter-killer groups) and China desperedly needs ships to fullfill that role. As its all new generation of destroyers have been either AAW or more and less usefull general purpose role (plus the four Russian build mini-antisurface missile cruisers), PLAN should go with 054 desing to to fill the ASW gab that almoust makes it a laughing stock among other navyes.

Maritime warfare shouldnt be looked just from the range and reach perspective, but from the doctrinal and orientational perspective as well.

Now just because PLAN wants to become a blue water navy doesn't mean you ignore your littoral operations which is why I asked the question, wouldn't it make sense to design and build corvettes for that purpose? I used the Eliat for comparison purposes only because it was one I could find that's in existence that appears to possess blue water capability. The Visby is a corvette but appears to be on the smaller side. The German corvette appears to be in construction phase and I wanted to compare two ships that are already out there. Granted, people here have said the Eilat is actually considered a failure but I was speculating more on a ship of Eilat's size with the weapon/sensor package of the 054. The 053H3's weapon/sensor package ain't that much different from the 054 save different gun and torpedo but why the huge increase in tonnage? To increase the endurance and range of a ship, do you have to dedicate THAT much additional tonnage?

Well Eilat is failure becouse its overloaded and topweigth. Why to make similar mistake and overload another ship by trying to fit all modern frigate size armament option to too small hull? Like I said earlyer, corvette size ship can accomondate only one of the three major weapon package options that frigates carry, not all of them. Words like topweigth may sound foreing for somebody but shipbuilding is requires theral physics and object whit dedicated length, draugth and keel functate differently with different conseration of weigth and general mass.
To increase the endurance means more ecomomical engines and/or more fuel, but it also means that bigger endurance brings ship into more open waters and that needs better sea keeping, all that together means bigger hull and bigger hull displaces more water. Generally what china needs for its littorial forces are frigates of Jiangwei size and propaply little smaller

It seems large blue water navies like the US Navy is moving away from frigates. There's the CVN-21 to replace the current Nimitz, the CG(X) to replace the Ticonderogas, the DD(X) to replace the ABs. But I don't see any direct replacements for the Oliver Hazard Perry class frigates unless you count the LCS but the LCS's role seems to move away from the traditional frigate role. Infact, the CG(X) is rumored to be cancelled which would mean the DD(X) would seem to replace both the cruiser and destroyer classes in the US Navy. In the past, navies worked on building specific classes for specific duties but given the cost of developing modern day weapons, the trend is to share common components and to consolidate the line of weapons. Maybe PLAN would do well with a very well designed line of destroyers and corvettes, a hi-lo doctrine? Part of developing a world class navy isn't just to match what the current world-class navies have but also to anticipate future naval trends.

what other blue water navyes? ONE other blue water navy with 50 years or so ahead of PLAN is moving away from frigate size ships. Lets wait until China even has a blue water ability before we start following trends beyond everyone elses reach....

joshuatree · Sep 23, 2006

Gollevainen said:
well the general terminolgy among some NATO countryes with different warship pre-ordering and naval budget enverioment likes to call small AAW destroyers as frigates but lets not jump into generalisation, expecially when the things are different for china.
Modern frigates havent lost their main task as fleet ASW asset (either as an escort for other ships or as main element of surface hunter-killer groups) and China desperedly needs ships to fullfill that role. As its all new generation of destroyers have been either AAW or more and less usefull general purpose role (plus the four Russian build mini-antisurface missile cruisers), PLAN should go with 054 desing to to fill the ASW gab that almoust makes it a laughing stock among other navyes.

Maritime warfare shouldnt be looked just from the range and reach perspective, but from the doctrinal and orientational perspective as well.

I agree that PLAN needs to expand their ASW capacity but I don't believe that's an issue of requiring a higher tonnage vessel. Rather that's more of a neglect in R&D on ASW weapon/sensor packages in the past due to past PLAN naval doctrine and priority for funding within the military. I also agree that doctrinal and orientational perspectives need to be held in consideration. But I just don't see a huge difference in the weapon/sensor package between 053H3 and 054 but there is a huge increase in tonnage so that's why I was wondering if that increase is just merely for increased range and endurance. Perhaps the 054 hull size is to anticipate future larger weapon/sensor packages but that remains to be seen.

Well Eilat is failure becouse its overloaded and topweigth. Why to make similar mistake and overload another ship by trying to fit all modern frigate size armament option to too small hull? Like I said earlyer, corvette size ship can accomondate only one of the three major weapon package options that frigates carry, not all of them. Words like topweigth may sound foreing for somebody but shipbuilding is requires theral physics and object whit dedicated length, draugth and keel functate differently with different conseration of weigth and general mass.
To increase the endurance means more ecomomical engines and/or more fuel, but it also means that bigger endurance brings ship into more open waters and that needs better sea keeping, all that together means bigger hull and bigger hull displaces more water. Generally what china needs for its littorial forces are frigates of Jiangwei size and propaply little smaller

No way am I suggesting PLAN repeat the failures of the Eilat design. Yes, in designing a vessel for certain functions and operating environments, physics, length, draft, etc are all factors a good design team takes into consideration. However, I am not convinced a covette sized ship can't effectively combine the 3 weapon packages together. When I refer to a corvette sized ship, I'm referring to the larger end of the spectrum. And also, naval technology is constantly evolving. Trimaran designed "corvettes" seem to be able to handle the rigors of open water without having to rely on a bigger hull and displacement for stability. You seem to indicate a smaller frigate is needed so perhaps our disagreement is merely in the naming, calling it a large corvette or a small frigate?

what other blue water navyes? ONE other blue water navy with 50 years or so ahead of PLAN is moving away from frigate size ships. Lets wait until China even has a blue water ability before we start following trends beyond everyone elses reach....

Well for one thing, the US Navy is the navy to watch. What they decide as doctrine usually influences other naval doctrines around the world. But to answer your question, the UK Royal Navy is another blue water navy that seems to be refraining from building future frigates. The UK withdrew from the Horizon frigate project and decided on the Type 45 destroyer instead. In late 2004, the UK effectively cancelled their Future Surface Combatant program which would have replaced the current Type 22 and 23 frigates. Presently, they are looking into the Global Corvette project as a suitable replacement. And they've had the RV Triton until 2005 as a test ship to evaluate the use of a trimaran design for their naval use. I would disagree on your last statement of letting China attain blue water ability before starting to follow trends of others. In the last decade, PLAN has rolled out numerous classes of ships, though all in either one-off classes or at most two of each class. This indicates they are heavily in the experimental phase, trying to decide what works and what doesn't for their goals, doctrines, and priorities. Which is why it's a good time to see what the trends are because they haven't committed to what type of composition PLAN should be in the future.

Personally, I'm impressed with the concept of the LCS. It is a robust platform derived from a civilian platform, the Austal Benchijigua Express passenger/vehicle trimaran. LCS is intended to be able to operate with carrier strike or surface strike groups. It might be a boon to PLAN to use something like this as their "large corvette/small frigate" instead of the 054 because it's derived from off the shelf components, highly configurable, and relatively cheap. They can be built in smaller yards in large numbers, thus freeing up the main large naval yards to focus on the larger units like destroyers, carriers, etc. Anyway, that's just my $.02. :nana:

Gollevainen · Sep 24, 2006

Well as I said, the differeneces between frigates and destroyers in western navyes usually depends on wich one of those get better trough the parialiment. Horizon is another good example of this a destroyer by all means but called a frigate for giving 'cheaper' impression to the politics,
But then again, European navyes face bit more diffirent enverioment than PLAN.
Royal Navy is on constant budgetary downspiral and has to make huge sacrifications to keep up least some sort of strength. PLAN needs no.

European navyes faces totally different operational scenarios were the mass consentrations of soviet subs are things of the past but distant invertions and peace keeping requires much bigger hulls to accomondate various operational requirments. PLAN is still facing 'traditional' naval threads, including possiple japanese, US and indian strong submarine contignent. And for ASW destroyer isent nessecity (thougth in some point PLAN needs even those large ASW destroyers of Udaloy and Spruance category)

and as for the differences between 053 and 054 tonnage, is the simple fact that 054 is fully fletched frigate with normal frigate ordanance but 053 is owergrown desing of good old Soviet Riga class patrol/guard ship desing, this time fitted with helicopter, SSMs and self defence SAM to give it primary armament par with frigate size ships. But 053 still lacks the fleet ASW assets to make it comparble to frigtes and to fit that to already crowed desing would mean Eilat sort of failure.
So in conclusion, Ship of Eilat nature is best at the Jiangweis size and that sort of ship shouldn't be mixed with frigates that are ASW ships.

And that you are rigth, In the end it all comes to the naming and terms like corvette, frigate or even a destroyer arent dogmas or something written in the stars. Expecially in chinas case wich heritages its naval traditions from Soviet Union, which in otherhand totally different philosophy to classify its ships. To fully understand naval matters, one need to grow out from the familar STANAG system and aknowlidge that there is other variations for the ship designations as well and in the end the complex of that world doesent make any sense at all

Obi Wan Russell · Sep 24, 2006

As a general design principle the larger the ship, the better the sea keeping and accomodation for the crew for a given armament. Ship steel makes up as little as 10% of the cost of a modern warship which is why almost everyone is building bigger these days. Steel is cheap and air is free, as many have realised. Bigger ships can carry more fuel, more defensive weapons, can absorb damage better, and have room for later upgrades. The RN has used a design priciple for decades called the 'Broad Margin', meaning when ships are designed they have an extra 10% added where ever possible for future use when the ships are refitted. The type 21 Amazon class were designed by a private company (Vosper Thorneycroft) and did not have a broad margin, thus they proved almost impossible to upgrade with the Seawolf SAM system or modern radars, so despite being popular with crews they were sold off early (to Pakistan).

A corvette is very useful for Littoral operations, but it would be folly to think of it as a cheap frigate. Weapons systems are the primary cost of a warship, and no better illustration of this os how the RN built the Helicoter carrier HMS Ocean for the same price as a type 23 frigate, by keeping the design simple and leaving out any missile or complex air warning radar systems, and substituting Diesel engines for gas turbines.

adeptitus · Sep 25, 2006

Obi Wan Russell said:
The type 21 Amazon class were designed by a private company (Vosper Thorneycroft) and did not have a broad margin, thus they proved almost impossible to upgrade with the Seawolf SAM system or modern radars, so despite being popular with crews they were sold off early (to Pakistan).

@_@ Those Type 21 Frigates are very well built ships! Even after taking multiple 500 and 1000 lb bombs dropped from Argentine aircraft, they stayed afloat until the following day. The Type 42 destroyers, in comparison, sank in 20 min after being hit.

If it was just a single incident, we could attribute it to a fluke. But in the Falklands war there was 2 Type 21 Frigates and 2 Type 42 Destroyers that were sunk. Both Type 21 Frigates stayed afloat for a day vs. both Type 42 Destroyers went under quickly.

Obi Wan Russell · Sep 25, 2006

Ahem. HMS Sheffield stayed afloat for several days after being hit by an Exocet, and sank under tow to South Georgia where she was to have been loaded onto a heavy lift ship (in a similar manner to HMS Nottingham's ungraceful return from Australia a few years ago after running aground on a reef) for return to the UK. Bad weather caused water to flood in through the missile hole on her starboard side, otherwise she would have survived to return home for a thorough forensic examination, although salvage was probably out of the question.

HMS Coventry sank after receiving several direct hits from 1,000lb bombs dropped by Argentine A-4 Skyhawks which effectively blew out the bottom of her hull. No ship her size could have survived that, and the Type 21s received fewer bombs than Coventry. Also, the Amazon class had aluminium superstructures which melted in the heat of the fires started by the explosions, as aluminium melts at 600degrees C. Steel by comparison melts at around 1500degrees C so is preferred for warship superstructures generally.

chicket9 · Oct 6, 2006

Will PLAN have an OPV? (and other topics)

The PLAN in the coming years will have a very fine 054A...but the next ship down will only be a Haiqing or Houjian and a huge bunch of Type 022s. Lets look at Italy. The Italian corvette in service is armed with SSM and SAM, thus it serves very well as a balanced coastal patrol asset, yet capable of limited ocean adaptability and some punch in defensive/offensive weaponry.

PLAN thus in its new development of ships, has tended to ignore this 'niche' between frigate and fast attack craft.

Not that PLAN lacks money or shipyards to do it...in fact China could easily build a corvette ship, with greater ease than the current destroyer or frigate programme. A corvette/OPV sized vessel for PLAN has several advantages:

1) Cheaper than the Type 054A...which is a rather expensive ship
2) Better armed and equipped than average PLAN gun boats
3) Better suited for multi-role missions for both littoral and limited sea duties, whereas a frigate might be too large, or a gun boat too small and short ranged to go further out to sea.
4) Larger hull, means more capability and potential
5) Aviation capable...might not have a hangar, but even helideck facilities are of tremendous advantage out on patrol.
6) Future investment...when PLAN is ready to operate further out, these ships will form the core of CHina's littoral patrol/defense.
7) Acquisition of OPVs/Corvettes can help reduce the declining but still large number of fast attack craft, as well as putting less strain on 054A programme to replace all Jianghus, afterall, Jianghu was a coastal defense ship.

China does have options...especially the Russian designed corvette. I regard this ship as too heavily armed and oversized for any OPV role in PLAN, and you might as well just go for the 054A, as the Russian design is more of an offensive platform.

But China could certainly learn from European patrol craft and OPVs, as well as the new S. Korean and Indian vessels. You will find most of these ships are flexible in their role...most don't even carry their full standard weapons fit unless in wartime which their size could permit, but their use is more so in their better seakeeping and longer legs, resulting in longer enduranced patrols. One such ship is the RN's Castle class, which simply has a helideck stretching on its after half of the hull...and it has great potential to carry other weapons.

My proposal of a PLAN OPV/Corvette:

Around 1100 tons
80-90 m in length
Helideck aft with refueling facilities
Up-to-date real time data integration with coastal or fleet command
Hull room for sonar (only fitted if an ASW version is needed)
Crane
27 knots
2500 nautical miles
Complement: 70 + 15 spare

Armament:
There will be a main turret, of 76mm, though this should be able to be replaceable with 37mm and Type 730 CIWS.
A standard SAM should be fitted facing aft, standard fit would be a RAM-type defensive missile using the Type 90 missile; OR a 4x4 arrangement of HQ7, perhaps going to lack automatic reload capability, but at least provides a proven and very capable self-defense system.
Space mid and aft deck: capable of being fitted with either 4-8 YJ83 SSMs, ASW torpedo launchers, an SAR launch and other rescue gear, a submersible or special ops craft, etc.
Also space permitted for self defense countermeasures and additional 0.50 cal machine guns; ASW role may allow towed sonar, depth charges or ASW mortars/rockets.

Proposed number:
To build at least 30 ships. 10 per fleet.

This number would fit perfectly, considering the substantial size of the PLAN, and probably up to 20 new multi-role frigates (eg Type 054A). But each corvette could effectively replace 3 FACs...meaning Hainan and Haiqing could be replaced at a higher rate.

joshuatree · Oct 6, 2006

Re: Will PLAN have an OPV? (and other topics)

chicket9 said:
The PLAN in the coming years will have a very fine 054A...but the next ship down will only be a Haiqing or Houjian and a huge bunch of Type 022s. Lets look at Italy. The Italian corvette in service is armed with SSM and SAM, thus it serves very well as a balanced coastal patrol asset, yet capable of limited ocean adaptability and some punch in defensive/offensive weaponry.

PLAN thus in its new development of ships, has tended to ignore this 'niche' between frigate and fast attack craft.

Not that PLAN lacks money or shipyards to do it...in fact China could easily build a corvette ship, with greater ease than the current destroyer or frigate programme. A corvette/OPV sized vessel for PLAN has several advantages:

1) Cheaper than the Type 054A...which is a rather expensive ship
2) Better armed and equipped than average PLAN gun boats
3) Better suited for multi-role missions for both littoral and limited sea duties, whereas a frigate might be too large, or a gun boat too small and short ranged to go further out to sea.
4) Larger hull, means more capability and potential
5) Aviation capable...might not have a hangar, but even helideck facilities are of tremendous advantage out on patrol.
6) Future investment...when PLAN is ready to operate further out, these ships will form the core of CHina's littoral patrol/defense.
7) Acquisition of OPVs/Corvettes can help reduce the declining but still large number of fast attack craft, as well as putting less strain on 054A programme to replace all Jianghus, afterall, Jianghu was a coastal defense ship.

China does have options...especially the Russian designed corvette. I regard this ship as too heavily armed and oversized for any OPV role in PLAN, and you might as well just go for the 054A, as the Russian design is more of an offensive platform.

But China could certainly learn from European patrol craft and OPVs, as well as the new S. Korean and Indian vessels. You will find most of these ships are flexible in their role...most don't even carry their full standard weapons fit unless in wartime which their size could permit, but their use is more so in their better seakeeping and longer legs, resulting in longer enduranced patrols. One such ship is the RN's Castle class, which simply has a helideck stretching on its after half of the hull...and it has great potential to carry other weapons.

My proposal of a PLAN OPV/Corvette:

Around 1100 tons
80-90 m in length
Helideck aft with refueling facilities
Up-to-date real time data integration with coastal or fleet command
Hull room for sonar (only fitted if an ASW version is needed)
Crane
27 knots
2500 nautical miles
Complement: 70 + 15 spare

Armament:
There will be a main turret, of 76mm, though this should be able to be replaceable with 37mm and Type 730 CIWS.
A standard SAM should be fitted facing aft, standard fit would be a RAM-type defensive missile using the Type 90 missile; OR a 4x4 arrangement of HQ7, perhaps going to lack automatic reload capability, but at least provides a proven and very capable self-defense system.
Space mid and aft deck: capable of being fitted with either 4-8 YJ83 SSMs, ASW torpedo launchers, an SAR launch and other rescue gear, a submersible or special ops craft, etc.
Also space permitted for self defense countermeasures and additional 0.50 cal machine guns; ASW role may allow towed sonar, depth charges or ASW mortars/rockets.

Proposed number:
To build at least 30 ships. 10 per fleet.

This number would fit perfectly, considering the substantial size of the PLAN, and probably up to 20 new multi-role frigates (eg Type 054A). But each corvette could effectively replace 3 FACs...meaning Hainan and Haiqing could be replaced at a higher rate.

Hi chicket9, I had posted a somewhat similar thread a little while back, and it seems the general consensus is that PLAN wants to focus more on a frigate rather than OPV/corvette. I actually agree with you that this niche could be useful. Instead of 1100 tons, I rather see a size of 2000 tons to give it more endurance and blue water capability so it can be used with future carrier/destroyer/frigate task forces. And I would say you could even reduce the complement down to 60 people. The less crew, the cheaper to operate and the less loss of lives if the vessel is lost.

Gollevainen · Oct 7, 2006

Re: Will PLAN have an OPV? (and other topics)

Well one important note to your question: Corvettes are NOT OPVs, there are more like direct counterparts to each and many maritime agency has gone into real trouple when they have short sigthed tryed to compine these two task mere the basis that both require similar size hulls. The task where OPVs and corvettes each are mented are too different and requires way too different things from the engineroom that there isent any sense to compine these tasks.
OPVs are coast guard long edurance vessels or naval units with similar, non military task of ocean surveilance, anti-broachin/piracy/resource-survey/pollution/immigration/defector tasks, Search & rescue and other typical lawenforcment tasks. To complish this they require Good seakeeping, good range and stable enough platform for various civil surveilance equipment that isent desinged for harsh military conditions. Their pirmary operational scene is Offshore, eq. high oceans and therefor economicality comes priority when discussed of their porpulsion solutions.

Where as corvettes really are either small ASW units for coastal escort, or flotilla leaders for FACs of various compination. There have been also ships that tryes to compine all this functions and become some sort of small frigates, but usually these ships cannot field SAM, SSM, Helicopter and effective sensor suite all in one, and good size for the ship of this purpose is something around 110-121 meters and over 2,000 tons...like Chinese Jianghus, which arent frigates as in western sence, but guardships (SRKs) in eastern one.

And besides, Chinese maritime safety agency allready operates nice collection of OPVs and I remember I discussed with you about the nature of corvettes few weeks back.

corvettes instead of frigates?

Jeff Head

General

Gollevainen

Colonel

joshuatree

Captain

Gollevainen

Colonel

Obi Wan Russell

Jedi Master

adeptitus

Captain

Obi Wan Russell

Jedi Master

chicket9

New Member

joshuatree

Captain

Gollevainen

Colonel