PLAN Fleet supply vessels
- Thread starter delft
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Still better than what 903/As have; which are autocannons without any real AA ciws capability at all.
That said, I wonder how common it is for navies to arm their replenishment vessels with capable ciws?
I think most US MSC replenishment ships are very lightly armed if armed at all, and the RN's RFA replenishment ships are typically minimally armed as well. Of course, those are not strictly "naval ships" as they are not operating within the "navy" as such... but even for other navies like Marine Nationale, or the Deutsche Marine, their installed ciws defences for their replenishment ships are quite minimal as well.
So while I personally wouldn't mind if 901 class came with some H/PJ-11 or even HHQ-10, its armament of "only" four H/PJ-13/AK-630 mounts seems kind of par the course.
Well the only truly peer comparison is another AOE, which only the USN has. The previous Sacramento class AOEs each had 2 Phalanx CIWS as well as an 8-cell Sea Sparrow launcher. The current Supply class AOE had the same along with Mk88 25mm cannon emplacements, though these were apparently later all removed once the ships were transferred to the US Military Sealift Command, and are now operated by civilian crews, which are cheaper and more efficient than USN crews. Unfortunately these ships are now being retired (due to excessive operating costs, no less) and soon only the PLAN will be operating AOE class ships.
I'm not so sure about the Supply class under the USN as being the only peer comparison to judge 901 class's armament by.
I think that we can make some inferences regarding the armament of replenishment ships, by looking at their armament across differing tonnages that are currently in service across various navies, and then projecting upwards to the rough tonnage and force value of 901 class and Supply class, and comparing.
Overall, I think we can see a trend that replenishment ships in general are not particularly "well armed" in terms of ciws, but that's probably because all the navies operate with some variant of doctrine that likely necessitates replenishment ships to operate alongside capable surface combatants during wartime. Also, most navies probably have all calculated cutting ciws as one of the most "sensible" cost saving measures that they can manage to eke out.
Cutting all the weapons out of the Supply class is IMO unique to the Supply class, and possibly to USN AOEs, and clearly this supposedly cost-saving measure did nothing to save this class from its impending fate in the scrapyards. Also, it seems to be a matter of practice to fully disarm USN ships before transferring them to civilian operators. The original intention of these ships, as fully realized in the previous Sacramento class, was a very respectable dual cannon CIWS in addition to a short range air defense missile system. This clearly and significantly exceeds what the 901 has.
Looking back in history at AORs, actual USN ships (with USS prefixes) all had extensive self-defense weapons systems. The Wichita class AOR had the same exact 2 Phalanx + 1 Sea Sparrow outfit. The Cimarron AO class had 2 Phalanx + 2 25mm cannons + 4 .50cal MGs. The current Henry J. Kaiser class is built from the ground up as USNS (civilian-operated) ships and have no weapons systems at all. Given that there is no Chinese civilian counterpart to the Sealift Command, there is also no reason at all not to arm them to historically appropriate standards.
Well, I did say this "I think that we can make some inferences regarding the armament of replenishment ships, by looking at their armament across differing tonnages that are currently in service across various navies".
In other words, even if we ignore the MSC or even the RFA, both of which are not strictly part of their respective navies which they serve, and only look at the armament of replenishment ships of nations who do operate as part of their respective navies, I think we will find that most other navy AORs are relatively lightly armed.
I'm also not sure how fair comparison with the USN's AOR/AOE armament during the Cold War is, considering... well it was the Cold War, and there was a much higher state of readiness overall, and so I'm not sure if AORs and AOEs across multiple navies subsequently reduced their armament or not in the post Cold War era, or if other non-USN navies have always had relatively lightly armed replenishment ships.
That said, I'd be interested to see what the 901's final armament will be -- we can see it will almost definitely have four H/PJ-13/AK630 ciws mounts, but it looks like there is a forward platform for a weapon, possibly an H/PJ-26 76mm DP gun, which I think would round out its armament quite nicely.
Disarming the AOEs and other replenishment vessels was and is viewed by most serious Naval analysts as a foolish move by usually either liberal or progressive administrations (and that does not mean Democrat because GOP has done the same) to try and reduce costs.
Fact is, these are very necessary vessels which are indispensable to the war fighting capability of the combatants. As such they have to get near the combat zones and they will most certainly be targeted.
Up until 2005, the US Navy Sacramento AOEs has
2 x 20 mm Phalanx CIWS
2 x ESSM launchers with 8 missiles each
The current AOEs should be similarly armed...but I would add 2 x RAM launchers as well.
And, please, let's not even get into the foolish decision to start retiring the Supply Class vessels early.
The Kaiser Class replenishment tankers (16 of them at 32,000 tons) and the Lewis and Clark replenishment ships (14 at 45,000 tons) can restock the carrier groups, but they have to slow down to 20 knots to do so. They are USNS vessels and are also (outside of mounts for .50 cal MGs) basically unarmed. Foolish.
The US Navy will get this particularl issue back under control, but it is going to have to have an administration committed to the upkeep of the Navy and an understanding of loogistical requirements to do so.
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Okay, well the current 32,000t Fort Victoria class has 2 Phalanx and 2 20mm Bofors cannons. The current 27,500t Deepak class has 4x 630s. The current 20,000t Berlin class has 4 27mm autocannons and MANPADS. And so on with lesser tonnage ships; as you go smaller in tonnage, you get lesser weapons. They are by no means all "lightly-armed". They are armed appropriately for their size, except as I noted the 901 class for probably cost reasons, and the Supply class for reasons of both cost and for civilian operations.
I don't think we can really count MANPADS as standard armament unless they are regularly mounted on fixed emplacements (which isn't the case in the Berlin class, I believe); and the 20/23k ton 903/A is armed with 4 autocannon mounts as well. The French Durance class has a 40mm Bofors and two 20mm Oelirkons.
The Deepak class are fairly well armed for their size, and the Fort Victoria class are decent as well.
But then there are ships like those which the JMSDF have, the Towada and Mashu class which to my knowledge are not regularly armed with any fixed weapons emplacements at all.
(All the above ships obviously can be armed with machine guns, but they're not fixed ship armaments in the way that we're talking about)
In the 901's case, if they are only equipped with 4 AK630s then I would consider that slightly on the low side, however I also strongly expect the forward platform to be equipped with a weapon as well; like a 76mm gun. If such additional armament exists then I think its armament would be quite consumerate with its displacement.
So I think it's quite reasonable to say that most AORs are relatively poorly equipped for self defence against aerial or missile threats; few are equipped with CIWS as standard, and most only have autocannons, and almost none have fixed CIWS SAM mounts like RAM of HHQ-10 equivalents.
So in the case of 901 class, an all gun armament even with "only AK630" as its primary CIWS, would not be too far from the expected norm.
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edit: the area of discussion for me was never really about the heft of mere "armament" on the 901 and other AORs/AOEs, but rather ciws capability, and I assume the subsequent discussion was talking about the relevant ciws armament of various replenishment ships. So I think a case can be made that quite a number of replenishment ships in many navies have relatively poor ciws capability, and 901 with "only" four AK630s (likely with an additional gun of some kind on the bow platform) won't really be diverging from the norm too much, its larger displacement notwithstanding. The most viable counter would be to say that the 28k ton Deepak class is armed with four AK630s as well which is the same CIWS armament as 901 class, but on average compared to the armament of other slightly smaller replenishment ships of other navies (many of which have autocannon armament, not CIWS armament), the 901's armament/tonnage is not too divergent from what we'd expect.
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