Next generation Japanese destroyers, what it means for PLAN

szbd

szbd

Junior Member
Gollevainen said:
1) yeas. But also from aircrafts and in future (and in Soviet Union Granit system) from satelites
2) Yeas and Now. It depends so much in conditions where the engement takes place. Most common type of surface attack is to seek suprise, hit and run methods that so caricharistically have marked both VMF and PLAN in the past. It counts multible missiles to be launched from maxium distance and that the firing units imideatly retreat from the scene before the opponent can retaliate.
Also the idea that the Midquidance helicopters cannot operate would mean that both forces have the air superiority in the area and that, well is impossible. Only one of the "players" would naturally have it or neither will. It would also mean that both "players" would need to have AEW and radar coverance to the area...
3) If there isent then yeas

But if you want to know how ships figth against each other, it would be as broad as asking how land forces figth against each other. All depends on the situation where the engement takes place and what doctrines the fleets will use. Its rather simple to realise that "Western" navies like Japanese and "Eastern" like PLAN and VMF have two completely different philosophy to aproach the situation.

but my time is short and I cannot cover those differences at this moment, I suggest while waiting my return to read writen material of both sides...some good martime encyclopedia of Convays publishing house migth be good thing to start:)


edit: well Idont's post is really good so i dont need to return to this, do I ;)...
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Thanks. But how to do hit and run? suppose no aircraft except the helicopters on board are available.
 
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IDonT

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szbd said:
Thanks. But I suppose when Japanese helo detects the Chinese fleet, the helo is also detected by Chinese ships? And the same for Chinese helos. So the helos still can not perform the guidance for the AShW missiles, right? Can any AShW missile hit a target 100 km away with out any third party guidance?
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The Helo does not need to paint the ship. It just have to pick up where an enemy warship may be in an area of the sea. The Harpoon's guidance system will sweep the ocean for targets by itself. The helo only provides the aim point.
 
crobato

crobato

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China in other hand tryed to field its first AAW ship in 1973....it took almoust 20 years to complete a single ship....and the whole ship and system was nearly a failure and not fleet AAW level, but pedestarian point defence system....It managed to field its first true Fleet ASW asset in 2000's.
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The Japanese are buying complete packaged AEGIS systems from the US. Does not mean they fully mastered the technology within. If they have to build another destroyer, they have to import that package.

China on the other hand, have to build one from scratch, albeit both with their own technological investment along with foreign advise/espionage whatever. But in the end, they mastered building that technology, and so, they are in control of their own development.

One important side benefit of this is that having espionaged and mastered that technology, they are also in a much better position to counter it. While you may not know what the hell they got in that AD systems, they would certainly may know yours, and quite frightening really, if that knowledge goes down to the frequency level.
 
szbd

szbd

Junior Member
IDonT said:
The Helo does not need to paint the ship. It just have to pick up where an enemy warship may be in an area of the sea. The Harpoon's guidance system will sweep the ocean for targets by itself. The helo only provides the aim point.
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Thanks. What I understand is the helos can find the enemy ships from say 150km away. Then they try to escape as soon as possible and they have a chance to survive from long range AAW missiles. At the same time they transmit the location information of enemy ships to their own fleet. The fleet then fire AShW missiles and can program them to cover a large area. When one AShW missile finds the enemy ships, all other missiles join it to launch the attack, probably from different directions. By this way, AShW missiles can engage enemy ships at their full range without relay guidance. So it's like combat between CVs in WWII, helos being reconnaissance planes, AShW missiles being attach planes and AAW missiles being fighters to protect the ships.

Now the problem is how can the ship communicate with AShW missiles beyong vision range? Because this is crucial for many AShW missiles spread far away from each other to group together and attack at the enemy fleet at the same time.

Another issue, if a heli can detect the enemy fleet from 200 km away, then it's out of the range of enemy AAW missiles. So it's possible to stay at that distance and guide the AShW missile？
 
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crobato

crobato

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Yes, helos can find ships as far as 150km, and planes can go double of that. The Zhuk-M on the MiG-29SMT claims 300km against a destroyer sized target, and that a pretty conventional mechanically scanning radar.

The seeker on an AshM can find ship sized targets as far as 40km to 60km. Compared to an AAM, the antenna on the AshM is much bigger, and the targets it has to find, is much larger, then lets say, a target aircraft. Even if surface clutter is considered, the AshM has things working out for it. It is for this reason, the first active radar guided missiles appeared for antiship use---your Styx/Seersucker/Silkworm is a genuine active homing radar guided missile.

Hence the need to reduce RCS, not necessarily to give it a B-2 kind of level, but to make a destroyer sized ship look more like a yacht.

When you have a seeker range that goes as far as 50km, all you need is some waypoint or aimpoint, so the AshMs arrive at this location, turn on the seeker, and find the targets within its radar range. This is well within the resolution of long range surveillance aircraft or even OTH radars. You can even use the enemy's own emission to pin point a possible waypoint.

Now if your missile has multiple waypoints, you can set up a "search" path where the missiles will try to find targets at the first way point, if there is nothing, go to the next waypoint. Cool but it sucks up your effective range. Please note I wonder how supersonic AshMs can do this, which is why I don't look highly to supersonic AshMs as a good antiship model.

How can ships communicate with AshMs beyond radar horizon range? Good question. To some degree, the atmosphere itself acts as a ductile refractory layer, making different thermal layers of air acts as a waveguide. But this is not reliable all the time though usable. The higher the bandwidth, the more you have to rely on line of sight.

You can only take "networking" so far, but it may reach to a point it is no longer productive. The entire loop system takes too much time and effort processing data and not doing enough action. At the same time, the system can become overly reliant on central command and vulnerable to being cut off. For an AshM, especially under heavy ECM conditions, you just got to have autonomy. At some points, missiles do have to act on their own.
 
szbd

szbd

Junior Member
"Even if surface clutter is considered, the AshM has things working out for it."
Could you tell me how?

From what we have discussed, it seems a good UAV with powerful data link can be very crusial for BVR AShW. The UAV can detect enemy fleet and guide the missles to attach at the same time from different directions.
 
szbd

szbd

Junior Member
Schumacher said:
That's what I've been suspecting for some time. Though I woundn't say Ming is better than any Japan ASW.
It's amazing some here keep stubbornly complaining of the lack of better ASW on PLAN ships, which is what I did too initially, without thinking deeper into the possible reasons because I think it's quite obvious PLAN is not putting too much emphasis on surface ship ASW for now.
Sometimes, it's good to know the limit of our understanding & try to see why PLAN or any other navies do what they do.
In the shallow waters of East China Sea, Japan's SSKs advantage in depth, speed & sonar over PLAN SSKs will likely be reduced. Japan's P-3C will be constantly threatened by PLAF aircraft or PLAN surface fleet unless they are escorted by USAF F-22s.

The fact that USN is restarting intensive training against SSKs & I believe Japan has some new research into new sonar & torpedo to face threat from PLAN SSKs show that they take PLAN SSKs seriously. Certainly more seriously than some who claim Japan subs can simply sink all PLAN fleet due to lack of what they consider to be the required ASW.

For me, I think PLAN will put more emphasis into ASW on surface ships when they decide to go forcefully into blue water and/or when their carrier is ready.
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The key to ASW is sonar. Even if you rely on subs you still need good sonars. It seems China is very incapable on this technology. Maybe those people didn't get enough funding for this. When I was in the acoustic institute of China Academy doing my college graduation project, they were doing image processing, communication, speech recognition etc. That was 9 years ago though.
 
Gollevainen

Gollevainen

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The Japanese are buying complete packaged AEGIS systems from the US. Does not mean they fully mastered the technology within. If they have to build another destroyer, they have to import that package.

China on the other hand, have to build one from scratch, albeit both with their own technological investment along with foreign advise/espionage whatever. But in the end, they mastered building that technology, and so, they are in control of their own development.

One important side benefit of this is that having espionaged and mastered that technology, they are also in a much better position to counter it. While you may not know what the hell they got in that AD systems, they would certainly may know yours, and quite frightening really, if that knowledge goes down to the frequency level.
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Well chinese SAM development isen't results of some glory espionage actions but a handicaped country by industrial capacitys effors to create one of their own. It is was one would assume, a lenghty and propelmatic venture. The first SAM system for PLAN, the HQ-61 took decades to get operational and it was completely outdated to comparing systems even when the development started.

As time passed on chinese where able to obtain foreing SAM systems, the Aspide and Crotale which emerged as LY-60 and HQ-7 which both were availble (tough only the HQ-7 was adopted) before the HQ-61 was in full service. As you may quess the servicelife of HQ-61 was quite short.
In the 90's chinese were able to increase their SAM quantity with top-of-the noch russian systems which both (S-300 and Buk) were adopted in service as such and both influenced new chinese developments like HQ-9 and HQ-16.

Even the chinese crown jewl, the APAR radar is rumoured based on the soviet program which was continued by the Kvant NPO in ukraine where it was left after the dissolution of USSR.

But again the question isen't the orgins of the systems but the fact that they exist, in how many numbers, in how many ships and how experienced the navy is to use this naval warfare asset.
 
S

Schumacher

Senior Member
szbd said:
The key to ASW is sonar. Even if you rely on subs you still need good sonars. It seems China is very incapable on this technology. Maybe those people didn't get enough funding for this. When I was in the acoustic institute of China Academy doing my college graduation project, they were doing image processing, communication, speech recognition etc. That was 9 years ago though.
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Despite the secrecy surrounding PLA, I do think we have good general idea of the direction they're going, the obstacles they've faced etc.
For intance, we generally know the direction with their AWACS, WS1* aircraft engines, their progress with SSKs & that they seem not to be satisfied with the development there, that they had serious issues in the past with their nuke subs, their progress & obstacle with AAW on PLAN ships etc.
But, for me at least, I haven't seen much news, good or bad, abt their sonar work. Importantly, such lack of latest sonar tech doesn't seem to be putting much brake on PLAN's building of surface ships, which I think is progressing at a relatively fast pace.
PLA has shown that they wouldn't hesitate to pause work should they're not satisfied with some tech rather than perhaps follow USSR's approach of winning by numbers.

We're mostly guessing here. I'm long past the phase of being puzzled by PLAN 's decision to produce large number of ships despite lack of latest ASW sonar.
I look at their emphasis on SSKs, the fact that PLAN will remain in shallow waters for now which mitigates the gap between them & Japan's subs etc. The pieces do fit for me at least.

I'm not one who would say those on the 'inside' of PLA or other forces are always right & us mortals on the 'outside' can never question them. But it does take quite a bit more than what has been said on this forum to convince me the PLAN has made a bad decision abt this lack of more ASW.

In an ideal situation, they probably would've liked 10 times more fund to do their sonar work but they face real world constraints, & don't seem too worried by this.
For me, I'd be more worried if they haven't made more progress on this front by the time their carriers sail which I assume will venture a bit further out into deep waters.
 
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IDonT

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beijingcar said:
You are right, Japanese Navy has limited power projection capability, in fact no better than PLAN without aircover.
2. Aegis syetem is mainly defensive system, I tell you this, you have one Kongo class ship, and I have 12 YJ83 fires at your ship at the same time, Your ship will be done, game over.
#3. you are right the Japanese Navy train with the best navy in the world, China is behind on training, but I think this picture is changing fast, PLAN just sent 2 ships to PAK for joint war games, the Chief of PLAN is in the U.S for visits.
4. Long deployment in the Mid-esat do not show they will make it 300 miles off Japanese shores in wartime, again, they do not have mastery of the air.
5. Shared Intel with the U.S is what is meant, shared. They ( Japanese ) has very weak and slow intel network of their own.
6. you are right, the Japanese has longer modern naval tradition than China. But they are a Islands nation, they have got to.
7. better tech? I am not sure, from a military tech point of view, Japan can buy anything on the open market if they wish and wants to, so they have got American Aegis, F15j, F4j, AIP, fast attack SSM boat from Europe, E767, P3c, the list goes on and on, but which on of these critical systems are designed in Japan? None. China, of course, is in no better position, but I dear say, China has got a more complete military ( defense) industrial capabilities.
One last note for all of those think Japanese navy can fight and defeat PLAN in a easy battle, think of this fact. The development case of Japan F2 fighter. U.S knew that the real battle for any war is in the air, once the air is cleared of enemy aircraft, the war is mostly won. So when Japan wants U.S to transfre jet engine tech, U.S said No, so Japan wants to use the F16 design, but to make it better ( longer range, better radar), the U.S said only if you and I design this jet together, so after untold Billions of $ spend. what Japan has got? a jet just good enough to replace the old F1, that is all ( it has got problems with the wing, and it is too heavy, lack power to act as a true fighter). One wants to ask why U.S stabed Japan in the back for this F2 project? they are the best of friends after all? The answer is simple, if the F2 were designed and built to Japanese military's satisfaction, then it would be a great offensive weapon. U.S can let Japan have the Aegis tech because Aegis is a defensive weapon and will be form part of the entire U.S missile defense network, it sort act like modern day sentry for all other ships in its group. But U.S would not let Japan have the weapon where they can truely counts, that is the ability to control the air and an indepenent Intel ( C4I ). Japanese naval ships are better than PLAN's class VS class, but war is not fought one on one. Take the system VS system point of view, Japan has got no chance without U.S got directly involved, but would the U.S fight China over Japan? that is a 1000 Billion $ question. The truth is that the U.S will do anything in her power to stop the fight between China and Japan if the fight break out. So, from where I see it, China and Japan would not have a war in the near future.
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1.) I would argue that the JMSDF has greater endurance than PLAN due mainly to its greater logistical capabilites and the fact that it routinely operates far from home waters with the USN.

2.) Aegis is a combat information system and not a purely defensive system. By intergrating sensors, weapons suites, and command, it provides superior ability to prosecute threats. It was designed to counter the Soviet Union's saturation attacks. The Kongo, basically and Arleigh Burke class destroyer, will have no problem intercepting 12 anti-ship missiles. AAW defense its is strong point.

3.) JMSDF is technologically more advance than the PLAN. Aegis, F-15, E-3, regardless of their origin counts as part of their order of battle. IF push comes to shove, Japan has the electronics infrastructure to build or recreate its own avionics, radar, etc. The point is moot, the US, as an ally will always sell to them.

Don't be fooled by Japan's pacifist constitution. Its weapon system's are ARTIFICIALLY defanged and not by a whole lot of margin. The Kongo class ships do not specifically carry the TLAM, yet it carries the Mk 41 VLS launcher. It takes half a day to load the TLAM into them from US stocks.
 
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