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I have asked for empirical data if there is any to back up the claims. If there is none, then they remain assertions.
055 DDG Large Destroyer Thread
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Of course these are calculated assertions. You are asking for the kind of data that is classified from both sides as proof, which is impossible. But something like volume amortization happens to be a fundamental basic of the electronics industry.
Let's say it took you $100 million for R/D to develop this chip. To produce one chip, along with hardware, manufacturing cost and corporate costs, this single chip would be upward of $100 billion, since this entire single chip has to pay for the R/D cost. Build ten of these chips, the R/D cost is divided into ten, for $10 million each. A hundred chips puts the cost down to $1 million each. 10,000 of these chips reduces this cost to $10,000 each, and 100,000 of these chips reduces the cost to $1000 each. At some point the R/D cost is reduced so the greater fraction of the unit cost becomes material, manufacturing, marketing, shipping and administrative cost, all of which are also volume amortized.
So let's say, we have an unknown, an X cost, in the R/D developing the T/R module for the Type 346. As I mentioned, there are over 5,000 T/Rs per face, and four faces that makes it over 20,000 T/Rs. But as I also mentioned, they are using a QTRM, so four T/Rs per module, and that means around 5,000 modules per ship. Then you multiply that with every 052C/D that is now in service, being fitted and produced, + every 055 being produced, both now and the future. The more of these ships are made, the more of these radars are made, the cost curve for each module drops and so does the cost of the radars. Even if later ships have improved modules from the original design, the R/D cost for these improvements would be small and minor compared when designing the device itself from scratch. You can further amortize the cost of these modules if they are used on the 052E and 054B for instance. Now compare this scale of production with those for any other navy in the planet.
What's the cost of the R/D in China? We don't know exactly but the cost of salaries there are still much cheaper than in the US. With the IP copying that the US is so furious about on China, the R/D costs are even lower and less licensing costs are also paid. With China having its own foundries, being the dominant global producer of refined Gallium and Yttrium, there goes your materials and manufacturing costs. For all other human related costs, that's going to be reflected from the cost of living --- rental and housing expenses, cost of power and water, food, medical, etc,. All of which are also lower in China than the US but both are also rising. The fixed costs will be amortized with higher production, which also in turn allows manufacturing costs to lower.
It might be said that its possible that the X-band set on the mast of the 055 might be more expensive than the main set of 346B, because it is a brand new design, and its hard to say how much R/D is shared with similar X-band modules used on the J-20, J-10C, J-16, and J-11D radars. The costs of these radars are going to be front loaded until enough of them are built to amortize the cost.
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antiterror13
Brigadier
he may ask you to provide empirical data ... just for the sake of posting without any contributions to this forum 
Where’s your empirical data that ships are 1/3 hardware cost and 2/3 software? If what you’re asserting is true, based on US software engineer wages, it’s pretty straightforward to look up the average Chinese software engineer wage and adjust what your projected cost would be based on the difference between the two. Similarly, you can do a rough guesstimate of margins of defense contractor by looking up the profit margin of whichever defense firm is supplying the US ships, going down to the specific division that builds the ships if the financial reporting at that level exists, and compare that to the known margin cap for the Chinese defense industry (which I know for sure was posted somewhere in this forum at some point and may also be posted somewhere on Henri K’s EastPendulum site). These are all readily testable claims that you can figure out and find the data for on your own time. Pretty sure you don’t need others to hand hold you through it if you *really* want to show the point up.
"Somewhat problematic" is a huge understatement and it's not about "cutting corners" to "bring the cost down"
The development programme cost a huge $22Billion, which is not "cutting corners" by any stretch of imagination. The issue is that the design philosophy of the Zumwalt (littoral land attack) was flawed and that it tried to use a whole bunch of new and immature technologies, some of which simply do not work.
That money was supposed to deliver an up-to-date successor to the Arleigh Burke / Ticonderoga classes, but failed to produce a design that the US Navy wanted to build and use in large numbers.
So we can rightly call the Zumwalt programme a disaster in that most of that money was wasted just to bring 3 ships into service, and which also meant the US Navy had to go back to Arleigh Burke production.
The AEGIS costs for Japan are publicly available.
The AEGIS ashore cost for Japan is about $1000M in 2019
Japan paid $510M for AEGIS sets for the Kongo-class in 1988
And we can also see that Russian costs are a lot lower.
Eg. the latest S-400 battery is about $500M whereas a Patriot Pac-2 battery costs $1000M and THAAD $3000M. Yet the S-400 is supposedly superior to both of these. And don't forget that an AEGIS ashore is $1000M
Given that China has a much larger (and commercially competitive) electronics sector than Russia, we should expect military AESA/AEGIS costs in China to be lower than Russia, which is much lower cost than the USA.
References below.
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The design philosophy was not really flawed at all. Remember, the whole idea was to replace the Iowas and provide naval fire support (NSFS) with good accuracy and cost attributes. Then, VAGS was cancelled (replaced with AGS) and eventually LRLAP was also cancelled. The same thing happened with the ERGM and BTERM programs for the Burke. The whole thing simply became too expensive to develop properly, and started to aggressively take funds from other programs, and that is when the USN pulled the plug. As a concept, vertical gun or railgun based NSFS is still very valid, albeit it is now seen as a wanted component for large surface combatants, not as a base for a distinct platform (like arsenal and NSFS ships).
Have in mind that the Zumwalt was not ever designed to replace the Burkes and the Ticos. CG-21 and DD-21 were, and they were cancelled and reworked via the SC21 program as DD(X) and CG(X). By that time, the whole thing was pretty much done for.
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That philosophy is based on the prediction of USN back then that after USSR collapse, there will be no Navy in the world in the foreseeable future who can keep USN fleet off their coast of 300/400km, so a WWII kind of battleship (albeit fancy one) can bombard the shore with impunity.
Is it flawed? Yes, as none of those predictions ever materialized in the next two decades. Or it would be a "No" if China somehow for some reason collapsed just like USSR.
If we take away the unpleasant word like "flawed, wrong" etc. you would have reached the same conclusion as AndrewS.
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