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I know it's not an all-important metric, but still a significant milestone regardless:


KEEP GOING CHINA!

The actual number of PLAN VLS after accounting for MLU of older DDGs (with reduced VLS number to 36 each ship), also accounted for the first type 054B pennant number 555, is 4,768 as below.

lcloo said:

The actual number of PLAN VLS after accounting for MLU of older DDGs (with reduced VLS number to 36 each ship), also accounted for the first type 054B pennant number 555, is 4,768 as below.

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Granted some of those especially the HQ-16 VLS is not very comparable to mk41.

lcloo said:

The actual number of PLAN VLS after accounting for MLU of older DDGs (with reduced VLS number to 36 each ship), also accounted for the first type 054B pennant number 555, is 4,768 as below.

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All ship with HQ-16 (054A, 054B, 051B, soveremenny) only have 32 VLS

nimitz123 said:

All ship with HQ-16 (054A, 054B, 051B, soveremenny) only have 32 VLS

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Yes, this is clearly shown in the tabulation.

ismellcopium said:

Granted some of those especially the HQ-16 VLS is not very comparable to mk41.

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True, but we are just counting VLS, not types of missiles nor capabilities.

ismellcopium said:

Granted some of those especially the HQ-16 VLS is not very comparable to mk41.

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Mk41 is not very comparable to HT-1 either. VLS counting is just a penile measuring contest alive and well in naval tradition

Also USN is doing its level best to reduce VLS count to meet PLAN halfway too lol. Ticos retiring is taking huge chunks out of its total count while DDG(X) continue to not be a thing. Flight III will pretty much be the only source of reliable income at about 1~1.5 hulls per year. Constellations at this point are almost 3~4 years late while only providing 32 per hull and a rate of production no greater than single hull per year either.

Not to mention the upcoming wave of Burke retirements, delayed by making some Burkes serve an extra five years, but wouldnt matter either way if USN can't fill in with new ships fast.

lcloo said:

The actual number of PLAN VLS after accounting for MLU of older DDGs (with reduced VLS number to 36 each ship), also accounted for the first type 054B pennant number 555, is 4,768 as below.

View attachment 141352

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Actually a total of 4480 VLS which is 53.3% of the USN tally.

lcloo said:

The actual number of PLAN VLS after accounting for MLU of older DDGs (with reduced VLS number to 36 each ship), also accounted for the first type 054B pennant number 555, is 4,768 as below.

View attachment 141352

Click to expand...

You forgot to include SK, Japan and EU's VLS. They are all US property.

iBBz said:

You forgot to include SK, Japan and EU's VLS. They are all US property.

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Not to derail the discussion but the issues with a decentralised empire that has independent warlords is that those warlords tend to take their armies and run the moment the emperor's army starts struggling. Hence, rather unreliable and it is better to compare forces 1 on 1 within a theater.