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Mt1701d said:

Thank you, @Derpy and @Tam for your responses, very enlightening. I guess I don't understand how modern naval defense works nowadays, and had a cave-man like thinking of more guns or longer list of guns/weapons = good.

From what the both of you said, its seems more of a fundamental shift in naval design.

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More guns is better but they need to be useful. The doubling up positions like the Type 1130s on the 054A or the AKs on the Kirov class are not offering twice the defense because only one of them can be used to intercept AShM. AShM pretty much nearly always will be coming from one side, if they are coming from both sides, no amount of RAM or CIWS is going to saving you because your fleet is probably sinking at this point. It's a downright stupid design to double them up. Maybe before the 80s and during the age of lone super flagships... even the Yamato was sunk with considerable ease on its own. If you want to double up your CIWS guns it's far better to have them arranged one behind the other as opposed to one on each side. This way at least they can engage whichever side missiles are coming from and actually double the amount of lead being poured into the air.

CIWS cannot be replaced by point defence short range missiles like HHQ-10 or RAM. Definitely better to have one of each as opposed to two sets of missiles. Having a redundant mechanical backup is always better and CIWS is proven. They're also far more versatile and cheaper for smaller tasks like pirate boats and small drones. Sure they only offer a few seconds of firing and very limited by barrel wear so the only real advantage of missiles is you can hypothetically intercept the same number of targets as you have missiles. A gun can maybe cope with three or four at most before running dry and overheating.

ougoah said:

More guns is better but they need to be useful. The doubling up positions like the Type 1130s on the 054A or the AKs on the Kirov class are not offering twice the defense because only one of them can be used to intercept AShM. AShM pretty much nearly always will be coming from one side, if they are coming from both sides, no amount of RAM or CIWS is going to saving you because your fleet is probably sinking at this point. It's a downright stupid design to double them up. Maybe before the 80s and during the age of lone super flagships... even the Yamato was sunk with considerable ease on its own. If you want to double up your CIWS guns it's far better to have them arranged one behind the other as opposed to one on each side. This way at least they can engage whichever side missiles are coming from and actually double the amount of lead being poured into the air.

CIWS cannot be replaced by point defence short range missiles like HHQ-10 or RAM. Definitely better to have one of each as opposed to two sets of missiles. Having a redundant mechanical backup is always better and CIWS is proven. They're also far more versatile and cheaper for smaller tasks like pirate boats and small drones. Sure they only offer a few seconds of firing and very limited by barrel wear so the only real advantage of missiles is you can hypothetically intercept the same number of targets as you have missiles. A gun can maybe cope with three or four at most before running dry and overheating.

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For the more guns = good part, I wasn’t really thinking effectiveness vs just more, which was why I called my original thoughts cave-man like.

For the CIWS, like you said I was thinking of a fore and aft setup with overlapping coverage on the sides with additional RAM canisters, but like @Tam said it could be an effectiveness vs resource spent that is driving the current 1x CIWS and 1x canister design I guess. Further from what @Tam said it seems to be a fundamental trend for modern designs going forward.

Mt1701d said:

For the more guns = good part, I wasn’t really thinking effectiveness vs just more, which was why I called my original thoughts cave-man like.

For the CIWS, like you said I was thinking of a fore and aft setup with overlapping coverage on the sides with additional RAM canisters, but like @Tam said it could be an effectiveness vs resource spent that is driving the current 1x CIWS and 1x canister design I guess. Further from what @Tam said it seems to be a fundamental trend for modern designs going forward.

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I forgot to mention, that when it comes to other countries, there are more schools of thought. For example Italy. Their FREMM frigates doesn't come with any CIWS or RAM missile like you know it. Instead, it got two 76mm Oto Melaras. The 76mm guns can also serve as close in defense weapons. In the case of ships like the Type 054A, expect the main gun, the 76mm to be used in air defense along with the CIWS, so in effect, you got two gun weapons for close in. In the Type 056 corvettes, the main 76mm gun should be the same in conjunction with the HQ-10.

And then you have the Russians.

Tam said:

I forgot to mention, that when it comes to other countries, there are more schools of thought. For example Italy. Their FREMM frigates doesn't come with any CIWS or RAM missile like you know it. Instead, it got two 76mm Oto Melaras. The 76mm guns can also serve as close in defense weapons. In the case of ships like the Type 054A, expect the main gun, the 76mm to be used in air defense along with the CIWS, so in effect, you got two gun weapons for close in. In the Type 056 corvettes, the main 76mm gun should be the same in conjunction with the HQ-10.

And then you have the Russians.

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That’s really interesting, I didn’t know about the FREMM frigate. I wonder how effective the 2x 76mm would be for anti-missile defence, when compared with a 2x CIWS or the 1x CIWS with 1x RAM setup. I suppose if the main gun can handle some of the slack then the PLAN surface ships are probably better protected than I imagined.

As for the Russian monster, I knew about that before and always wondered whether it would be worthwhile for PLAN to develop something similar... maybe not go full Russian, but Russian with Chinese characteristics as it were, and have a 1x CIWS and 1x RAM canister combo or something.

Mt1701d said:

That’s really interesting, I didn’t know about the FREMM frigate. I wonder how effective the 2x 76mm would be for anti-missile defence, when compared with a 2x CIWS or the 1x CIWS with 1x RAM setup. I suppose if the main gun can handle some of the slack then the PLAN surface ships are probably better protected than I imagined.

As for the Russian monster, I knew about that before and always wondered whether it would be worthwhile for PLAN to develop something similar... maybe not go full Russian, but Russian with Chinese characteristics as it were, and have a 1x CIWS and 1x RAM canister combo or something.

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I am not very sure about anti missile defense. Both French and Italian FREMMs however, still has to rely on remote autocannons or machine guns to deal with boats.

As for the Kashtans, PLAN have direct access to them through the last pair of Sovremennys, which were also the only members of their class to be fitted with them. Whatever their reasons are, they didn't feel it was worth copying, despite the PLAN has in the past, copied other Russian guns like the AK-630, AK-176 and the AK-130.

@Tam

Any idea how good is the Type 054A main gun in taking out aerial targets?

Tam said:

I am not very sure about anti missile defense. Both French and Italian FREMMs however, still has to rely on remote autocannons or machine guns to deal with boats.

As for the Kashtans, PLAN have direct access to them through the last pair of Sovremennys, which were also the only members of their class to be fitted with them. Whatever their reasons are, they didn't feel it was worth copying, despite the PLAN has in the past, copied other Russian guns like the AK-630, AK-176 and the AK-130.

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I would think that for the FREMM they had to add the smaller guns, since dealing with smaller boats with a 76mm is probably overkill, plus these things would do lone patrol in civilian heavy waters too, so the headline ‘French/Italian destroyer points main gun at small boat’ probably doesn’t look good.

As for the Kashtans, I think it was just at the time when PLAN was developing into their own direction and the decision was probably made to further indignation rather than straight up copy. But I read on Wikipedia, for what it’s worth (no source), that the current 730s or 1130s could be fitted with a RAM canister for a half Kashtan, so I guess they may have thought of it.

t2contra said:

@Tam

Any idea how good is the Type 054A main gun in taking out aerial targets?

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I only have this information about the original AK-176.


"This mount has selectable rates of fire of 30, 60 and 120-130 rounds per minute. The highest speed could be achieved by firing a burst of 75 rounds, but afterwards the gun had to cool off for 25 to 30 minutes. This weapon is considered effective against missiles and during trials it consistently shot down Falanga ATGMs (AT-2 Swatter) simulating Harpoon ASMs. On average it took 25 rounds per missile."

Besides having a stealthy turret over the Russian version, the Chinese version increased the number of ready rounds from 75 to 150 (wiki) and the burst fire is up to 130 rounds per minute (zh. wiki). That's the gun though, it also depends on the fire control system and radar, namely the Russian MR123 Bass Tilt radar set vs. the Chinese Type 344.

The 76mm Oto Melara can be considered one of the most popular naval weapons.


"The Italian Navy considers the SR to be an effective anti-missile weapon and new ships are being built with this weapon in place of the twin "" used on earlier ships in that role. OTO-Melara estimates that, combined with the Dardo FCS, the SR can begin engaging attacking missiles at about 6,600 yards (6,000 m), with the first rounds arriving on target at 6,000 yards (5,500 m). With these ranges, a single gun can deal with up to four subsonic sea-skimmer missiles, arriving simultaneously on courses 90 degrees apart, before any reaches 1,100 yards (1,000 m)."

The Compact is up to 85 rounds per minute while the Super Rapido bursts up to 120 rds/min.

Also I forgot to mention this, especially when the FFG(X) is "only" armed with RAM. A ship like the FFG(X) is also armed with the Bofors 57mm gun, which also has anti missile capabilities. The LCS ships are also equipped with this gun. Despite having a lower caliber than the Oto 76mm gun, its rate of fire is up to 220 rds/min in its latest version.

t2contra said:

@Tam

Any idea how good is the Type 054A main gun in taking out aerial targets?

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It fires airburst munition for destroying air targets.
Lethal radius is reported to be about 8m.

t2contra said:

Any idea how good is the Type 054A main gun in taking out aerial targets?

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Bhurki said:

It fires airburst munition for destroying air targets.
Lethal radius is reported to be about 8m.

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Albeit, it'll be impossible to hit a random/high manuevering target due its low rate of fire as compared to Ciws at 120 rpm vs 11,000 rpm.
Scenario : Targeting a subsonic missile at 3 km and closing, would mean the shell would require ~3 seconds to reach the expected target point. (muzzle velocity = 980m/s). If the target employs split unpredictable manuevers moving even just few miliradians off course, then the 8m lethal shot won't reach it.