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CR400BF5033

New Member
Registered Member
Probably kind of a stupid question, but is it possible, and would it be a good idea to put a DF-21D inside of a ballistic missile submarine?
Maybe you dont know, but the DF-21 series is based on the JL-1(JuLang-1, not the airborne JL-1 shown in the 9/3 parade), the latter is China's first SLBM, although the range is only ~2000km. aka "巨浪上岸/ashore JuLang". You are driving a U-turn car in reverse.
The DF-21D is a 2000s technology, its China's first generation anti-ship ballistic missile, which is obsolete and retiring nowadays. It's not a hypersonic missile and can't do much manoeuvre at terminal phase. China already has many more capable and advanced missiles to be loaded into the VLS cells.
 
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wuguanhui

Junior Member
Dumb idea : why not rechargeable electric warships? Design it so it can be recharged from a nuclear powered submarine docking to it underwater.

The goal is to have an entire taskforce of cheap BEV warships all supported by 1 or 2 expensive nuclear charger subs, giving the entire group effective infinite range at low cost. Plausible?
 

TheWanderWit

Junior Member
Registered Member
How do modern PLAN ship radars compare to American Arleigh Burkes etc?
Modern Chinese DDGs like the Type 052D and Type 055 use AESAs, mostly GaN-based. The early batches of the 052D are likely GaA though, but still AESA. Pretty much every single Burke in service uses the SPY-1 PESA, which is still a perfectly fine and good radar, but AESAs of course are much better with their advantages.

There is a singular active Flight 3 Burke in service (DDG-125) with SPY-6, which is comparable, possibly even a bit better than the 346A on the 052D, but then there's also the recent batch of 052Ds as well. The 346B though is in a league of its own on the Type 055. So the ratio is like 40:1 at this point between active AESA-equipped DDGs. But other than that, China has a pretty good advantage here currently in terms of widespread AESA application across not just naval ships, but also other military radar platforms, and they are already working towards even better ones with newer materials and substrates.
 

Heliox

Junior Member
Registered Member
Dumb idea : why not rechargeable electric warships? Design it so it can be recharged from a nuclear powered submarine docking to it underwater.

The goal is to have an entire taskforce of cheap BEV warships all supported by 1 or 2 expensive nuclear charger subs, giving the entire group effective infinite range at low cost. Plausible?

Energy Density
Screenshot 2025-11-11 083319.png

Batteries give about 0.5 MJ/kg
Diesel gives about 45 Mj/kg. Even at 20% conversion, we're still looking at 10~20 more range/endurance for a similar displacement given over to fuel vs battery.

Cost Savings
The bulk of a warship cost is in electronics and weaponry, not in the hull and propulsion.
That's why you have ideas of arsenal ship with CEC weapons as you have significant savings on not having to put sensors and CIC on the arsenal ships.
With battery and IEP tech, you will still end up with an equally expensive warship and an even more expensive AO/AOL sub.

Safety
Water and fuel is not a dangerous mix. Spillage of fuel during UNREP is not a major issue compared to water getting into the recharging harness during Electric-UNREP.
Also, runaway discharge caused by minor combat damage on such a big battery pack ... nightmare for ship damage control.

Benefits do not transfer
EVs benefit from energy recovery when the vehicle slows down - which is why EVs typically have better range in city as opposed to highway driving. Warships on the high seas do not benefit from this.
Non-Nuclear Submarines benefit from batteries as they typically use the silent mode for low speed, silent transit. Energy efficiency from batteries is linear so high speed transit (which increases the energy requirement significantly) will draw down a battery really quickly. Fuel and engine types can be matched to power requirements, which is why you have various forms of CODAG/COGAG to deal with the long constant patrol speeds and occasional burst of flank speeds.

Solution looking for a problem
A ship doesn't just survive on fuel, it needs other supplies as well.
If you have to have a platform alongside for UNREP, then why replenish from a submarine form factor when you can replenish from a AOL ship with similar deck heights and various cranes and stations to facilitate ship-to-ship transfer of dry supplies.

Those are what I came up with over 5 minutes of thinking it through.
What did you see as the benefits to start with?
 
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Shahryar

Just Hatched
Registered Member
Some times ago i found a summary here about all allready build, visually conformed and aspected Ships of the main Classes. I cant find it any more.

Can some1 repost or better make an actuall list? Are all visually conformed 52dl build? Is the number of visually conformed 55 still 4 for the second batch?

Thank you.
 

banjex

Junior Member
Registered Member
Some times ago i found a summary here about all allready build, visually conformed and aspected Ships of the main Classes. I cant find it any more.

Can some1 repost or better make an actuall list? Are all visually conformed 52dl build? Is the number of visually conformed 55 still 4 for the second batch?

Thank you.
Paging @ACuriousPLAFan.

The Chinese language Wikipedia is also fairly accurate, I believe.
 
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