055 DDG Large Destroyer Thread

[Blitzo]

TBH I'm not sure how you could have interpreted me saying "meh" to those subsystems you mentioned as anything other than me drawing a conclusion about their perceived advancements.

You're generally quite good about differentiating between speculated advancements vs advancements which we know will happen.
I thought you would not so confidently write "meh" about advancements if you were talking about hypothetical advancements resulting from your own speculation or guesstimation , so I assumed that you were saying "meh" about any advancements in software/datalinks/combat management/command+control capabilities in general, towards a ship's warfighting capabilities.

Umm, yes these advancements DID exist before the 055's production. We AREN'T debating whether they existed before the 055's production or even before the 052D's production. I have been arguing that this is in fact the case this entire time as a key point. We ARE debating whether the OP believed these advancements existed before the 052D's introduction, and by a straight reading this is clearly NOT the correct interpretation, especially because words like "fruition" were being applied to the 055's construction. You don't use "fruition" if the actual time of "fruition" was actually 5 blooming years ago during the 052D's introduction, you use because you believe these technologies are fruiting NOW, during or just before the 055's production. Taking SanWenYu's statement that subotai responded to for context, this is clearly what is going on.

"Agreed. It could also be indicating that the Chinese naval shipbuilding industry is maturing and, more importantly, most if not all components of 055 have met PLAN's satisfaction."

"There is another aspect to this which is hard to prove, but could also make big changes to what we are seeing. That is the use of super computers, modeling and simulation. China has been pouring massive money into this space for decades and we could be seeing the fruition of this as a large amount of one design come out, showing confidence in the model. Historically, China would done one or two of a physical design, learn from the real world, change and iterate in new versions."

I don't see how either of those statements suggest that he believes that those advancements didn't exist during 052D's production. I don't see any reference to 052D at all.
Clearly 052D is not a ship that only "one or two" of a physical design was built (in fact the last class of Chinese destroyer that could have be described as having done that that would be the first two 052Cs) -- it is a ship class that has been mass produced in large numbers, yet it is also an iterative design.

He's saying 055's manner of production that we see, is reflective of being enabled by advancements in computing/modelling/design. Such a statement does not mean he's saying those advancements didn't exist during 052D's design/development/production process -- in fact he doesn't mention 052D at all -- only that the use of those advancements are on more prominent display when looking at 055's manner of production.

Yes, I'm glad you agree it's a term you fabricated. But why would a context of "overall rate of production" be "illogical"? This makes absolutely no sense to me. Overall rate of production is easily influenced if not more by design and production advancements as some kind of "initial" rate of production, a term and concept which is not natural to any discussion of ship production. If it is, where you have heard this concept discussed before prior to your introduction of it in this very thread? This is possibly THE most artificial concept you have brought up yet to try and weave your twists of logic to win your arguments. Please point me to any ship production online article or discussion which distinguishes between "initial" rate of production as some kind of separate entity from "overall" rate of production, and who else in the world cares about the former more than the latter.

... Well, this whole time the thing I've been interested in has been the 055's initial rate of production, under the larger umbrella of the 055s initial manner of production.

The entire point of subotai's post is dependent on the fact that 055's initial manner of production -- i.e.: being a new clean sheet design that is being produced at a high rate from the outset, reflecting confidence in their advancements of computing/modelling/design etc.
We are not talking about their advancements in general production and design, but rather computing/modelling/design -- which subotai writes as:

"And when I say modeling I mean taking a finished design of something and subjecting it to our "model" of the physical world to see how it behaves. In this case that would mean take that design of the ship with all of its physical characteristics including the material used and where, the tensile characteristics of the materials, the engine output, projected loadout and much much more and then subject that to the model of the oceans and waves. Doing this would show where things break, work and perform and where they don't. You can do the same with the ship in combat scenarios. Add in the super-computing aspect of this and now you can do this simulation millions of times with different parameters (material type, engine size, different length, etc) and compare for which parameters show the best output."
https://www.sinodefenceforum.com/type-055-ddg-large-destroyer-thread.t6480/page-268#post-438203

Clearly what he is talking about is modelling/simulating the characteristics of a ship's design using computing, to test many of the ship's characteristics in such a way which gives you more confidence in your design (confidence, that in years/decades before these advancements were available would have needed more real world testing of the design), meaning you then have the confidence to produce them at a high rate from the outset, and so naturally initial rate of production is the most relevant metric to look at!

The overall rate of production is not a particularly relevant metric for what he is talking about, especially compared to initial rate of production/outset of production.

If you think I'm being too specific -- well that's because subotai's argument about advancements made, to begin with, was very specific.

Well, it's all about the confidence, you said. If this poster is correct regarding what his PLAN officer dinner buddies are saying, the conclusion that comes from using ALL four initial ships essentially as test beds for gradual improvements to the class speak somewhat less to some kind of effusive confidence about the 055's design and more to PLAN's cautious traditional stepwise approach to design. This makes it FAR less likely that XYZABCDEFG of your "advancements" will be present on any given ship in the initial batch. More like XYZ. Or maybe just XY. Or maybe even just X.

Uh, yes, confidence in their computing/modelling/etc advancements is reflected in their willingness to leap into a high rate of initial production for a new design at two shipyards.

We've known for a long time that there will likely be enhanced 055 variants with more enhanced capabilities beyond the first baseline 055 variant, and it's been heavily speculated that more advanced variants will be produced in larger numbers than the first baseline 055 variant in coming years. What the military officers said in nethappy's correspondence is not anything new to us.
I don't see how this contradicts my previous statement about confidence in their computing/modelling

 

[Blitzo]

Has there been new photos of the 055 construction ? i think its been awhile since we got the first ones.

I think it's been a month or so since we got the last pictures of 055 at JNCX taken from the ground.

But we've got very good satellite photos of 055 at JNCX taken in December and November

 

[latenlazy]

OMG, are you even serious here? You are now reduced to this kind of argumentative spindoctoring inanity to avoid the obvious??? I'm not even going to indulge this here. If you are willing to resort to this kind of senselessness, it's no longer worth it to further argue this point with you. Welcome to a new low.

It isn't spin doctoring. Again, I point to the difference between the MK41 and MK57. They are of the same standard, but not the same model. You were the one clamoring about evidence earlier, so if you have evidence or reasoning that I am wrong, that we in fact *do* know the standard VLS is specifically the 052D's VLS and not just any VLS built to the GJB 5860-2006 standard, of which the 052D's was one, then I welcome it.

No thanks, man. It's going to take more time to do this than I care to tonight, and I am absolutely not going to do something that takes me a lot of time and takes you a few flippant seconds to dismiss with a wave of your hand and a few strokes of your keyboard.

Funny, you've done a lot of flippant hand waving yourself (because that's what questioning someone's motives and calling their arguments "spin" is). I spent quite some time reviewing what we actually knew about the 052D's VLS, and digging up pictures of the 055's MFR slot myself. My replies, like yours, take time to compose, so I would appreciate it if you don't indulge yourself with the pretentious entitlement that your time is being wasted.

If you haven't actually done the measurements, perhaps you should be more modest about your attitude and your assertions. Unfounded confidence usually isn't a great way to have a constructive debate.

I guess you just ignored my latest response? Did you just somehow miss an entire paragraph where I was talking about ECM? Did you forget a previous response from me to you listing multiple other possibilities for those slots? Regardless of what they are, "3 radar arrays" on the main mast are an absolute non-starter as a speculation. My point is that my speculations are reasonable and well within the bounds of the obvious and expected, whereas your speculations have absolutely no basis in previous evidence or even previous speculation.

I did not ignore your latest response. I was pointing out that your fixation on me calling those slots "radar" slots missed the broader point of my argument. You chose to nitpick at an offhand description while ignoring the actual contention (which was that we don't know what goes into those slots so we actually can't say what the ship's electronic's capabilities are, given that usually a modern naval ship's electronics capabilities are an integrated system and not determined by the sum of piecemeal equipment).

It's funny that you keep framing this discussion as my speculation vs your speculation, because my original point wasn't to assert my own speculations for the ship's equipment and capabilities so much as to point out that we have just as much reasonable basis for uncertainty behind the speculations you seem so confident about as the ones you seem to be arguing against. I was not making a binary argument.

Instead of engaging with the actual reasons I've presented though, in most cases you seem to settle on a presumption of your own superiority, blind and personal accusations about my motivation, and pure condescension and disregard as appropriate responses. Those are not substantive arguments as much as projections of your own ego. You can afford to have a more modest attitude here, because I can assure you that you aren't going to be walking away with a Nobel prize for smartest person in the world just for being right. (And before you accuse me of breaking decorum, recall that *you* were the one taking potshots at my motivations first).

 

[nethappyg4]

TBH honest we don't really know what going happen till the ship been complete as it really depend on completion of different system, sub-system and software.... etc. One of the main reason why the PLAN keep building ABCD is also to test different setting, system as well as gaining more experience not just ship building but also in operation and tactic.

 

[nethappyg4]

Although this has nothing to do with the 055 another interesting point that the officer mentioned was that the PLAN is lacking in operational tactical and experience compare to the west and they have less partners to do training with. So having ship with different level of system and weapon arrangement actually help them a lot during war game and simulation. They did said more but I couldn't understand all of it my mando isn't all the best and some of it hard to translate.

 

[Mirabo]

Has there been new photos of the 055 construction ? i think its been awhile since we got the first ones.

You're in luck.

Speculated to be the modules of TWO Type 055's at Dalian:

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Dated 10 February. Yeesh, I really have to look harder for these.

EDIT: Big Cat in the same thread mentioned that construction of Type 002 has started about two months ago, but this is unconfirmed. I'll also try and photoshop these two images above to try and make the modules more discernible.

 

[Jura The idiot]

... I'll also try and photoshop these two images above to try and make the modules more discernible.

well, this would be helpful to me (I guess the rest of people posting in this thread knows where the modules are, but I don't have the slightest idea

 

[Zool]

It been years seem I post here. Anyway I was chatting some guy in Shanghai China over dinner last week some of them were military officers. A interesting thing they said was there already plan for more then one version of 055 and like the 052D until they prefect the design they are not going to start massive building. We shouldn't be expecting a lot of new tech on the frist few 055 but for A B C D or whatever there should be new stuff added and tested each each time.

I think most people expected this to be the case. For example, I along with many others, believed the initial order of Type 055 would be one or two hulls to sea trial the new design and systems. Followed by another one or two hulls with a change to IEP in a 055A variant. After that I personally expected mass production/adoption, where some others only believed a handful of Type 055 would be built to serve as command ships for SAGs and the CBGs.

What we seem to see now is a higher priority given to the overall program in getting hulls built and a much larger overall initial batch order than expected. I think its also a good initial indication that we will indeed see many Type 055 vessels inducted into the PLAN, rather than a handful of Command Ships. In the next 2-5 years we will know for sure, at this rate.

 

[Mirabo]

 

[Iron Man]

You're generally quite good about differentiating between speculated advancements vs advancements which we know will happen.
I thought you would not so confidently write "meh" about advancements if you were talking about hypothetical advancements resulting from your own speculation or guesstimation , so I assumed that you were saying "meh" about any advancements in software/datalinks/combat management/command+control capabilities in general, towards a ship's warfighting capabilities.

They are really the same things in this case since none of us here on SDF know anything of the extent or even nature of any potential advancements in the areas you mentioned, so speculating about contributions of one or a combination of any of these subsystems to a ship's overall warfighting capabilities necessitates random uninformed speculation about each one's potential contribution.

I don't see how either of those statements suggest that he believes that those advancements didn't exist during 052D's production. I don't see any reference to 052D at all.
Clearly 052D is not a ship that only "one or two" of a physical design was built (in fact the last class of Chinese destroyer that could have be described as having done that that would be the first two 052Cs) -- it is a ship class that has been mass produced in large numbers, yet it is also an iterative design.

No need to make any reference to the 052D at all, because I have no doubt it wasn't even on his mind when he made the statement. This does not matter at all since it is obvious his "fruition" of technologies statement is being applied SPECIFICALLY to the advent of the 055, and thus by implication NOT to anything earlier (like the 052D). Things didn't fruit for the 052D 5 years ago and all of a sudden you're talking about their "fruition" now while gushing about the 055; talk about doing violence to the plain meaning of a statement. Things don't "fruit" now and somehow give you benefits 5 years before it fruits. I have no idea why you try to belabor this issue when it is so obvious what he was saying. As for the comment about the "one or two", the stronger the case that you try make for the 052D to be a minimal-change descendent of the 052C in your effort to front that the 3-ship production of the 055 is such a bigger deal than the 3-ship production of the 052D, the less you have any kind of point here, where the one or two could easily be accounted for by the production of the initial 052C pair in 2006 where most of the technologies validated for the 052C were also validated for the later 052D, thus no need for "one or two" 052Ds because their near-identical forebears the 052Cs had already gone through this trial.

He's saying 055's manner of production that we see, is reflective of being enabled by advancements in computing/modelling/design. Such a statement does not mean he's saying those advancements didn't exist during 052D's design/development/production process -- in fact he doesn't mention 052D at all -- only that the use of those advancements are on more prominent display when looking at 055's manner of production.

Your very response betrays you here. How can the 055 be a "more" prominent display of advanced technologies when you claim that he wasn't even thinking about the 052D? "More" invariably involves a comparison to something else, i.e. 055 to 052D. Your thinking is clearly going around in circles here. Either he wasn't making any comparison or reference to the 052D at all, or he WAS. So which is it? You can't have both even though you're trying for both.

... Well, this whole time the thing I've been interested in has been the 055's initial rate of production, under the larger umbrella of the 055s initial manner of production.

The entire point of subotai's post is dependent on the fact that 055's initial manner of production -- i.e.: being a new clean sheet design that is being produced at a high rate from the outset, reflecting confidence in their advancements of computing/modelling/design etc.
We are not talking about their advancements in general production and design, but rather computing/modelling/design -- which subotai writes as:

"And when I say modeling I mean taking a finished design of something and subjecting it to our "model" of the physical world to see how it behaves. In this case that would mean take that design of the ship with all of its physical characteristics including the material used and where, the tensile characteristics of the materials, the engine output, projected loadout and much much more and then subject that to the model of the oceans and waves. Doing this would show where things break, work and perform and where they don't. You can do the same with the ship in combat scenarios. Add in the super-computing aspect of this and now you can do this simulation millions of times with different parameters (material type, engine size, different length, etc) and compare for which parameters show the best output."
https://www.sinodefenceforum.com/type-055-ddg-large-destroyer-thread.t6480/page-268#post-438203

Clearly what he is talking about is modelling/simulating the characteristics of a ship's design using computing, to test many of the ship's characteristics in such a way which gives you more confidence in your design (confidence, that in years/decades before these advancements were available would have needed more real world testing of the design), meaning you then have the confidence to produce them at a high rate from the outset, and so naturally initial rate of production is the most relevant metric to look at!

The overall rate of production is not a particularly relevant metric for what he is talking about, especially compared to initial rate of production/outset of production.

If you think I'm being too specific -- well that's because subotai's argument about advancements made, to begin with, was very specific.

How can an initial rate of production represent any kind of confidence if the overall rate of completion is abysmal? Again, citing an extreme to bring out the logic, if a ship class gets built 20 at a time but finishes 1 every ten years, there is a huge disconnect in "confidence" and somebody's head is liable to roll. What engenders "confidence" is not just how many you start but whether you can finish them as expected. In fact this sounds like the fake and utterly surreal "confidence" of many Indian posters on places like BR. Unrealistic expectations coupled with lack of attachment to reality. And what is reality? Reality is how long it takes for a hull to hit the water from the time you start building it. Whatever "confidence" internet posters may or may not have is irrelevant to the metric that shipbuilders and warfighters use. This "initial rate of production" is a completely fabricated "metric" that you created for the sole purpose of this discussion, a metric which surely does not actually exist in the real world and did not even exist on this forum or in anyone's mind prior to you creating it. Why? Because again, nobody makes a distinction between "initial" rate and "overall" rate, or I would say "actual" rate, except you! And I would venture even further to say that even you never made any such distinction about ship production until a few pages ago, and you only did this because your own convoluted argumentation forced you down this path!

Uh, yes, confidence in their computing/modelling/etc advancements is reflected in their willingness to leap into a high rate of initial production for a new design at two shipyards.

We've known for a long time that there will likely be enhanced 055 variants with more enhanced capabilities beyond the first baseline 055 variant, and it's been heavily speculated that more advanced variants will be produced in larger numbers than the first baseline 055 variant in coming years. What the military officers said in nethappy's correspondence is not anything new to us.
I don't see how this contradicts my previous statement about confidence in their computing/modelling

That's not really what he's saying. What we've "known" or rather expected is that changes would come by batch. What he seems to be saying is that changes are actually coming by INDIVIDUAL ship within the first batch itself.