Good points on possible designation changes, the need for continued job creation, and possible surge orders for contingency planning.
While the PLAN may well decide to give an IEPS 052 a new class number, we need to remember that China has already been running IEPS on large coast guard cutters for years now.
While it does make sense to suggest that China build a test class before committing to mass production, I am not sure if that is still relavent, since China has not done a similar test phase since the the 052C if memory servers. Even with the 055, the initial build was 4 units at 2 shipyards.
It seems that Chinese naval shipbuilding has reached a point where the PLAN is so confident with the shipyard’s design capabilities that they seem happy to go straight to mass production right off the bat.
Given that the basic 052C/D hull is pretty much as mature as it can be; the Chinese should already have worked out most of the basics of IEPS on its coast guard cutter, and the PLAN ‘new normal’ of going straight to mass production with new ship types, well, I don’t think a serial production IEPS 052C/D based design is that far fetched.
It could well be that the first batch will only have IEPS, with conventional main guns; and that rail guns will only be added to subsequent batches, after the PLAN has verified that IEPS works as expected on a DDG class warship. I think that would be considered conservative by modern PLAN standards.
Do you have any info on the large Chinese cutters running on IEPS? I am very curious.
