055 DDG Large Destroyer Thread

[kwaigonegin]

Why wouldn't the mast be a major contributor to RCS? Given the curvature of the earth, the hull wouldn't be visible to other shipborne radars until they're only a couple dozen kms away, while the mast would be visible from much farther distance. I'd think that mast stealth would be more important, and the 055 appears to have significantly improved mast stealth.

From an academic standpoint you are correct. The mast height or the height of the highest object as it correlates to the curvature of the Earth plays a critical role in returning the RF energy. A typical SSR has a range of 30-50 Nm again because of the limitations of the Earth. Obviously the higher the target object is and the higher the broadcasting node is plays a critical role in the searches.

From a real life argument however things are not always so clear cut. First off we just do not know how effective the RF shielding is of that mast (if any) or even if it's made from some exotic anti stealth material or if it even has any stealth coating/paint etc.

While generally speaking an enclosed mast is certainly 'stealthier' than a regular mast we just do not know how much stealth shaping or materials is involve in 055s mas aside from the fact that is is enclosed. My guess is not much again because 055's primary role is not as a stealth warship. And you are incorrect in saying that the hull is the ONLY big thing that return RF energy. Even if we assume the mast is 100% stealth (which it isn't) there are plenty of things above the hull that will return conventional RF signatures like the weapons mount (CIW, HQ-10 etc), the gun and the antenna that sits atop the main mast and the helo.

2nd/3rd point. In any modern warfare if a ship relies strictly on her own non OTH radar to find the opfor she might as well be as good as dead. Again no ship in any modern navy would rely strictly on that for target acquisition or to bug out because of the limitations of the Earth's curvature. You are also forgetting OTH which now bread and butter of most modern navy. Earth's curvature is becoming less and less important with OTHRs, satelites and obviously airborne assets.

 

[abc123]

I'm pretty sure they have something akin to the Zumwalts or at least 'stealth focused combatants' in the drawing board for future generation of warships or other specialized vessels.

Do you think on stealth-level of Zumwalt or on naval artillery support role of Zumwalt?

 

[Iron Man]

The differences between 055 and Sejong may be more than merely an enclosed foredeck and integrated mast.
If 055 adopts the same degree of signature reduction as say, type 45, then other differences may include reduced presence of antennae atop the deckhouse/below the mast, reduced presence of railings, reduced sources of RCS due to features on the side of the hull/amidships region, greater integration of the deckhouse superstruture with the smoke stack structure and topside weather decks into a single more continuous and slanted design as well etc.

All of these reductions are both minimal and not consistently applied over your supposed categorical difference, and you also have absolutely no way to demonstrate how much RCS reduction these provide even as an aggregate.

I think the attention to minimizing RCS at the details of the ship like Type 45/horizon/fremm etc do put them in a separate category to burke/sejong/052D

You think they do, I think they don't.

From an academic standpoint you are correct. The mast height or the height of the highest object as it correlates to the curvature of the Earth plays a critical role in returning the RF energy. A typical SSR has a range of 30-50 Nm again because of the limitations of the Earth. Obviously the higher the target object is and the higher the broadcasting node is plays a critical role in the searches.

From a real life argument however things are not always so clear cut. First off we just do not know how effective the RF shielding is of that mast (if any) or even if it's made from some exotic anti stealth material or if it even has any stealth coating/paint etc.

While generally speaking an enclosed mast is certainly 'stealthier' than a regular mast we just do not know how much stealth shaping or materials is involve in 055s mas aside from the fact that is is enclosed. My guess is not much again because 055's primary role is not as a stealth warship. And you are incorrect in saying that the hull is the ONLY big thing that return RF energy. Even if we assume the mast is 100% stealth (which it isn't) there are plenty of things above the hull that will return conventional RF signatures like the weapons mount (CIW, HQ-10 etc), the gun and the antenna that sits atop the main mast and the helo.

2nd/3rd point. In any modern warfare if a ship relies strictly on her own non OTH radar to find the opfor she might as well be as good as dead. Again no ship in any modern navy would rely strictly on that for target acquisition or to bug out because of the limitations of the Earth's curvature. You are also forgetting OTH which now bread and butter of most modern navy. Earth's curvature is becoming less and less important with OTHRs, satelites and obviously airborne assets.

Mast isn't so important when it comes to radar horizon calculations, as I mentioned earlier. Even if the 055's mast were completely undetectable, the radar horizon of this ship vs a detector only improves by a couple dozen km at the most. The hull is the controlling variable here, not the mast.

 

[Blitzo]

All of these reductions are both minimal and not consistently applied over your supposed categorical difference, and you also have absolutely no way to demonstrate how much RCS reduction these provide even as an aggregate.


You think they do, I think they don't.

Okay, well if you think even those differences should be considered as a different category of RCS reduction then there's really not much else to say.

Though I would say that if the reduction of RCS really is that negligible, then I wonder why those European navies had adopted the design details that they did and why they didn't choose a less clean configuration like Burke/sejong/052d etc.

 

[Iron Man]

Okay, well if you think even those differences should be considered as a different category of RCS reduction then there's really not much else to say.

"Even those", as if to imply that they were monumental enough to warrant a category difference? Correct then, even those minimally significant, inconsistently applied enhancements in your alleged category of stealth are not enough to delineate it as a distinct category of stealth.

 

[Blitzo]

"Even those", as if to imply that they were monumental enough to warrant a category difference? Correct then, even those minimally significant, inconsistently applied enhancements in your alleged category of stealth are not enough to delineate it as a distinct category of stealth.

whatever, ignore the word "even" if you want.

 

[Iron Man]

Though I would say that if the reduction of RCS really is that negligible, then I wonder why those European navies had adopted the design details that they did and why they didn't choose a less clean configuration like Burke/sejong/052d etc.

This is like asking why not stick with a 30:1 APFSDS instead of going with a newer 40:1? Military technology most often evolves by increments, and that is actually the whole point. And let's not get into yet another word play insinuation dance between the two of us here. I did not choose the word "negligible", you did. I chose the word "minimal" for a reason, because minimal means improvement but very small, whereas negligible means "essentially nothing", which is what you are trying to insinuate that I am claiming so that you can then pose the straw man question of "why did the Europeans make these negligible improvements???" The answer to why modern ships incorporate some, most, or all of these additional features is simple: the low hanging fruit has already been picked (hull shaping). The rest of the enhancements are the slim pickings. They may be diminishing returns, but they are returns nonetheless.

Also, like I said, this supposed set of improvements have been inconsistently applied across navies, European or otherwise, and in my mind do not constitute either a demonstrably significant enough gain in RCS reduction, or a consistently definable set of RCS reduction features, to warrant a separate category of RCS reduction.

 

[Blitzo]

This is like asking why not stick with a 30:1 APFSDS instead of going with a newer 40:1? Military technology most often evolves by increments, and that is actually the whole point. And let's not get into yet another word play insinuation dance between the two of us here. I did not choose the word "negligible", you did. I chose the word "minimal" for a reason, because minimal means improvement but very small, whereas negligible means "essentially nothing", which is what you are trying to insinuate that I am claiming so that you can then pose the straw man question of "why did the Europeans make these negligible improvements???" The answer to why modern ships incorporate some, most, or all of these additional features is simple: the low hanging fruit has already been picked (hull shaping). The rest of the enhancements are the slim pickings. They may be diminishing returns, but they are returns nonetheless.

It's not exactly a straw man and more of a rhetorical question addressed to your previous reply that said "055 is not really any stealthier than a Sejong".

My last few posts, for the sake of this discussion, was positing 055 may have a similar degree of RCS reduction as Type 45 and co. So, the Type 45 and co for the sake of this discussion would be an acting surrogate vs Sejong and co.
My rhetorical question therefore is saying if Type 45 and co (surrogates for 055) are also "not really any stealthier" than Sejong and co, then why would they have bothered with the extent of RCS reduction design details that they did?

Of course, you do mention that these additional features are still enhancements, so I would consider that an acknowledgement that those enhancements do produce reductions in RCS returns.



And please, can you give me a break with your vigilance towards perceived "word play"? If you think that I'm trying sneak a "point" or whatever over you through clever "word play" can you try to address it in a less hostile way, instead of accusing me of writing my replies with something almost approaching malice?

Because for the overwhelming part of my replies on this forum to almost all members (save for a very select few), I always try to write in good faith, so please try to give me the benefit of doubt instead of seeing my supposed attempts to win an discussion by "word play".
If you really think I'm trying to sneakily insinuate something just straight up ask me if I'm doing so or what my intended meaning is.

Also, like I said, this supposed set of improvements have been inconsistently applied across navies, European or otherwise, and in my mind do not constitute either a demonstrably significant enough gain in RCS reduction, or a consistently definable set of RCS reduction features, to warrant a separate category of RCS reduction.

I disagree, and I do believe that there are sufficient differences in RCS reduction between the aforementioned surface warships to warrant acknowledging the difference in extent of RCS reduction, either in a categorical way (depending on one's metrics for a given category) but definitely in a continuous (or incremental) way.

Also, I'd like to clarify to my original use of the word "categories" which was enclosed in speech marks.
This was meant to group the aforementioned ships into differing degrees of perceived RCS reduction primarily in terms of the relevant design details that had been brought up, not suggesting that I had some kind of metric for measuring and sorting the RCS of each ship and categorizing them based on their RCS.

 

[Roodog]

It's not exactly a straw man and more of a rhetorical question addressed to your previous reply that said "055 is not really any stealthier than a Sejong".

My last few posts, for the sake of this discussion, was positing 055 may have a similar degree of RCS reduction as Type 45 and co. So, the Type 45 and co for the sake of this discussion would be an acting surrogate vs Sejong and co.
My rhetorical question therefore is saying if Type 45 and co (surrogates for 055) are also "not really any stealthier" than Sejong and co, then why would they have bothered with the extent of RCS reduction design details that they did?

Of course, you do mention that these additional features are still enhancements, so I would consider that an acknowledgement that those enhancements do produce reductions in RCS returns.



And please, can you give me a break with your vigilance towards perceived "word play"? If you think that I'm trying sneak a "point" or whatever over you through clever "word play" can you try to address it in a less hostile way, instead of accusing me of writing my replies with something almost approaching malice?

Because for the overwhelming part of my replies on this forum to almost all members (save for a very select few), I always try to write in good faith, so please try to give me the benefit of doubt instead of seeing my supposed attempts to win an discussion by "word play".
If you really think I'm trying to sneakily insinuate something just straight up ask me if I'm doing so or what my intended meaning is.




I disagree, and I do believe that there are sufficient differences in RCS reduction between the aforementioned surface warships to warrant acknowledging the difference in extent of RCS reduction, either in a categorical way (depending on one's metrics for a given category) but definitely in a continuous (or incremental) way.

Also, I'd like to clarify to my original use of the word "categories" which was enclosed in speech marks.
This was meant to group the aforementioned ships into differing degrees of perceived RCS reduction primarily in terms of the relevant design details that had been brought up, not suggesting that I had some kind of metric for measuring and sorting the RCS of each ship and categorizing them based on their RCS.

Newbie post...surely it is down to the operational requirements...the European frigates/Destroyers employ a greater amount of stealth due to their op-area...the med, Baltic, North sea etc...whereas the USN is truely Blus Water therefore is dependant on seeing the enemy beyond radar range and therefore does not require a reduced RCS unless getting into the littorals hence LCS design... The Chinese need a bit of both and so I would expect a moderate level of RCS reduction to fit their need....first post so please be kind.

 

[Blitzo]

Newbie post...surely it is down to the operational requirements...the European frigates/Destroyers employ a greater amount of stealth due to their op-area...the med, Baltic, North sea etc...whereas the USN is truely Blus Water therefore is dependant on seeing the enemy beyond radar range and therefore does not require a reduced RCS unless getting into the littorals hence LCS design... The Chinese need a bit of both and so I would expect a moderate level of RCS reduction to fit their need....first post so please be kind.

Yes, any design features that are present on any system, ship or aircraft are of course dictated by factors, among which operational requirements are important.

But during this discussion the reason I asked that rhetorical question was to suggest that the design features in question (i.e.: RCS reduction aboard the Type 45 and co warships) do produce a difference in stealthiness compared to Sejong and co, where Type 45 and co were used by me as a surrogate for 055.

Congrats on first post.