china: world leader of stealthy ships?

[MIGleader]

with all these new, advanced, stealthy warships rolling out of chinese shipyards, can one possibly iagine that chinas is THE leadign nation in building such ships?

lets think about it:
the new warships are large, blue water navy ships. almost no other nation has feilded large, stealthy ddgs.

scandinavian navies have commsioned a seiries of very stealthy vessels, but they are very small, only valuable for coastal patrol.

both britain, france, germany, spain, and italy all posses stealth technology, but have not built a ddg size stealthy vessel yet. the lafeyette is stealthier than all chinese warships, but is only an ffg, unable to perfrom many of the tasks a 52c can in deep ocean. we wont see a truly advanced stealthy ddg from these nations until the british type 45 rolls out.

russian stelath is light years behind. the talwar is signaling progress, but its large amount of exposed sensors make it anything but stealthy.

the american arleigh burke is on of the few competitors, out performing all chinese warships in combat. but bases on its size and apperance, it has a very large rcs, with only modest rcs reduction feature implemented. most notably, its giant steel mast behind the bridge is very keen to expose the ship to enemy radar. most of the vessels stealth comes from electronic jamming, not stealth shaping or ram.

other nations, like malasia and saudi arabia have began building stealthy vessels, but they are once agian, only coastal defence ships. they cannot fufil the same mission requirements as a ddg can.

the closest competitor to china would probably be south koreas ddx seiries, with advnaced weapons sensors, and a great many rcs and irs reduction features. but these ships are not south korean built, and therefor dont count.

this leaves china on top. with the introduction of stealthy warships since 1999, its also introcuced a line of sealthy facs, as well as stealthy naval weaponry that can be fitted to any unstealthy vessel.

http://img480.imageshack.us/img480/7236/1685xa.jpg

http://img480.imageshack.us/img480/8601/1711tu.jpg

http://img6.imageshack.us/img6/3391/525d8zc.jpg

jingnan, hudong, and dalian, keep em comming!!:china:

[Gollevainen]

Sorry to break the bupple but those chinese new warships are not so "sthealt" afterall...it have been discussed several times in here and other places. They got the same default as the russian build Tawlars..the sthealthy features aplyes only to the hull, leaving everything ontop of it exposed to radar wawes. THey have reduced radar gross sections, but not as near as the French Lafayette or the new Horizon class in building.

[MIGleader]

you miss the point. these ships are not always the stalthiest, but always have superior performance to any ship stealthier than them. they alsways have superior stealth to any ship that has greater performance. china is also churning out these ships at a speed no other nation matches exept america.

i think the 'defect" only affected 52b to a degree. the following ships are very stealthy, although not at lafeyette level.

http://img6.imageshack.us/img6/7597/525e8de.jpg
looks like a very clean surface to me.

[Gollevainen]

well migth be leading in building pace of the reduced radar gross section featured ships, but this is mainly due the current speed of chinese naval buildup....but then again Aleigh Burkes have some reducing in radar singatures as well, so...
But in stealth techonlogy, France is the number one. Lafayettes serving in Singapore and Saudi Arabia are superior to any chinese ship, whit their reach in general and due their stealth features. And to this you have to include the building up of forbin(horizon) class DDGs and planned FREM program of FFGs to france navy, there is no question who has the lead

[jatt]

Stealth inculdes RCS reduction. The clutter from the nice equipment is enough for a fighter to pick up. Doesn't make a real big difference. But I would make noise reduction and heat infared reduction a prority. You never know what sub is hunting you. And those old generation AShM can be annyoing expecially when launched in large numbers. Soft kills are very effective. Ask the British.

[renmin]

Hey well what about the American DD(X)? That has great steatlh capabilities and is well armed too with rail guns and cruise missles. dont forget the barrels of guns, they are round which increase RCS. The DDX has a triangle shaped barrel, which is why it is a rail gun

[MIGleader]

you all miss my point. the lafayette cannot perform the same deep water missions as a 52c because the laffeyate is a ffg. heavy armament was also sacrificed on the lafayette to increase stealth.

horizon, FREM, and ddx all do not exist yet. they are still being built. china has already BUILT and COMMISIONED its warships.

the new 52s and 54s all have heat reduction features on their funnels. such funnels were already installed on the jinghu III's. the engines are very quiet, seeing how they are they are french or ukrainian, and the most advnaced in europe.

[Roger604]

Hey well what about the American DD(X)? That has great steatlh capabilities and is well armed too with rail guns and cruise missles. dont forget the barrels of guns, they are round which increase RCS. The DDX has a triangle shaped barrel, which is why it is a rail gun

From my understanding, the rail gun part is a planned future improvement after the first batch of DD(X)'s are commissioned. It is less feasible a technology at this point than the rest of the DD(X)'s design.

[rommel]

Well, I don't think that China is the leader in the stealth technology, I agree with Gollevainen when he said the "leading" in this domain by China is because of the speed of building of the Chinese Naval industry. For exemple, you said that 52C is more stealth than the Arleigh Burke, but don't forget that the Arleigh Burke was designed at least one decade ago. Same thing goes with the La Fayette FFG, it's true that the La Fayette class don't have the same combat ability like the LATEST chinese warship (52C), but it can still outclass most chinese DDG, it can beat the 52 (Luhu) or a 51B which is a DDG.

[bd popeye]

From my understanding, the rail gun part is a planned future improvement after the first batch of DD(X)'s are commissioned. It is less feasible a technology at this point than the rest of the DD(X)'s design.

Roger is correct. The rail gun is well off into the future. The USN DD(X) program has been scaled well back. Probaly only 12-14 ships will be built.

As for stealth. The PLAN ships sure do look stealthy. Appearance is only one part of stealth. But in reality are they? One thing that would help them would be developing superior ECM that changes it's appearance on radar. Perhaps they already have such ECM. Anyone know?

[Sea Dog]

Roger is correct. The rail gun is well off into the future. The USN DD(X) program has been scaled well back. Probaly only 12-14 ships will be built.

As for stealth. The PLAN ships sure do look stealthy. Appearance is only one part of stealth. But in reality are they? One thing that would help them would be developing superior ECM that changes it's appearance on radar. Perhaps they already have such ECM. Anyone know?

I love the subtle tone of your post, Popeye. You are totally correct that hull form is only a part of stealth. That's why some don't seem to understand how the Burke/Kongo overall design is so stealthy. There are more ways to mask your ship signature than hull form. Much more effective ways. This type of hull form does not necessarily mean that the vessel has an enhanced stealth. Ask the Scandinavians. They know real well. This type of hull form is detectable with an adapatable radar mode. I actually think the Scandinavian Navies have the lead. Maybe Gollevainen is correct that France is ahead. I wouldn't doubt it. America will probably jump ahead with the inception of DD(X)....maybe, but that's still a ways off. And take alook at the work the USN has done with Sea Shadow.;)

BTW, I wouldn't even bring DD(X) into the picture yet as a comparative platform, because there are no hulls out there to compare it to yet. America has only begun the manufacturing process for the first one. It's gonna be awhile before we see it.

[Gauntlet]

Seeing as the only true stealthy ships in the world are real small ones, like the Visby (Swedish corvette) and Skjold (Norgwegian MTB), I guess it must be a reason for it.

Large DDGs have much more weapons onboard than this smaller ones, and this complicates the matter when you have to hide the weapons under the deck.


http://www.naval-technology.com/projects/visby/images/Visby_4.jpg
Swedish Visby corvette.

http://www.naval-technology.com/projects/skjold/images/Skjold_2.jpg
Norwegian Skjold MTB.

[akinkhoo]

One thing that would help them would be developing superior ECM that changes it's appearance on radar. Perhaps they already have such ECM. Anyone know? they have some kind of ECM and ECCM installed but i don't think the capability are revealed. but maybe someone could guess base on the foreign parts they are using.

but i think most ECM doesn't change the signature but confuses the radar of the actual range and position of the ship.

---

i think the radar is the still most revealing piece of equipment. most ship has passive sensors that can detect radar emission and track back to source. so if you are using a big ass radar, it wouldn't matter if you are stealth or not cause everyone will know where you are!
:rofl:

only when the radars are on reduce emission or passive state will the stealthiness be more noticable i think.
:coffee:

[Wingman]

I really wonder how the designers of Type 052C and 051C came up with those designs when trying to take stealth into consideration

Did they use supercomputers to calculate radar return of their design from all angles and ranges? From the looks of this ship I somewhat doubt it. It seems like they just drew it on paper and decided it looks kind of stealthy so they went along with it :coffee:

[ger_mark]

China doesnt have any stealth ship they only have some stealthy features wich are quiet useless, so China cant be worldleader of it.

[MIGleader]

I really wonder how the designers of Type 052C and 051C came up with those designs when trying to take stealth into consideration

Did they use supercomputers to calculate radar return of their design from all angles and ranges? From the looks of this ship I somewhat doubt it. It seems like they just drew it on paper and decided it looks kind of stealthy so they went along with it :coffee:

are you somehow implying you know how the ships were built simply by looking at them? chinese ship designers probably spent years developing these designs, on computers.

so far, the ships have
rcs reduction
irs reduction
and the rest we dont know, and we wont asumme anything
so china is a world leader of stealth as far as we know

[Wingman]

are you somehow implying you know how the ships were built simply by looking at them? chinese ship designers probably spent years developing these designs, on computers.
I wouldn't know how the ships are designed, however it just looks to me like they didn't take radar coming from different angles into consideration, especially from above. It seems they're only worried about ship-ship radars, since only the middle and lower sides are flat and sharp, the top doesn't seem to be protected by any form of stealth features. All those instruments are fully exposed. When being scanned by an aircraft radar, I doubt these flat lower sides are going to provide any stealth protection at all.

Maybe this will be helpful against the Taiwanese navy but against the US navy which relies much heavier on aircraft I have my doubts on its usefulness

[akinkhoo]

It seems they're only worried about ship-ship radars, since only the middle and lower sides are flat and sharp, the top doesn't seem to be protected by any form of stealth features. All those instruments are fully exposed. When being scanned by an aircraft radar, I doubt these flat lower sides are going to provide any stealth protection at all.

the possibility of a aircraft flying directly (or almost) overhead you is... well if it did it would be visual already, no need for radar!!! :roll: in truth you only need to avoid certain angle to greatly reduce your radar exposure. if you do the math, base on expected radar range, altitude of a given radar system, you will be able to design an effective design against them (eg. planes and ships). there is also radar absorbing coating and others design features.

the original stealth fighter has a flat belly, because rarely will a radar be DIRECTLY under it and get a soild reflection! :D

[Wingman]

No no, I'm not implying planes should be searching the ship from directly above. But still I'm mistaken, there isn't too much difference between the angle of incoming radar from ships and from planes at a large distance, so the ship should have roughly equal stealth protection against both ships and aircraft. However, considering the flat sides only cover about half of the ship horizontally (the rest (stuff at the top) is all exposed) I doubt this design is going to improve stealth by much.

Half just isn't enough. I read somewhere that during radar tests on the F-22, it is able to remain undetected but as soon as it opens its weapons bay, that's enough to give it away. You need the whole ship to have stealthy design, not just the bottom half of it

[MIGleader]

well personally i beilive the weak points in the stealth of chinese vessels are primarily their large radar and sensor masts and the anti ship missle launchers. but taking them away would reduce the ships abilities. a vls system would be the solution, and it may be on 52d.

so the ships will have reduced signature, making the opponent beilive them as patrol vessels rather than full ddgs.

[IDonT]

well personally i beilive the weak points in the stealth of chinese vessels are primarily their large radar and sensor masts and the anti ship missle launchers. but taking them away would reduce the ships abilities. a vls system would be the solution, and it may be on 52d.

so the ships will have reduced signature, making the opponent beilive them as patrol vessels rather than full ddgs.

The USN already does that with the Burke Destroyers. Its radar signiture is very small for a 9,000 ton vessel.
http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/systems/ship/images/ddg-89_050413-n-5526m-018.jpg

[Su-34]

I think that the next Chinese destroyer class ( 052D or 051D ) will look much like the Arleigh Burke, with the hull slightly stealthier. Although its performance is predicted to only be 50% the capability of the AEGIS AN/SPY-1D( Chinese sources acknowledged that the radar on 051C is not as powerful as even earlier version AN/SPY-1A ), it would be more than enough to deal with regional navies.

I predict next Chinese DDG class to begin construction in the 2007-2010 period.

[tphuang]

I think that the next Chinese destroyer class ( 052D or 051D ) will look much like the Arleigh Burke, with the hull slightly stealthier. Although its performance is predicted to only be 50% the capability of the AEGIS AN/SPY-1D( Chinese sources acknowledged that the radar on 051C is not as powerful as even earlier version AN/SPY-1A ), it would be more than enough to deal with regional navies.

I predict next Chinese DDG class to begin construction in the 2007-2010 period.
I don't think China's radar will be that weak. I don't know which source you got it from. If anything, the likelihood that it is APAR gives it certain advantages over AN/SPY-1. What 052 series lacks is the lack of maturity in combat systems. It will take China years to develop its combat system to the level of latest Aegis.

[MIGleader]

the burke is actually not an amazing piece of stealth. its primarily its elctronic jammers that reduce its signature, not hull design. also, china does not need to wait for 52d to have reduced signatures. 167 already has a burke size sugnature(probably a bit smaller coz 167 is smaller than the burke.

[IDonT]

the burke is actually not an amazing piece of stealth. its primarily its elctronic jammers that reduce its signature, not hull design. also, china does not need to wait for 52d to have reduced signatures. 167 already has a burke size sugnature(probably a bit smaller coz 167 is smaller than the burke.

Look at it, its stealthy.
No perfect cylinders, its mast is set back at an angle, no 90 degree lines, heck even the railings were designed for low observability.

[sango]

well china's 52c and america's arleigh burke are probably pretty close in terms of stealth but how does china's stealth compare with south korea, japan, taiwan, malaysia, or the phillipines

[MIGleader]

Look at it, its stealthy.
No perfect cylinders, its mast is set back at an angle, no 90 degree lines, heck even the railings were designed for low observability.

yeah, i saw a program on it. the big mast is probably the only major givaway. its set back at an angle to reduce the rcs, but its still a weak spot. the gun is another weak sopt. but i did not say it was not stealthy, just not one the cutting edge of stealth.

the 52c is probably the same stealthyness as the kdx-IIs and IIIS, and a bit above the kongos. its definitly more stealthy than kidds.

[Sea Dog]

the 52c is probably the same stealthyness as the kdx-IIs and IIIS, and a bit above the kongos. its definitly more stealthy than kidds.

It's hard to prove this statement. There's alot more to stealth than hull form design.

[MIGleader]

i factored in more than that. first off, the kidds have no stealth shaping or rcs reduction whatsoever, immeditely being knocked out of the contest. the kongo matches the burke, and we already decied on that. ive seen the kd-x's, and they are claimed to have heat reduction funnels and many rcs reduction features. noise for all these ships shoudl be soemwhere around the same, and the kdx and kongo would probably have the most advanced jammers(i dont know what the 52c has).

[ger_mark]

i just love the look of those new south african frigates

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/de/thumb/f/fb/SAS_Mendi_F148.jpg/800px-SAS_Mendi_F148.jpg

http://www.navy.mil.za/equipment/images/vessels/0_4_VALOUR_CLASS-MEKO-A200-SAN-FSG.jpg

http://www.navy.mil.za/equipment/images/vessels/AMATOLA_and_ISANDLWANA.jpg

to bad we dont get anyof those :(

[renmin]

check out this site, it would give you alot of information on America's DD(X) and other stealth ship technology America is working on.
http://www.ddxnationalteam.com
China has an attempt to develop stealth ships but remeber. ships arnt as easy to make stealth as planes because of their size and equipment. RCS is a very important matter in this situation. for one thing cannons are round which increase RCS so the DD(X) after use of gun, lowers them into a case and closes it to prevent detection. a phase that should be followed by everyone who wants to make a ship stealth, other way is to change the shape of the gun barrel.

[Su-34]

China may be good at designing stealthy hulls, but hasn't mastered making critical sub-systems like gas turbine engines, radar and reliable combat systems