I don't see China allocating funds and industrial capacity to small missile boats. Though replacing YJ-83s with YJ-18s, replacing the 30 mm gun with HQ-10 and adding ECM would increase survivability and lethality immensely.
Type 022 Missile Boat
- Thread starter DPRKPTboat
- Start date
HQ-10 might be better than H/PJ13 at CWIS but you need a gun for other odds and end jobs like patrols that Type 022 is doing now. Maybe 730 in a new stealthy turret.
Alternatively perhaps the missile launchers could be made modular, like a VLS that's horizontal. So that when not loaded with all anti-ship missiles it could load up on some anti-air missiles.
Does the 022 have a dedicated stealth coating? Or just stealth from shaping? I don't see how useful stealth coatings would be covered in a layer of salt all the time
Coating unlikely at this environment. RF absorbing composites --- used with FACs and missile boats before --- is a much more likely possibility.
Don't worry about the salt, water, etc,. The boat needs to reflect a certain degree of RF that mimics the clutter of the sea environment.
I don't think that's likely. 730 is expensive and PLAN has many more important ships to give 730 if they have the extra money (like the 071 LPDs and the 901 supply ships).
datalink upgrade? sure. But no more weapons upgrade I guess.
Not enough room. That's why they moved to the Type 056 so quickly.
Its not however, a stripped down boat like people might think it is.
The radar for example:
Said to have OTH capability via atmospheric ducting, a similar approach used by the Type 366 and Mineral-ME.
There is a dipole on top where the antiship missiles are, and that presumably is the datalink. Two branches off the main mast are undoubtedly ESM, along with the pole behind the top radar. Decoy systems are also seen, as well as an EO for the gunnery.
However, no bigger gun, no radar fire control for the gun, no SATCOM, no ASW. Once again, why PLAN moved on to Type 056. 056 is a huge jump once you account for the electronics and the networking.
I have heard about this before but have been able to find some pictures to confirm. When not on mission Type 22's stealth is actually a navigation hazard, so it's fitted with these radar reflectors to make the boats more visible on radar.
Zumwalt does the same thing:
You see the two white cylinder things hung up by string in front of the bridge? Those are radar reflectors too. They look something like this up close:
This may be a hint that Type 22's stealth is no joke.
Speaking of upgrade to the 022, it isn't the ship that's the problem but the concept of it.
Its ability to network with other ships and other things are limited. Forget about the reflector, check the upper left corner of the picture and you see something like a silver cylinder sticking out. That's the datalink.
The boat has limited datalink and something like that seems good for ship to ship or lower flying aircraft only. It lacks SATCOMs that can communicate with satellites and datalinks capable of communicating with high placed aircraft. The boat doesn't have the space for it. But that's exactly addressed with the 056, here you can see one of the SATCOMs. Note the two datalinks on the branches of the small tower. There is a smaller SATCOM on the other side, but its hard to tell if its a K-band SATCOM or a Type 366-2 datalink.
If a satellite or a high altitude aircraft is spotting targets well over the horizon, the 022 can have difficulty picking it up. The best scenario is that a 056 or 054A has to pick up the targeting information from the high flyer or satellite, then rely it to a pack of 022s. There is good reason why the last batch of 056A is focused on SATCOM upgrades.
The next problem of the 022 is that it is a stealthy reboot of the Osa missile class concept.
The concept was successful in the Six Day Wars and in the Indo Pakistan wars, but in the Yom Kippur, they got their ass handed down by Saar 4 missile boats.
Skip to the naval war section.
Saar 4.
One factor is that even with missile boats, there are gun engagement. Another is the use of electronic countermeasures.
Being equipped with missiles and a small gun didn't prove enough, as missile boats were also engaged with shore bombardment. So a bigger gun is desirable and no surprise, FACs and corvettes that came afterwards all came with a decent gun.
You might say the 056 is the real upgrade to the 022, something like a reboot of the program to the right direction.
If you still want a catamaran with SATCOMs and a credible gun, you end up reinventing this.
There is likely an attempt to brainstorm on such an idea, which ended up like below, but with no arguable significant benefits over the 056 series, so it ends there.
Its ability to network with other ships and other things are limited. Forget about the reflector, check the upper left corner of the picture and you see something like a silver cylinder sticking out. That's the datalink.
The boat has limited datalink and something like that seems good for ship to ship or lower flying aircraft only. It lacks SATCOMs that can communicate with satellites and datalinks capable of communicating with high placed aircraft. The boat doesn't have the space for it. But that's exactly addressed with the 056, here you can see one of the SATCOMs. Note the two datalinks on the branches of the small tower. There is a smaller SATCOM on the other side, but its hard to tell if its a K-band SATCOM or a Type 366-2 datalink.
If a satellite or a high altitude aircraft is spotting targets well over the horizon, the 022 can have difficulty picking it up. The best scenario is that a 056 or 054A has to pick up the targeting information from the high flyer or satellite, then rely it to a pack of 022s. There is good reason why the last batch of 056A is focused on SATCOM upgrades.
The next problem of the 022 is that it is a stealthy reboot of the Osa missile class concept.
The concept was successful in the Six Day Wars and in the Indo Pakistan wars, but in the Yom Kippur, they got their ass handed down by Saar 4 missile boats.
Skip to the naval war section.
Saar 4.
One factor is that even with missile boats, there are gun engagement. Another is the use of electronic countermeasures.
Being equipped with missiles and a small gun didn't prove enough, as missile boats were also engaged with shore bombardment. So a bigger gun is desirable and no surprise, FACs and corvettes that came afterwards all came with a decent gun.
You might say the 056 is the real upgrade to the 022, something like a reboot of the program to the right direction.
If you still want a catamaran with SATCOMs and a credible gun, you end up reinventing this.
There is likely an attempt to brainstorm on such an idea, which ended up like below, but with no arguable significant benefits over the 056 series, so it ends there.