I think our discussion can come to an end, after all, we have gone far from the topic.
I don't want to waste any more time on this issue until you prove that China has any loitering munitions against Ku-band.
Lessons for China to learn from Ukraine conflict for Taiwan scenario
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I don't want to waste any more time on this issue until you prove that China has any loitering munitions against Ku-band.
I agree that a the RuN shouldn't have been operating so close to the coast -- but at the same time, the Slava class are hardly well suited to defend itself against AShM saturation attacks, especially any sort of sea skimmer from the last 30-40 years.
On paper they look formidably equipped with a large number of CIWS, long range SAMs, and radars, but when considering they are almost all vintage from the 1980s (at best) and minimally upgraded, likely with an internal combat system that is probably no more modern than the barrelling of their AK630s.... let's just say that the Slava class cruisers that exist today are probably only capable of defending against a small number relatively high altitude targets in a low pressure EW environment, at relatively long range, and only in one major axis/sector at a time.
But they are very poor at defending against low altitude targets (like sea skimming cruise missiles, even relatively simple ones like Neptune/Kh-35), especially in a complex aerial environment, and even moreso if any sort of EW is present.
Given the above, it isn't that huge of a surprise that the Moskva was lost -- though better deployment aplanning and better crew competence may have helped to mitigate some of those inherent weaknesses and obsolescent characteristics of the ship.
Heck, I think one of the PLAN's upgraded Sovremennys would have been able to probably defend against the attack that was supposedly vectored against Moskva.
The Slava class emerged originally in the same era as the first Ticos yes, however, they were also a reflection of Soviet shipbuilding and subsystems of the time (and far less capable and technologically sophisticated than contemporary US equivalents)... and the Slavas that the RuN continue to run today have not received anywhere near the same extent of upgrades that remaining USN Ticos have enjoyed.
I wouldn't be surprised if the USS Ticonderoga as it was in 1988 was teleported to the Black Sea under the Russian flag a few days ago, that it would've fared better than Moskva.
While I agree in principle to the general importance of ensuring that basic things are done right, the bolded part I think is a very, very loose statement that at best is only "technically true".
That is to say, it is technically true that the first generation of Chinese surface combatants in the early cold war era took cues from what few naval ships they had at the time, which were of course Soviet ships literally from WWII.
But the divergence in shipbuilding between the USSR/Russia and China during the cold war and especially in the post cold war era, is so vast that I think those "roots" are only true for historical academic interest.
And even after China bought some ex-Soviet ships (the Sovremennys namely) in their first exposure and integration of Soviet/Russian ship designs for decades, it's not like their prior existing trajectory of surface ship design or configuration suddenly too a Soviet/Russian turn -- if anything, they were largely unimpressed and took them a lot of work to get those ships to something resembling modern order.
Overall I think this part of the argument would be much stronger if the "Soviet/Russian roots" part was left out.
Four AK630 firing in unison had trouble downing a propeller driven B-9 target drone during a joint maritime exercise, so no surprise there.
Modern Chinese ships do not have Russian roots in any way. Not in architecture, munitions, sensors, operational SOPs or any other way.
Food for thoughts, anyone?
What if China brought one or more Slava-class cruisers and upgraded them, like how they are currently upgrading the 4 Sovremenny-class destroyers bought in the late 1990s and early 2000s?
Putting DF-17 launchers onboard a warship. Quite a big step forward, I would say.
Plus, the UVLS and newer anti-ship missile canisters alongside more modern radars, sensors and fire control sets would have greatly enhance her firepower and survivability, compared to her older Russian sisters.
CGI authored by 大包CG on Weibo.
Tico is ahead of Slava class in conceptual design above all(combat system primarily), not so much in main subsystems themselves.
Yes, soviet electronics were bad - but we aren't talking plane here, a few tons of microchips here and there don't matter much.
To be fair, I suspect 1988 Moskva probably would've done better as well.
At the very least, in 1988 everything on her worked.
Well, you're right.
Basically, the point was "make sure this really won't happen to yourself".
It's nice you have an [ancient] carrier killing cruiser with a whole array of
Losing 12'000t combatant to a couple of 145kg warheads is just something that should_not_happen, too. Frankly speaking, question probably shouldn't even go this way - and should be "how we remain at least partial combat capability after two light ascm hits?".
I'm not really sure what to say to this, because this is basically entirely contrary to my view for the importance of combat management systems and electronics, and yes, microchips.
You can have the most kinematically impressive large missiles and the most impressive CIWS guns as you want, on a large formidable 10k+ ton hull.... but if your radars, and sensors are unable to discriminate the target and observe a multi-axis battlespace environment and to guide and cue your missiles, and if your missiles themselves are obsolescent, and if your combat management system is too old and to slow to observe and react, then all of your weapons mean nothing because you've already been defeated in the electromagnetic spectrum.
You are unable to see, unable to make decisions, unable to react.
If nothing else, the loss of Moskva really should be a vindication for the rest of the world's navies (and actually the Russian Navy as well) for why modern sensors and modern combat systems are more important than having bulky, externally scary looking missiles and superstructures brimming with guns.
It also further explains why the USN retired many of their destroyers and cruisers in the post cold war era despite many of them arguably being very capable combatants in themselves with capable AAW suites of the era -- because they, like the Slava class, were unable to reliably defeat relatively simple subsonic sea skimming AShMs without massive costly additional MLUs.
No.
I'm not going to mince my words here -- but this is astonishingly stupid.
I hope you are joking or having a bit of a giggle, because what you are suggesting is such a waste of money, resources and time and opportunity cost, for a end result of dubious and questionable value and role.
Even hypothetically if the PLAN wanted such a ship with the capability set as you describe, they would be far better off designing a clean sheet hull, which would be cheaper and faster and industrially easier as well.
Buying ex-soviet ships means they would not only be dealing with hulls that have decades of use in them already and that has "enjoyed" decades of Russian Navy level quality maintenance.
It would also require them to rip out all of the internals of the ship, the sensors of the ship, the weapons of the ship, and basically every part of the ship except the hull and maybe propulsion, and then have to force themselves to somehow install domestic subsystems and sensors and weapons into those same small cramped spaces in a foreign hull that is decades old probably with documentation that doesn't even exist anymore.
The way that you are describing the PLAN's Sovremenny MLU as if it is something desirable or useful is frankly appalling as well.
The reason why the Sovremenny MLU that the PLAN are doing is sensible, isn't because the ships themselves now are somehow uniquely capable -- it's because the Sovremennys when they were originally bought, were rapidly understood to be very suboptimized, and arguable white elephants.
They were purchased at the time because the PLAN needed a rapid infusion of something resembling some semi-modern large surface combatants with a degree of area air defense and more capable anti shipping capability than what they had at the time. But very quickly, the Sovremenny class became overtaken by even modern PLAN frigates in production by the mid/late 2000s in key domains of capability and technology. This MLU that they did for the Sovremenny class makes them a "not obsolete" but they are not somehow "capable".
In fact, for their displacement, the MLU'd Sovremenny are very much far less capable than the slightly lower displacement destroyer classes like 052D and even 052C.
That is to say, talking about the MLU Sovremennys as if it is a "good idea" or a "model for what could be done if the PLAN purchased another set of ancient Russian/ex-soviet ships" is absolutely the opposite of the lesson to take.
Instead, the correct lesson to take is that one should not buy ancient Russian/ex-soviet ships if one is able to help it, because it means you'd have to spend years of painful MLU just to end up with a ship that is at a similar technological level and level of AAW capability to a frigate half of the displacement of a Sovremenny, if you don't simply want to retire the ships and put them out of their misery.
Seriously -- looking at the PLAN's purchase of Sovremennys and their MLU of those ships, the lesson should NOT be "oh that went well, let's do it again but with an even more difficult and larger ex-Russian/Soviet ship!"
Instead, it should be: "Oh my god, holy f***, that was painful and what we got out of it was only barely worth all of the effort, money and time we put in, let's make sure we never go through anything like that again."
大包CG makes some amusing "what if" depictions/monstrosities, or mishmashes, or "hypothetical MLUs".
They are not meant to be taken seriously.
Please never suggest anything like this again.
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Lack of united combat management system on Slava is a conceptual flaw. It's basically an early 1970s design.
Designing a CMS for Slava was possible - it just wasn't done. Partially because her class was a cheaper substitute to the Kirov class, and CMS was anything but cheap.
And conceptual flaws are arguably more important than technological advantage per se - if your system works, of course.
Other Soviet ships of her age already started getting CMS, too(more or less in parallel to Tico class) - Slava was just unlucky to be one of the last "older" designs. Moreover, Moskva in particular was never really upgraded.
About chips - application matters. On a plane, 1980s Soviet radar weighed several times as much as a comparable American one, and still worked both worse and less reliably because of constrained design. It, however, could be to some degree compensated by a witty concept(adding IRST and very narrow search patterns, for example).
On ships - provided conceptual design was of similar vintage, worse chips mostly mean just a few more tons of electronics, maybe more need to pay attention to code optimization. Unlucky, but still acceptable for a ship that weighs 12000 tons.
I don't think any modern ship designer thinks otherwise.
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