054/A FFG Thread II

Tam

Brigadier
Registered Member
YJ-12 for 056 might be a bit of an overkill. I doubt its sensors can even utilise the missile efficiently

The 056 mounts the YJ-83, which goes up to 200km, and that's definitely over the horizon. So the ship has some undocumented ability that allows for long range OTH targeting.

051B refit 167 Shenzhen doesn't have the sensors for it either. Note that the ship does not have the Type 366 'Bandstand' antiship radar, unlike all the 052B/C/D and 054A, even if the Shenzhen has 16 YJ-12. So like the 056, the 051B refit has to have some undocumented ability that allows for over the horizon antiship missile targeting. Usually with ships, that is attained two ways. The first is from an aircraft spotter from which the ship is communicating via datalink. This can be amended and updated to using UAVs and even satellites. The other is through directional ESM, where the ship triangulates its target via the target's long range radio emissions. Most ships do not use their main radars to target other ships, as they are all line of sight and limited by the radar horizon. If a target is within line of sight, which means like 30km or less, the gunnery fire control radar can also act to target the enemy ship directly.

Its the Russians that use some form of over the horizon antiship targeting radar, of which there are a few, but the most well known is the unit code named 'Bandstand', which consists of an active radar unit, a passive ESM unit and a cooperative datalink. This unit is bought, then copied by the Chinese and improved into a version of their own, making them a ubiquitous presence in PLAN. While the 052C/D and the 054A has the Chinese version, while the Sovs, the 051C and the 052B has the original Russian version, the 052, 053H3, 054, 051B, the 056 and 056A lack these, even if they are using the YJ-83. So all these other ships have to be using datalinks and/or directional finding ESM. Assuming that directional finding ESM still has some range limit, risks being inaccurate and situational, the most reliable means of long range targeting is via air, whether through patrol aircraft, helicopter, or UAV, and potentially even by satellite, communicating their findings to the ship via datalink. Even the 056 has some datalinks, including SATCOMs.
 

Totoro

Major
VIP Professional
Firing platform doesn't have to have sensors. Soviet Oscar subs were planned to fire their missiles almost exclusively on third party targeting information.
 

iantsai

Junior Member
Registered Member
Huangpu Shipbuilding Co., a new 054a(#31) is under construction. And behind the type 22 missile boat, Liuzhou(penant no. 573, 054A #12) is returning to shipyard for maintenance.

Unofficial source said the new batch would be 20 ships.
 

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iantsai

Junior Member
Registered Member
...or it could be 054/AP #3 for Pakistan?
I heard that all the Pakistani 054APs were built in Hudong, so the 20 ships contract was splitted 8 for Hudong and 12 for Huangpu so that both shipyards get equal order counting the 4 APs.
 

nlalyst

Junior Member
Registered Member
It's difficult to reverse engineer out causes without knowing what their original plans for the ship were, and how or if their evolution of the vision for what they wanted 054B to be (size, new subsystems, new technology) and role to be.

For all we know what 054B will end up being was very different to what their original requirements for 054B was say, 5 or 10 years ago. Of course, it can't be ruled out that there may have been technical challenges with various subsystems -- if 054B does end up with IEPS as we expect I think there's a good chance the challenge may have been making it viable and reliable, for example -- but at the same time it also depends on how quickly they churn out these extra 20 054As.
A few years ago there were leaks that the one of the 054B design proposals was 300t too heavy, and that they opted for a different and lighter design variant. The "heavy variant" was never conclusively linked to electric drive, right? Although, given context and evidence that electric drives are typically heavier than clutch and geared drives there was justification to suspect the weight increase to be connected to electric drive. What's your take on that?
 

Tam

Brigadier
Registered Member
Huangpu Shipbuilding Co., a new 054a(#31) is under construction. And behind the type 22 missile boat, Liuzhou(penant no. 573, 054A #12) is returning to shipyard for maintenance.

Unofficial source said the new batch would be 20 ships.



En9PnjQVoAA6VnB.jpegEn9Pu8dUYAE07_h.jpeg


Next picture shows the other ship next to it. That looks like an existing frigate, pennant 573, getting maintenance and overhaul. I suppose not all the frigates go to HDZ to get their maintenance.
 

Kich

Junior Member
Registered Member


View attachment 66088View attachment 66089


Next picture shows the other ship next to it. That looks like an existing frigate, pennant 573, getting maintenance and overhaul. I suppose not all the frigates go to HDZ to get their maintenance.

They really are building 20 more.
It feels waste especially if they are not significant improvements from the original 30 batch. They might be stuck with 50 inferior vessels in the end when compared to their 054B/057
 
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