054B/next generation frigate

foxmulder said:

How did you manage to turn a weakness of EU/Western navies into smt that sounding like a strength? These navies had no or very few destroyers so they really try to give destroyer roles to their smaller frigates.

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@sndef888

Remember that the Type-26 ships are actually bigger than the Type-052D destroyers that China has in service.
Some variants are even larger than Arleigh Burke destroyers.

Significantly, the costs for different Type-26 variants are listed as $1.6 Billion, $2.9 Billion and $3.9 Billion each. That's insane.

Anyway, back on topic

AndrewS said:

Some variants are even larger and have more VLS cells than Arleigh Burke destroyers.

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The largest cell count for any frigate in service is 56, designed - 64; furthermore, almost universally smaller AA cells form majority of the overall number.
At least as of 2020, destroyers and heavy frigates are still quite distinguishable, and, going by what can be expected from a frigate in AAW and ASuW - well within reasonable reach of 054a.

sndef888 said:

That's kind of the issue. Sure, it's quite bit better asw for double the cost, but it has to basically hide behind a destroyer or land support just like an 056 has to. It can't really perform independent operations like how a constellation class or european frigates can

The lack of a quadpacked midrange missile is a really huge disadvantage for China. There are a crapton of frigates from 5eyes/europe/japan/korea with 32 MK41s that can fit 24 SM2s and 32 ESSMs while the 054A can only fit ~24 mid range missiles

China can't exactly send a 052D after every such frigate. It needs a new frigate that can deal with them

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A few things:

1. Remember that 054A displaces 4000 tons, and is supported by a large and growing fleet of 052C/Ds and 055s. The European frigates displace 6000 tons, with much smaller fleets of 7000-8000 ton destroyers in absolute terms. Naval procurement is not a matter of procuring "like for like" -- the types of ships you buy, the the number of ships that you buy per type, is a reflection of the naval strategy you have and the size of your navy. Sure, a FREMM is more capable than an 054A, but it is also 2000 tons heavier, and purchased in much smaller numbers (especially from a per navy standpoint), and none of the navies buying them have anywhere the number of destroyers that the PLAN has.
2. It's the 21st century. Navies and military forces do not "deal" with hostile foreign surface combatants by sending an equivalent surface combatant of their own. The way you describe it, makes it seem like these ships as if they are "one versus one deathmatches," rather than seeing these ships as only components of a system of systems, where the battle they wage will be one system of systems versus a hostile system of systems.
3. 054As has 32 VLS for HQ-16, not 24. I assume in this case you are maybe allocating 8 of the 054A's VLS to the Yu-8 or something, but if you are not, then this is a pretty elementary mistake to make.
4. A quad packed midrange SAM is in development, and will be compatible with the UVLS. If it isn't compatible with 054A's AJK-16 VLS, then that's just something they'll have to deal with and is a reflection of the fact that when 054A was first designed, the UVLS was not available. However, the HQ-16 missile itself is of sufficient size and in sufficient numbers that upgrades to it will almost certainly emerge, and likely make it more than just a medium range SAM simply by virtue of its size.
5. You get what you pay for. Based on insiders, we know that 054A costs about $230 million USD, 052D costs about $540 million USD, 055 costs $930 million USD. Compare that to some of the publicly known costs costs of FREMM ($713 million USD, Constellation $795 million USD), or Type 26 (1.7 billion USD) and you begin to see that 054A costs a third to a quarter of the frigates you described -- to such a degree that even an 052D is cheaper than one of those frigates. In that context, is it really reasonable to compare 054A with a FREMM, Constellation, or Type 26? Wouldn't it make more sense to compare 054B with them, or even 052D?


In short, you say that an 054A can't do all of the same missions as a FREMM, Constellation etc -- but it's 1/3 of the cost, and 2000 tons smaller in displacement (aka 2/3 the total displacement, or less!) of many of those frigates..... so what do you expect?
If anything looking at what 054A can do, for the cost and the size of it, it seems like a pretty darn good deal.

Bltizo said:

A few things:

1. Remember that 054A displaces 4000 tons, and is supported by a large and growing fleet of 052C/Ds and 055s. The European frigates displace 6000 tons, with much smaller fleets of 7000-8000 ton destroyers in absolute terms. Naval procurement is not a matter of procuring "like for like" -- the types of ships you buy, the the number of ships that you buy per type, is a reflection of the naval strategy you have and the size of your navy. Sure, a FREMM is more capable than an 054A, but it is also 2000 tons heavier, and purchased in much smaller numbers (especially from a per navy standpoint), and none of the navies buying them have anywhere the number of destroyers that the PLAN has.
2. It's the 21st century. Navies and military forces do not "deal" with hostile foreign surface combatants by sending an equivalent surface combatant of their own. The way you describe it, makes it seem like these ships as if they are "one versus one deathmatches," rather than seeing these ships as only components of a system of systems, where the battle they wage will be one system of systems versus a hostile system of systems.
3. 054As has 32 VLS for HQ-16, not 24. I assume in this case you are maybe allocating 8 of the 054A's VLS to the Yu-8 or something, but if you are not, then this is a pretty elementary mistake to make.
4. A quad packed midrange SAM is in development, and will be compatible with the UVLS. If it isn't compatible with 054A's AJK-16 VLS, then that's just something they'll have to deal with and is a reflection of the fact that when 054A was first designed, the UVLS was not available. However, the HQ-16 missile itself is of sufficient size and in sufficient numbers that upgrades to it will almost certainly emerge, and likely make it more than just a medium range SAM simply by virtue of its size.
5. You get what you pay for. Based on insiders, we know that 054A costs about $230 million USD, 052D costs about $540 million USD, 055 costs $930 million USD. Compare that to some of the publicly known costs costs of FREMM ($713 million USD, Constellation $795 million USD), or Type 26 (1.7 billion USD) and you begin to see that 054A costs a third to a quarter of the frigates you described -- to such a degree that even an 052D is cheaper than one of those frigates. In that context, is it really reasonable to compare 054A with a FREMM, Constellation, or Type 26? Wouldn't it make more sense to compare 054B with them, or even 052D?


In short, you say that an 054A can't do all of the same missions as a FREMM, Constellation etc -- but it's 1/3 of the cost, and 2000 tons smaller in displacement (aka 2/3 the total displacement, or less!) of many of those frigates..... so what do you expect?
If anything looking at what 054A can do, for the cost and the size of it, it seems like a pretty darn good deal.

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It was not my intention to directly compare the 054A with the UK/AUS/Can/European frigates, only to point out there is still a pretty huge threat from Western navies even outside the Arleigh Burkes/aegis destroyers

I am not advocating for the 054B to have similar air defence to the 24 SM2s and 32 ESSMs of those frigates, only that we should be fast tracking the 054B, ideally with a slightly increased missile load (32x SAM, 8x ASW for example) + HQ-10s as they would be more survivable than the existing design and be a decent step toward more independent operations

Because China needs every advantage it can get to deal with the 70 odd Arleigh Burkes and 50-60 very capable frigates in the pipeline (10-20 years) from other western powers, and every 054A means ~200 more crew and ~200 million that could be better used on a 054B with vastly higher upgrade potential (if IEP/UVLS is used)

sndef888 said:

It was not my intention to directly compare the 054A with the UK/AUS/Can/European frigates, only to point out there is still a pretty huge threat from Western navies even outside the Arleigh Burkes/aegis destroyers

I am not advocating for the 054B to have similar air defence to the 24 SM2s and 32 ESSMs of those frigates, only that we should be fast tracking the 054B, ideally with a slightly increased missile load (32x SAM, 8x ASW rocket for a total of 40 for example) + HQ-10s as they would be more survivable than the existing design and be a decent step toward more independent operations

Because China needs every advantage it can get to deal with the 70 odd Arleigh Burkes and 50-60 very capable frigates in the pipeline (10-20 years) from other western powers, and every 054A means ~200 more crew and ~200 million that could be better used on a 054B with vastly higher upgrade potential (if IEP/UVLS is used)

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This entire chain of discussion began with you saying "Just my opinion but I feel they should not build so many 054As. It's not really that survivable nowadays with only 24-32 mid range SAMs. If we treat it simply as an ASW platform as many here have said, it feels like more 056s would be more cost effective"

Then you followed it up with comparisons with other frigates.

In the multiple posts that you've written previously, nowhere did you say that 054B should be fast tracked -- what you instead wrote was that you didn't like that they were still building additional 054As and that you believed they were inappropriate for the PLAN.


If you want to take back what you said, then that's fine, but your previous posts (#181, #212, #215) did not mention anything about accelerating 054Bs.


Regardless of what you meant to write before, I hope my posts have demonstrated that there is indeed a role for a large fleet of 054As in the PLAN going forwards.

Bltizo said:

This entire chain of discussion began with you saying "Just my opinion but I feel they should not build so many 054As. It's not really that survivable nowadays with only 24-32 mid range SAMs. If we treat it simply as an ASW platform as many here have said, it feels like more 056s would be more cost effective"

Then you followed it up with comparisons with other frigates.

In the multiple posts that you've written previously, nowhere did you say that 054B should be fast tracked -- what you instead wrote was that you didn't like that they were still building additional 054As and that you believed they were inappropriate for the PLAN.


If you want to take back what you said, then that's fine, but your previous posts (#181, #212, #215) did not mention anything about accelerating 054Bs.


Regardless of what you meant to write before, I hope my posts have demonstrated that there is indeed a role for a large fleet of 054As in the PLAN going forwards.

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Well, that was the gist of what I was trying to say. I guess I just didn't sound it out clear enough. To me, to stop the 054A means to concentrate on the 054B, and the reason is that I felt the 054A was not survivable enough in the face of the numerous new western frigates

I guess we can agree to disagree, I personally still feel that additional 054A are not worth the resources it would take away from the 054B

sndef888 said:

Well, that was the gist of what I was trying to say. I guess I just didn't sound it out clear enough. To me, to stop the 054A means to concentrate on the 054B, and the reason is that I felt the 054A was not survivable enough in the face of the numerous new western frigates

I guess we can agree to disagree, I personally still feel that additional 054A are not worth the resources it would take away from the 054B

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I don't think frigates are going mano o mano against each other.

Questions should be framed in a more specific way, such as:

Can the Type 054A air defenses successfully deal with NSM? LRSM? Exocet? Harpoon? Brahmos? Klub (fired from Vietnamese Kilos)? Hsiung Feng II? Hsiung Feng III? Korea and Japanese ASMs?

Can a Western frigate, such as a Sachsen class, or Type 26, or a FREMM, survive an attack from a flight of H-6 "Flying Death Sentence" armed with YJ-12s?

sndef888 said:

I am not advocating for the 054B to have similar air defence to the 24 SM2s and 32 ESSMs of those frigates, only that we should be fast tracking the 054B, ideally with a slightly increased missile load (32x SAM, 8x ASW for example) + HQ-10s as they would be more survivable than the existing design and be a decent step toward more independent operations

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Irony #1: it is quite likely that even original 054A will have an outfit you've just described(24 LR+32 MR). AJK-16 cell is quite big, so it's probably more of FCS problem(as well as a problem of purpose of such a loadout on a GP frigate).
Irony #2: 25% increase in missile load you've described doesn't change anything in the capability list of the ship - i.e. variety of missions you can assign to it. Will make it larger and more expensive, though.

Cell count is a method, not a go-to length measuring parameter.

sndef888 said:

Well, that was the gist of what I was trying to say. I guess I just didn't sound it out clear enough. To me, to stop the 054A means to concentrate on the 054B, and the reason is that I felt the 054A was not survivable enough in the face of the numerous new western frigates

I guess we can agree to disagree, I personally still feel that additional 054A are not worth the resources it would take away from the 054B

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My opinion is that, before 054B is a proven platform, you can't just mass produce it right away. It will take several years. So, why not just keep building 054A? It's still very useful.

blindsight said:

My opinion is that, before 054B is a proven platform, you can't just mass produce it right away. It will take several years. So, why not just keep building 054A? It's still very useful.

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I think they will produce a whole bunch anyway around 4 or 8.