Next blue water surface combatant?

if the information that China intends to build 8 type 55 is correct, then it is likely all 8 will be laid down before end of 2019. At the same time, if the information that China intends to only build 26 type 054D, then perhaps there are 6-8 more hulls to laid down. It seems to me these will be laid down before end of 2020 also. This suggest a new design to follow the 054D or the 055 will be laid down before end of 2021.

Is there any information on what type of ship the follow on would be?

The Type 055 propulsion is supposed to be changed to an IEPS drive on later batches. There might also be improvements in weapons and electronics. China recently imported the S-400. They have done a lot of work on radar systems so they have expertise in that. If they got the improved missile designs from the S-400 and combine that with their own radar systems that could provide a significant upgrade in air-to-air range. Also, allegedly, the Chinese cloned the AK-130 dual barrel 130mm Soviet naval cannon. Supposedly it was not used because they found the increase in fire rate not that important and it is kinda of a heavy system to put on a destroyer like the Type 052D. It also did not support advanced guided ammunitions. But on such a large ship like Type 055 they could easily mount a bigger gun if they wanted to. The AK-130 was used in the Sovremenny-class destroyers and it is capable of supporting amphibious assaults with a barrage of ground pounding fire. I think railguns still need improvement before they can be used in naval applications. Laser weapons might make sense to blind incoming IR/TV guided missiles, aircraft, or drones. This is all in the realm of guesswork though.

Richard Santos said:

if the information that China intends to build 8 type 55 is correct, then it is likely all 8 will be laid down before end of 2019. At the same time, if the information that China intends to only build 26 type 054D, then perhaps there are 6-8 more hulls to laid down. It seems to me these will be laid down before end of 2020 also. This suggest a new design to follow the 054D or the 055 will be laid down before end of 2021.

Is there any information on what type of ship the follow on would be?

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I think you mean Type 054B? D sounds way too getting ahead. Or did you mean Type 052D? Are you referring only to the destroyers and not the frigates? After the 055, the next all new vessels will be the Type 054B frigate, of which there is no authoritative image; followed by the Type 075 LHD and finally the Type 003 carrier.

The Type 055 is likely the start of its own new family and there maybe improvements as later versions but I would rather let these developments unfold on their own than try to speculate earnestly about it.

Richard Santos said:

if the information that China intends to build 8 type 55 is correct, then it is likely all 8 will be laid down before end of 2019. At the same time, if the information that China intends to only build 26 type 054D, then perhaps there are 6-8 more hulls to laid down. It seems to me these will be laid down before end of 2020 also. This suggest a new design to follow the 054D or the 055 will be laid down before end of 2021.

Is there any information on what type of ship the follow on would be?

Click to expand...

We don't know exactly how many 055s of the baseline variant will be built. It may be 8, it may be more. It will almost certainly be followed by an improved variant sometime afterwards.
As for 052D, we may end up seeing an 052E some time in the future as well.


At the moment we have little concrete indication as to what improvements they may offer apart from the notional 055"A" likely having IEPS.