Re: Ideal Chinese Navy
Let me revive this thread a little bit.
Ideal Chinese navy? I propose (among other things) the following:
Scrap the destroyer/frigate blue water combo. Scrap any kind of hi/low mix for blue water operations. Instead, design a single class of ships, somewhat modular in nature, of decent dimensions, (150m length, 8000 tons) which would be built in vast numbers. For example, whereas usual destroyer/frigate mix might number 25 destroyers and 50 frigates, i propose 50-60 of such destroyer sized ships.
Key is to move away from individual units being built by shipyards but to try to approach the oldfashioned factory manufacturing line as much as possible. Use the recent british model of prefabricated sections as a starting point and go with it an extra mile or so. Cut the ship in even more sections and have 'shipyard' work on just that one section, for all 50-60 units. It would be important to have relatively small sections, so they could be handled inside a factory hall.
When done, all the prefab sections of one unit would be shipped to assembly plant, a true shipyard if you will, where they'd be assembled into one hull, before pushed into sea. I believe such a process would increase quality control, speed up production and, over such a large number of units, lower the unit price. Lets face it, if you want to build 50 or so new destroyers, one usually needs decades. The mentioned process could, though it would require large initial investment, cut that time in half, easely, while lowering the price. In such 'production line' approach, it would simply be inefficient not to keep line moving and producing at all time.
About the ship itself: (though that's less important, as this would obviously be after the 2015-2020 timeframe, so tech level used in PLAN ships would be impossibe to predict)
Minimize the amount of fixed superstructure. Yes, engine funnel is a must, and its position must be predetermined to make the design more efficient, but otherwise try to make the ship a collection of big building blocks, as much as possible. So, not only do we have prefab sections of the hull that would be joined and set in stone, but we'd have prefab sections of superstructures that could be mixed and matched for various needs, and modernized accordingly.
Of course, that'd require a very complex system of ballasts in the hull itself to provide compensation for probable future changes of superstructure and equipment, but it's perfectly doable. What sort of mix and matching am i talking about? Well, make the helipad one building block. Offer options for a smaller single helohangar or a bigger, double one. Offer single or double sensor masts, in various sizes. Offer various sizes of command bridge sections, etc. Naturally, weapons fit would be VERY customizable. Two 155mm guns on deck? No problem. No big guns at all but bunch of VLS cells? No problem. Do you want one ciws or eight with that?
Of course, one should have some smaller combat ships, too. Instead of some tiny frigates or large FACs, i propose a regular sized corvette, optimized for high seas (trimaran design maybe?) but not meant to actually spend a lot of time at sea. It would not be equipped for carrying lots of fuel nor lots of supplies. Instead, it mission profile would include quick dashes into open seas, even hundreds of km from coast, striking, then returning home for replenishment. Now, that does sound like just a large FAC, but why not make it just one of possibilities?
Make them with same prefab building block process as larger ships, make them customizable. Whereas those larger ships might need months to be refitted for a different role, these smaller ones could probably be reconfigured within weeks, even days if one just wants to change weaponry/sensors. Naturally, every combination should be tested and certified beforehand. In the end, one very well could have some of the smaller vessels fit a traditional coast (or even ocean) patrol boat roles.
Yeah, yeah, i'm not proposing anything new here, but i am calling for going several steps further and approach shipbuilding from a different perspective, turning it into a manufacture of various interchangable components, all done on a scale as large as possible, to speed up production and lower the costs.
