antiterror13
Brigadier
do you mean breakeven in construction or in operating cost ?
breakeven is one thing, but considering nuclear propulsion don't need fuel and can stay almost indefinitely at sea is a big plus for strategic point of view
055 Large Destroyer Thread II
- Thread starter Blitzo
- Start date
do you mean breakeven in construction or in operating cost ?
breakeven is one thing, but considering nuclear propulsion don't need fuel and can stay almost indefinitely at sea is a big plus for strategic point of view
Effectively PLAN is already a 5 tier navy, considering the 054A production has been continuing until recently. They do not need another layer between their existing surface combatants. Maybe later they would introduce an even higher layer. I see even that speculative
AFAIK it's overall cost including operation, but even nuclear ships need to come home to port, or you'll end up like the Ural.
I mean there is only the 055, 052, 054 and 056, Cute Orca seems to find the need for a theatre air defense cruiser. 052Ds are probably going to be replaced by a ~10kt general purpose destroyer and 054s are getting replaced by some kind of new large frigate, 056s are just good enough and I don't think there is any plans to replace them yet. 055 is tricky, some people think it's successor might be a large BMD cruiser and some others think it'll be a separate role between a air defense cruiser and large general purpose destroyer.
antiterror13
Brigadier
054A is slowly being replaced by 054B. 056A is good enough to all surrounding navies, except Japan and SK and obviously USN
I've been hearing rumours of a destroyer like that in the works on weibo with PLA watching sources, 052D successor and smaller than a 055, clean sheet design.
It gets referred to as “九千岁”, both as a hint at displacement as well as signally the fact that it's one rung lower than 055.
Maybe not, good amount of rumors of a larger design replacing the 054 series entirely
antiterror13
Brigadier
show me the "money" (e.g rumours)
Look at my posts in next gen frigate, also new construction going on at Hudong Zhonghua. Preliminary measure is that it's wider than any of the 054 series and matches some claims from credible people but we'll have to wait until early mid next year to confirm.
Given that major military platforms typically have a 30 year service life, shouldn't every major military be following this approach?
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Look at the overall Chinese Navy surface fleet which has ship classes with a range of VLS numbers.
Type-054 Frigate. 32 VLS cells
Type-052D Destroyer. 64 VLS cells
Type-055 Large Destroyer. 112 VLS cells
It looks quite logical, with VLS numbers roughly doubling with each tier of warship.
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But let's suppose they were to design a new ship class with 96 VLS cells. Would they need 30 of these ships, which would justify an entirely new and separate ship class to support?
Remember that the Type-055 would only be about 20% more expensive, so why not just buy more Type-055 instead?
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You can actually throw the question back as to why the US Navy only has Arleigh Burkes with 96 VLS cells, and no other ships with VLS cells.
For many missions, an affordable Frigate with 32 cells is more than adequate, but they're only just building Frigates now.
So it is the US Navy which is odd and strange in not having a Frigate.