Type 022 Missile Boat
- Thread starter DPRKPTboat
- Start date
Type 022s don't have the antennas for UAVs. The antenna you need to communicate with the UAV would be similar to a SATCOM, which is again, a flat circular dome with a square shaped phase array inside. If you look around closely on other ships you will notice something like that either in front of the ship above the bridge or in the rear above the hanger. The newest batch of 056As come with these domes standard. Could be for UAV, could be satellite, and I suspect they do both. These are also being retrofitted on older 056s, where its located towards the back of the ship behind the antiship missiles and on older 056As where it is located on top of the bridge. These antennas are gyroscopically stabilized so if the ship is rocking, the antenna remains in place staring at the satellite, UAV or plane.
So you would need at least a Type 056/056A or any frigate that's been refitted with the newer domes that would act as a router in a network topology for the 022s. Even some old 053s or Jianghus got fitted with them recently.
If the PLAN figured this out, they would have added it long ago. This is probably why the production stopped and shifted to the Type 056, and for a while there, the boat faded into public view and less and less exercises are conducted with it. The ability for the Type 056 to have a SATCOM is an enormous advantage over the 022, allowing for digital communication OTH that is hard to intercept.
The best way is to have a Type 056A or Type 054A work in concert with the 022s as a command ship and serving them like a router.
The radar on the Type 022 isn't as basic as it seems as it has some OTH capability by atmospheric ducting, and to add to that, there are a couple of ESMs that let the boat detect targets passively and respond to missiles with chaff. There is an EO on the boat used as fire control for the gun. The radar is used to target ships with its antiship missiles. The technique used here can be situational dependent on the weather however.
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Arguably such an armament upgrade will make them even less useful(assuming it's even possible - single YJ-12 is ~3 times as heavy as YJ-83). With YJ-83 they have at least some degree of universality, but in the end - it doesn't change the fact that this is more or less 021(osa) on a new technological level.
056 is simply a much more useful ship.
I don't think so. A stealthy boat as a high mobility platform for long range AShMs, it's not in the same category with 056 at all.
Erm, this is a question of approach.
The question isn't if they're the same or no: they are most clearly not.
Question is - do 022 advantages matter, or can its only mission - anti-ship strike in waters near China- now be performed by other, otherwise much more useful units?
The answer is probably "no": relative advantages of 022 are mostly gone due to the rise of the relative power of the PRC. They mattered in the 1960s(021 introduction), they still mattered in the 2000s(022). Do they matter now? Not so much. At least - not in peacetime.
And for the remaining part of that mission profile - 056 is good enough(has missiles? can maintain position/patrol? numerous enough? good to go).
Not very useful in peace time? I agree. But in wars, especially in South China Sea where you can find endless islands, 22 should have a great tactical value.
And this is precisely when they should be produced - according to needs, not the other way around.
Not before.
Realistically by 2020s it's becoming surprisingly difficult to come up with a relevant role for 022s as they are.
Their advantages don't matter to much, their role is 90% eroded by coastal aviation and missile batteries, and that small part that remains is overwhelmingly covered by 056.
My point is, as Tam mentioned, it has no SATCOM and can't talk to UAVs either. That makes them almost useless. If this can be solved and the YJ-83 is replaced by other AShM with longer range, such as the YJ-12. They can still help dominate SCS, quite helpful actually.