Just gonna throw these here again xD
Next Generation Destroyer thread (after 055, 052D)
- Thread starter ACuriousPLAFan
- Start date
Just gonna throw these here again xD
For a next generation warship, I would imagine it with minimal superstructure. The radar mast and mostly nothing else. With camera systems, a bridge is superflu and just make a bigger target. No need for a smokestack with a nuclear powerplant. You create a ship with a sleek lower silhouette. a bit like that concept but with an even smaller superstructure.
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Kiev class isn't bad conceptually but is too large with 20+ air wings, I'm thinking more like a more missile focused version of Moskva or Hyuga around the 20kt range. The large VLS is the big draw, it will be revolutionary especially with the flexible payloads that China has.
what about the possibility of a tethered UAV for sensors and comms, to give the maximum possible radar horizon? some other navies are already looking at this.
With reactors, you can have a rotary drone that carries the surface/low altitude search radar array and follows the ship, staying aloft with a battery and reserve fuel tank, but electricity topped off with wire or wireless charging. Data can be sent by RF, laser or fiber optics.
This allows for a huge radar horizon vs low altitude targets. The ship itself can carry the big high altitude air defense radars, where such a high radar horizon is less advantageous.
A 15 m high radar vs. a 50 m target has 15 km radar horizon and 45 km target visibility.
A 1000 m high radar on a tethered drone vs the same target has 130 km radar horizon and 130 km target visibility.
Please no rail guns, I just don't see the utility when compared against conventional guns, anything less than missile range is basically window dressing unless its used for an AA role. we've already seen the US sink billions into it for no real gain, lets not jump into the same pitfalls head first.
Nah, sinking money into researching stuff like rail guns should be done, and from what we can see, China is definitely doing it.
On the other hand, spending too much or beginning to employ such new weapons without enough testing etc. would be a big trap/pitfall, which currently seems like something that the PLA is avoiding.
Lethe
Captain
R&D is cheap, and even if a program falls over there are usually lessons that carry forward. Production is expensive.
Something like the Ocean Avenger and UVX concepts?
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I think the most valuable lesson that the US learnt in regards to railguns is don't do it. The zumwalt could've been a decent stealthy hypersonic carrier ship from the start rather than a half baked COIN platform. Sure RnD is cheap, but i just don't see really a good use case for rail guns in all their current implementations. If anything practical lasers are more interesting as a platform than railguns.
I recall Ma Weiming once said, ‘All our current efforts are aimed at resolving the issue of deploying high-energy weapons on ships in the future.’ By ‘efforts,’ he was referring to the medium voltage DC power system. As for high-energy weapons, could he have meant electromagnetic guns? Electromagnetic missile launch systems? Or perhaps more powerful radar sensors and microwave countermeasures? I’m not sure, but it all sounds like something out of a sci-fi novel I read as a child.