056 class FFL/corvette

Well time will tell if your right. I have for a long time, over two years, thought that there would be about sixty built. The reason is that it is a cheap vessel, capable, and fills in the gap in the areas reasonably close to the Chinese coast. So thirty general purpose corvettes, plus thirty anti submarine corvettes seems to make sense. In the coast around China, each group of larger destroyers could have 3 or 4 type 56 corvettes forming an outer screen. If a type 56 gets sunk, so be it.

With submarines just so dangerous, ASW corvettes are going to be very very useful. Now they have built thirty in 2.5 years, so why stop. All the tooling is worked out, the skills needed to build further ships are already in place. Why build forty ships in say 3.5 years and then stop, if forty was the planned number why not spread that out over six or seven years. Now the builders are familiar with construction, suppliers know how to make kit, unit cost will be coming down and down.

So in the end it just comes down to opinion. You could be right, however I am pretty sure there will be sixty vessels all up, scrap the Type 37s, there is a lot of ocean to patrol, and small ships like this are going to be very useful and highly cost effective. Plus the economy in China has slowed down just a little, and the government wants to keep spending money to keep everyone happy

An aside, I was watching a youtube video, Chinese military technology although it has advanced a lot, is still a long way behind the west. Example, Chinese nuclear subs are as noisy as Soviet Delta subs of the 1980s, so obviously they still have a way to go.

I am sure that in decades to come, the gap will close, but China is still quite a way behind

I believe that the PLAN order of battle is probably going to include 60 Type 056s. They are needed to replace the large numbers of older, less capable frigates. Those older ships do not require a large Type 054A/B FFG to accomplish their missions, but a Type 056 will more than suffice.

I believe a total of 36 Type 054A/Bs is in the offing.

I believe there will be a total of 6 Type 052Cs plus perhaps 18Type 052D DDGs.

Add a dozen Type 055 vessels and, in that time frame you end up with (adding the Sovs, the Type 051C in there that will still be in operation) and you end up with:

60 FFLs
36 FFGs
30 DDGs
12 CGs

This is a total of 138 major surface combatants for the PLAN. A very large, capable, modern force. Second to only the US Navy in numbers...but not by much.

In this same time frame that all of those will be in operations, the US Navy will have

55 LCS/FFs
90 Burke DDGs
03 Zumwalt DDGs

That's 148 very modern, very capable surface combatants.

I think that if China keeps building 056(A) at the current rate until they reach 60 ships, they will have a problem with their force structure in 20 years time: there will be all these ships with then old technology that might be too small to be upgraded to the needs of the time but that will be too young to be retired.

To avoid this problem, it might make sense to stop or at least slow production of corvettes for a time and then start to introduce a new design that would be build at a slower rate.
I think something similar in size to some of the export versions might make sense: a bit bigger (perhaps 1800t), a helicopter hangar and a small VLS (perhaps 8 cells of the "052D VLS").
If this VLS really becomes a "universal VLS" widely used on all the ships of the PLAN, this should provide some amount of "future proofing". Once China develops an ESSM style quad-packed missile for this VLS, this should provide a very decent capability.

I think a similar argument could also be made against continuing 054A builds. In my opinion a switch to a slower production of a new frigate using the "universal VLS" would be a good idea even if you could only fit 24 cells on the ship (assuming there will soon be decent quad-packed missiles for it).

schenkus said:

I think that if China keeps building 056(A) at the current rate until they reach 60 ships, they will have a problem with their force structure in 20 years time: there will be all these ships with then old technology that might be too small to be upgraded to the needs of the time but that will be too young to be retired.

To avoid this problem, it might make sense to stop or at least slow production of corvettes for a time and then start to introduce a new design that would be build at a slower rate.
I think something similar in size to some of the export versions might make sense: a bit bigger (perhaps 1800t), a helicopter hangar and a small VLS (perhaps 8 cells of the "052D VLS").
If this VLS really becomes a "universal VLS" widely used on all the ships of the PLAN, this should provide some amount of "future proofing". Once China develops an ESSM style quad-packed missile for this VLS, this should provide a very decent capability.

I think a similar argument could also be made against continuing 054A builds. In my opinion a switch to a slower production of a new frigate using the "universal VLS" would be a good idea even if you could only fit 24 cells on the ship (assuming there will soon be decent quad-packed missiles for it).

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I agree that they should develop a next generation frigate to replace 054A soon, but there's no problem with developing 60 or so 056s using the current hull.

The 056 is not meant to survive encounters with opposing air power or large surface combatants directly, and it doesn't need the range to operate beyond the waters near China's periphery. It is small, modern, cheap, multirole, and carries a good sonar suite for ASW.

056 can remain relevant for decades to come without need for major structural improvements. So long as they update their datalinks, sensors, and certain weapons (such as replacing YJ-83 with a new AShM) in due time, the fleet of 056s will remain capable.

I have to agree with those thinking there will be at least sixty 056s built. Some items already mentioned - cost would be a large factor, or in the case of scale with sixty, the cost per unit will be very "cheap". They provide a huge improvement over the 037s and given the 037 crew size is the same as the 056, the 056 provides far more space since it displaces roughly 3X an 037. They are work horses so the tech isn't exactly cutting edge and if it gets outdated, they can be refreshed during their mid-life refits. Or they can be re-sold to other nations down the line since they are small enough to be utilized by many smaller navies without overwhelming their resources. So there are options. Keeping the shipyard and the economy humming along are additional pro-reasons.

Building a larger 056 successor with a universal VLS sounds nice. But it seems in my opinion, any vessel below 4000 tons with VLS hits the law of diminishing returns. For one thing, it drives up the cost per vessel. Another is that the role of the 056 is littoral so a shallow draft would be preferred. That unfortunately, limits the VLS to be the smallest in depth possible. As a result, the type of missiles that can be loaded into this VLS will be limited. So a lot of resources to invest to build this but far less in payoff. Don't see why any quad-packing can't be accomplished with a box launcher as well. The only worthy feature of pursuing at this point for an enlarged 056 would be a hangar for a helo. But the cost then goes up and probably goes outside the intent of this class.

Aside from the 037s, let's not forget there are still six 053H1Gs and ten 053H3s that will need replacing by the next decade so while sixty 056s sound like a lot, there are many older vessels that will be on the horizon for replacement. I'm not even sure what was considered as the replacements for the 053H2Gs, the 056s or the 054As?

schenkus said:

I think a similar argument could also be made against continuing 054A builds. In my opinion a switch to a slower production of a new frigate using the "universal VLS" would be a good idea even if you could only fit 24 cells on the ship (assuming there will soon be decent quad-packed missiles for it).

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If the insiders from Chinese forum are accurate, construction of 054B will probably start next year or so. And you already have designs for 057 for the future as well.

They are building those Type 056's like crazy. The Type 056 is meant to replace the The Type 037. Does anyone know how many Type 037's there are still left.

Franklin said:

They are building those Type 056's like crazy. The Type 056 is meant to replace the The Type 037. Does anyone know how many Type 037's there are still left.

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Well, there are many varieties of the Type 037s. I think all in all that they still have 50-60 active vessels.

I am not sure if they are planning a one for one replacement though.

Just the same, we can expect a lot more Type 056 will be built.

Jeff Head said:

Well, there are many varieties of the Type 037s. I think all in all that they still have 50-60 active vessels.

I am not sure if they are planning a one for one replacement though.

Just the same, we can expect a lot more Type 056 will be built.

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I don't believe its a 1 on 1 replacement either. Perhabs 2 or 3 to 1. That is every 2 or 3 Type 037 might be replaced with 1 Type 056. If you take the lower 2 number then we could already have 46 Type 037 decommissioned so far. I don't know how many (all types) Type 037 the PLAN had before the induction of the Type 056.

Franklin said:

I don't believe its a 1 on 1 replacement either. Perhabs 2 or 3 to 1. That is every 2 or 3 Type 037 might be replaced with 1 Type 056.

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At its peak, the total number of 037s of all varieties was between 150 and 200