Next generation Japanese destroyers, what it means for PLAN

China may have modern and capable missiles, but they have done alot of the work themselves. But even so, their missiles are no better than the rest of the field out there. And range is useless, due to the fact that your sensors/networks aren't developed enough to utilize the range built in. Trust me, I've worked this area. Using 200 Km in any missile is highly unlikely for various reasons. Yes, it also depends on who your foe is, but this is one aspect of Chinese missiles that get the coverage, where this option is not the most important. There are alot of navies that have less range missiles but better sensors and networks for detection, tracking, localizing, and targeting contacts. And the developed networks allow better sea space situational awareness. China has not mastered these technologies. And if they have, they certainly have not demonstrated it. Putting this stuff, that is known technology, on a ship is not innovating new technologies. Nor is it a demonstration of the mastery of it. Nor are we likely going to see the continued rapid progress, since they've gotten up to this point. I honestly got to say I see a bottleneck coming up in PLAN development once these new ships are fielded. And again, it's due only to the way China has pursued it's own naval development that will cause this.

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A lot of navies can't even make their own AWACS, battlefield surveillance planes, martime patrol planes and helicopters, datalinked AsMs, design and produce their own radars, and yet they somehow MASTERED networking technologies over the Chinese who actually MAKES these stuff instead of buying them?

Certainly making one is a much better demonstration of that technological mastery and understanding than the inability to design and make one.

I think the PLAN is doing smart. Look at all the development in the Y-8 variants and various sensors that appears on the ships. Specific planes to do C3I, ECM, battlespace surveillance, ELINT, AWACS---they are literally laying an entirely new infrastructure of electronic warfare and support. A lot of you are just focusing on incoming fancy Russian made destroyers and subs without looking at something more subtle but infinitely more fundamantal to the entire context like those boring but strange and growing numbers of funny looking Y-8s with funny looking antennas poking over the East China seas.

crobato said:

That's completely false. See what the Soviet did to the Rolls Royce Nene turbojets and what the Japanese did to the Pratt and Whitney radials they got from DC-3s in the thirties.

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Well neither of them to this day are known for making the highest quality aircraft engines. So no, they did not reverse engineer themselves to the top in this area.

Tell that the Japanese, Koreans and Taiwanese how they not only reverse engineered ICs but quickly produce their own to become the top of the semi conductor industry.

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A good example, yes. But they more improved production process methods in this area and were able to supply using lower cost methods. So yes and no here. But nevertheless, you're not talking integration of anything into a complex system like a naval vessel here. Manufacturing chips is not exactly building a high technology naval vessel that can counter multiple current and foreseeable threats.

I'm sorry. With systems these complex, you either master them or you don't. They either work or they don't. The Soviets mastered the theory but lacks the electronics to fulfill them. Electronics happens to be a field which the Chinese are surprisingly competent (ask any computer giant). That's the difference why Skywatch failed and why the 052C succeeded.

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No, you're totally wrong here. The Soviets did not demonstrate any good knowledge in how to integrate anything into a multi-mission battle management system. The entire thing was screwed. If it was just as simple as some electronic gear, the Soviets would have solved their problems. They simply could not figure out how to integrate what they had into the bigger picture.

And 052C shows good progress, not because of any new innovations. But because China is using already proven designs and concepts fielded by other sources.

There is no such thing as a half assed half copy implemention of an extremely complex system and expect it to work without understanding its very fundamentals, theories and concepts.

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That's not so simplistic. You can get something up and running, but not entirely like the original product. The thing is, when you copy or reverse-engineer, you are going in a backward fashion trying to understand a system. That's fine. And you may get a decent result. But you will not have gone through the R & D process and will have missed alot of developmental progress one would need to know in order to modify, or advance the technological line. If you've taken any type of marine engineering coursework, you might've run into this analysis. And I don't see anything that China's ships have advanced technologically. Everything on them...somebody else has used in one form or another. No real new innovations have been incorporated at all. There have been some modifications (merging) to some of the technologies, but we haven't really seen how well they do. And all that is anyway is merging other people's designs. And this is why I see a potential bottleneck in the near term.

crobato said:

I think the PLAN is doing smart. Look at all the development in the Y-8 variants and various sensors that appears on the ships. Specific planes to do C3I, ECM, battlespace surveillance, ELINT, AWACS---they are literally laying an entirely new infrastructure of electronic warfare and support. A lot of you are just focusing on incoming fancy Russian made destroyers and subs without looking at something more subtle but infinitely more fundamantal to the entire context like those boring but strange and growing numbers of funny looking Y-8s with funny looking antennas poking over the East China seas.

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True. They have more ability in this area. But it's well documented that China has had a huge amount of assistance in these areas by Israel, France, and Russia. China is still pretty dependant on Russia for a few items now. Believe me, I see more than just the Russian stuff, but I also see alot of Russian assistance in the newer stuff.

China is just cutting corners where it sees fit. There is simply no need to go down the same route some other countries went when developing their systems. Cause back then that was cutting edge and no one except the developers knew how it should work. Today, since US has done the cutting edge work and since at least the concept and general direction in which development should be made is public, no matter how much lacking in detail, other countries like china can save up billions and years from development of similar systems.

One can copy something without understanding it if its simple but as soon as we're talking about reverse engineering, as soon as we're talking making your own software for the electronics (and electronics are in every system nowadays) there is just no way to do such a thing without understanding the whole issue.

Only issue is that IF china wants to get ahead of the pack, fielding more advanced tech even than US does, the increase in R&D budget will have to astronomical and could be seen by chinese bigwigs as not cost effective. Sure, US is current number one tech wise. But at what cost? over 80 billion dollars a year in official MoD budget for R&D of new systems. That's not counting all other tech spillovers from civil sector. China with its current gross national product and AVERAGE civil sector tech levels can't compete with that. In 20-50 years - who knows? And that is the only reason china is not fielding anything revolutionary yet. It pays staying on the curve or even slightly behind it, not going ahead of the curve unless you can afford it.

Sea Dog said:

Well neither of them to this day are known for making the highest quality aircraft engines. So no, they did not reverse engineer themselves to the top in this area.

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No but more than sufficient enough to create some of the fastest and most formidable jets in teh eara.

A good example, yes. But they more improved production process methods in this area and were able to supply using lower cost methods. So yes and no here. But nevertheless, you're not talking integration of anything into a complex system like a naval vessel here. Manufacturing chips is not exactly building a high technology naval vessel that can counter multiple current and foreseeable threats.

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You really have no idea what designing and manufacturing complex chips entail do you? A chip has a parts complexity that is measured in severals of millions. The most complex devices mankind has ever made in his entire history are in those tiny chips.

No, you're totally wrong here. The Soviets did not demonstrate any good knowledge in how to integrate anything into a multi-mission battle management system. The entire thing was screwed. If it was just as simple as some electronic gear, the Soviets would have solved their problems. They simply could not figure out how to integrate what they had into the bigger picture.

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The Soviets lack the electronics expertise the West had. But this is not what is going to be lacking with the Chinese.

And 052C shows good progress, not because of any new innovations. But because China is using already proven designs and concepts fielded by other sources.

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Certainly not the Russians, because the 052C demonstrates a level of radar and sensor technology that the Russians may one have hope to have implemented and put into operational service, but never did.

The 052C is a landmark for PLA observers because in this vessel, the systems have clearly surpassed what the Russians have made and posts a direct challenge to the sophisticated and capability of those in the West.

In fact, the 052C posts a direct challenge to the stereotype and the Holy Grail many observers try to hang on---that for the armaments China is acquiring, they can hope that China will never surpass them in sensors, networking and C31 development.

However, the 052C, the KJ-2000/200 AWACS, and the multitude of Y-8 variants has proven to be a direct contradiction to that Holy Grail people are falsely hanging on.

Roger604 said:

I can't agree with that. It took China only about 5 years (late 90's to 2003/04) since the beginning of structural modernization to improve from making old Jiangwei's to making Type 052 series! We have not seen the latest advanced for a couple of years. I think it will take China another 5 years (2003/04 to 2008/09) to catch up to the current state of the art in Japan and Korea (the Kongo and KDX classes), then another 5 years after that (2013/14) to develop the first of the wave piercing designs.

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It's wrong to say China only spent 5 years to come up with stuff like 052C, it's far more than that.

It's true that China received a lot of Russian help. But if you only concentrate on those external helps, you are missing the bigger picture. And if you have a good look at the last 2 decades of China's military industry's progress, reaching bottle neck? Most of what we are seeing now are started in the 80s or early 90s. And that was the period when China's mil industry was at the most difficult times. Last 10 years' heavy inestment result will only show up in the next 10-15 years.

My $0.02:

Just because someone spend a lot of time and effort to innvoate new technology or product, doesn't mean they'll be rewarded accordingly. Usually, it's the one who can successfully mass market the product (or a copy of) that is financially rewarded.

The computer industry is a very good example of this. Xerox PARC was an early innvoator of many products, including graphic-user interface, laser printer, ethernet, and huge flat panel displays. But they failed to commercialize these products. Microsoft, Apple, and HP did.

But since this is a military forum, let's talk about weapon systems.

The Israelis produced the first modern sea-skimming anti-ship missile, the Gabriel, well ahead of the French Exocet or US Harpoon. Some Israelis claim that the French copied Gabriel missile. In terms of commercial success, the Exocet was exported to some 30 countries, vs. 3 for the Gabriel.

The British were once great innovators of jet engine and aircraft technology. The VTOL Harrier jets were exported widely and even licensed by the US. Prior to 1960s, the US was also dependent on the UK for jet engine tech. Moving forward by 40 years, today the British has to pay Americans for the F-35. The student has excelled beyond the teacher.

Once a concept or technology is copied, it can be further improved to surpass the original, if you're willing to spend the time and effort.

The PRC has been fairly successful in copying western concepts in weapon systems, moving away from the cold-war era Soviet designs. We can see this in aircraft, ship, and missile designs. They're still lagging in MBT and engine/powerplant technology, but is catching up.

IMO you don't need to be the original innovator to be successful. You only need to be the guy who copy the concept, improve upon it, and be so successful at bringing the product to market, that the other guys end up as your customer. Only time will tell if the PRC can achieve this.

Just to add my $0.02, look at how advanced ancient China was, but during the 18th and 19th centuries, the plucky Europeans copied everything from China and eventually improved on them. Especially the gun, which was originally a Chinese invention. Nobody goes to the top on copying alone, that is obvious as a syllogism, but copying and learning is the precursor to taking the lead... and I doubt there is any technological leader in history that did not go through a period of copying and learning. China has proven itself to be a fantastic learner so far... it can almost certainly maintain this level of success (and therefore have a military with full spectrum world class technologies, but without taking the lead in any particular field).

Absolutely roger, and adeptitus. I definitely agree, like adeptitus says, one does not need to be the original innovator to be successful. But I don't agree that one can run the field and lead the world using this as a model of development. You cannot grow your technological base, or surpass others using this method. Reverse engineering is basically taking something apart and analyzing its workings in detail, usually with the intention to construct a device/system of similar characteristics. It rarely measures up to the original however. Now modifying something may yield mixed results. But I have not seen an example where one does this and surpasses the field in any military application. Some have taken current technologies, and redesigned them to fit into the mold of a current need, but usually the design changes and it becomes something else. Like adeptitus says, time and effort must be spent.

Don't think I'm knocking PLAN's new ships, because that's not what I'm trying to portray. But the truth is, there really is no new innovations incorporated in them. China is trying to catch up with a level of modern designs. And that's OK. But there is no way they will dominate or be equal in the naval field in 10 or even 15 years using the developmental method they are currently using. They are certainly placing themselves in a respectable category IMHO. But I wouldn't be looking for anything matching up to Kongo, Type 45 DDG, or Arleigh Burkes at this time.

In using new innovations, one needs to be able to see current and future threats. One needs to be able to assess these things to be able to adapt and/or advance current technologies to break new grounds. This requires a foundation. You cannot reverse engineer this. And you will most certainly see bottlenecks.

Sea Dog said:

But there is no way they will dominate or be equal in the naval field in 10 or even 15 years using the developmental method they are currently using. They are certainly placing themselves in a respectable category IMHO. But I wouldn't be looking for anything matching up to Kongo, Type 45 DDG, or Arleigh Burkes at this time.

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It's true I have to agree with you, currently I don't see PLAN able to catch the USN any day soon. Unless of course they want to increase their budget to match the DOD budget. In that case it would just start another pointless Cold War. I think PLAN's message is that even though they can't match the USN ship to ship, they can still hit the USN pretty hard and cause millions or billions to sink down to the ocean.
Take PAAMS and Aegis for example, it's still a long time before PLAN can catch up with them on the ship interface and data linking capabilities and command and control.
Those new Kongos, Horizon, Type 45 certainly out match all of PLAN's ship deployed. But remember WWII? Nobody thought that Japan with it's fleet and planes can match the USN but look what happened...
10-15 years I don't see PLAN catching them much, but 20-30?
Fact: China is the fastest rising semiconducter nation, by 2010 it'll be world's largest semiconductor consumer....