055 DDG Large Destroyer Thread

[Blitzo]

would you please compare those two in terms of crew-size (sorry if it's a FAQ
it's 280 for a Type 052D, but a google search only showed N/A to me for 055)

Obviously we do not know that for 055 (and I'm not sure if the 052D's numbers are solid either) but for the sake of comparison I think we can make some educated guesses about relative crew size when considering size of the ship but also potential advancements in automation.

So your guess could be as good as mine, but for this discussion the specific number isn't that important.

 

[Jura The idiot]

Obviously we do not know that for 055 (and I'm not sure if the 052D's numbers are solid either) but for the sake of comparison I think we can make some educated guesses about relative crew size when considering size of the ship but also potential advancements in automation.

So your guess could be as good as mine, but for this discussion the specific number isn't that important.

350??

 

[Blitzo]

350??

Sure, or maybe a bit more.

 

[Iron Man]

But how does any of that invalidate my previous post?
From what I see you're just presenting an alternative force projection (which I do consider to be plausible), but that doesn't do anything to invalidate my alternative force projection in my last post.

It almost seems like you believe that since the USN doesn't have a meaningfully large number of 13k+ ton destroyers making up a large proportion of its orbat, it means the possibility of any other Navy doing so should not be seriously considered?

"Meaningfully large" is an ambiguation of his much more unambiguous insinuation that the 055 is to entirely displace any ship designs between 6,500t and 13,000t in the PLAN ORBAT, which it actually sounds like you are advocating as well. So no traditionally-sized destroyer at 7-10,000t but instead we are to believe that a fleet of super-corvettes, super-frigates, and cruisers is in the cards for the PLAN:

As for 055 being the primary large surface combatant or core of his Chinese Navy orbat -- actually his future orbat is one of 3000 ton corvettes 6500 ton frigates and 13000 ton destroyers... a quite balanced fleet, I think, but I'll leave the details to him.

Err I personally think using the Russian Navy's future plans to support either side of the 055 force projection debate is dubious at best, because there is so much uncertainty about what the Russian Navy's actual destroyer plans are and what they can hope to achieve with their shipbuilding industry.

For instance, the recent news over the last few years for the Russian Navy's surface combatant new build destroyers seems to talk exclusively about the Lider class/Pr 23560 including what appears to be some official Russian Naval backing of the project, whereas there is very little to nothing heard about the Pr 21956 which was unveiled back in 2009 as a design has not proceeded beyond that.

Of course, I don't doubt the media is hyping up the Lider class' because it is such a big and exciting ship and makes for good clickbait, and I obviously have doubts as to whether they can build such a ship... but at the same time that doesn't deny that there doesn't seem to have been any movement for the Pr 21956 design in the last few years, suggesting to me that it's not a design or project under any sort of meaningful consideration.

Also, I don't think the Lider is being reported as a replacement for Sovs, Slavas and Udaloys on any sort of one to one basis or as the mainstay of their surface combatant fleet. I've heard they are only looking to build 8-12 depending on the source. I believe a significant part of their future fleet is intended to be made up of the 4500 ton Gorshkov class frigate.

So let me get this right. You agree that Liders will be not be built in sufficient numbers to replace Sovs, Slavas, and Udaloys. You also believe that because you haven't heard much news about Project 21956 that this will not advance beyond conceptual phase, even though we have far more evidence for this ship than we have for either PLAN super-corvettes or super-frigates. You also believe that a "significant" part of their future fleet is going to be made up of the 4,500t Gorshkov. So you must believe that the Gorshkov class frigate will be the primary replacement for Russia's current crop of destroyers and cruisers, yes?

 

[Blitzo]

"Meaningfully large" is an ambiguation of his much more unambiguous insinuation that the 055 is to entirely displace any ship designs between 6,500t and 13,000t in the PLAN ORBAT, which it actually sounds like you are advocating as well. So no traditionally-sized destroyer at 7-10,000t but instead we are to believe that a fleet of super-corvettes, super-frigates, and cruisers is in the cards for the PLAN:

Regarding the "ambiguity" factor... It would depend on what his ratio of super corvettes, super frigates and large destroyers/cruisers is for me to see how reasonable his suggestion is, as well as what his projected timespan for completion is. If he's suggesting a 1:1:1 ratio of super crovettes, super frigates, and cruisers in the early 2020s, then I think that's definitely not going to happen.
If it's a 2:2:1 ratio to aim for completion by the early 2030s, well then yeah, I think maybe it is plausible.

As for what I advocate; I'm been consistently saying I think a ratio of about 2:1:1 between 4000-5000t frigates, 7000-8000 ton destroyers, and 12000-13000 ton large destroyers/cruisers, would be viable to aim for completion by the mid to late 2020s.

So let me get this right. You agree that Liders will be not be built in sufficient numbers to replace Sovs, Slavas, and Udaloys. You also believe that because you haven't heard much news about Project 21956 that this will not advance beyond conceptual phase, even though we have far more evidence for this ship than we have for either PLAN super-corvettes or super-frigates. You also believe that a "significant" part of their future fleet is going to be made up of the 4,500t Gorshkov. So you must believe that the Gorshkov class frigate will be the primary replacement for Russia's current crop of destroyers and cruisers, yes?

I think you are conflating a number of different strands of discussion and my opinions about those topics incorrectly.

First of all, I've never said that I believe Lethe's suggestion of super-corvettes or super-frigates is going to happen -- that is to say I've never said that I believe such projects are currently under any sort of development (because we obviously do not have rumours of that). However, what I did say is that in the more distant future, I think his fleet structure could be a workable one for the Chinese Navy. In other words, me saying "maybe" to his projected fleet structure is not dependent on us needing to have any sort of evidence for a super-corvette or super-frigate to be under development at this stage, because my acknowledgement of his proposal is in my mind, only a proposal for the more distant future to begin to be carried out post 2025 anyway.

The second topic, regarding the Russian Navy, Lider and Project 21956, is completely separate from the first one about his own projections for the Chinese Navy. I said in my last post that using the Russian Navy's plans as some sort of allegory to support or go against certain force projections for the Chinese Navy is dodgy, and I stand by that because their shipbuilding is all over the place and their publicly announced plans are a bit all over the place too.
But regarding the specific Lider vs Pr 21956, I stand by my point that Pr 21956 does not appear to have moved beyond the initial concept design shown, and that much more noise is being made about Lider. This has no recourse or effect regarding Lethe's fleet structure proposal, because that is after all just a proposal for fleet structure and he is not saying that the super-corvette or super-frigate are under any sort of active design or development.

As for what I believe the Russian Navy will be; yes, at this stage I do believe they are intending to make the Gorshkov class FFG be the workhorse of their blue water capable fleet in the near future, but it also sounds like they're going to build a decently sized Lider production run to complement it at the higher end. How well the execute both of those programmes going forward is another matter... and at this point I think it would be presumptuous of me to project any sort of force structure ratios for a navy that I'm not intimately familiar with.

And again I'd like to emphasize that what the Russian Navy chooses to do and how they structure their surface combatant fleet does not necessarily have anything to do with how the Chinese navy can, will or should structure their fleet.

edit: I think the difference between what is being talked about for the Russian Navy's future fleet composition (including Lider, Gorshkov and Pr 21956) vs what Lethe and you and me are talking about for the chinese Navy, is that for the Russian Navy we are actually able to make some inferences based on their publicly announced reports or disclosures of ship designs and shipbuilding schedules which constrains our ability to throw around different ideas for their fleet (e.g. the Pr 21956 not being mentioned at all in the last few years suggests it has not advanced beyond the concept design stage and/or at least is not under consideration by the Russian Navy in any serious way). Whereas for the Chinese Navy we are much more reliant on rumours in terms of both future designs and the production run of those designs, which together gives us much more freedom to throw around potential ideas, especially for the more distant future... and that isn't necessarily a good thing lol.

 

[Iron Man]

But regarding the specific Lider vs Pr 21956, I stand by my point that Pr 21956 does not appear to have moved beyond the initial concept design shown, and that much more noise is being made about Lider. This has no recourse or effect regarding Lethe's fleet structure proposal, because that is after all just a proposal for fleet structure and he is not saying that the super-corvette or super-frigate are under any sort of active design or development.

As for what I believe the Russian Navy will be; yes, at this stage I do believe they are intending to make the Gorshkov class FFG be the workhorse of their blue water capable fleet in the near future, but it also sounds like they're going to build a decently sized Lider production run to complement it at the higher end. How well the execute both of those programmes going forward is another matter... and at this point I think it would be presumptuous of me to project any sort of force structure ratios for a navy that I'm not intimately familiar with.

And again I'd like to emphasize that what the Russian Navy chooses to do and how they structure their surface combatant fleet does not necessarily have anything to do with how the Chinese navy can, will or should structure their fleet.

edit: I think the difference between what is being talked about for the Russian Navy's future fleet composition (including Lider, Gorshkov and Pr 21956) vs what Lethe and you and me are talking about for the chinese Navy, is that for the Russian Navy we are actually able to make some inferences based on their publicly announced reports or disclosures of ship designs and shipbuilding schedules which constrains our ability to throw around different ideas for their fleet (e.g. the Pr 21956 not being mentioned at all in the last few years suggests it has not advanced beyond the concept design stage and/or at least is not under consideration by the Russian Navy in any serious way). Whereas for the Chinese Navy we are much more reliant on rumours in terms of both future designs and the production run of those designs, which together gives us much more freedom to throw around potential ideas, especially for the more distant future... and that isn't necessarily a good thing lol.

I don't take the paucity of new information on the Project 21956 as some kind of sign that it is not going to move forward. In fact I think it is entirely possible the media may have been getting the Project 21956 and the Project 23560 classes mixed up in their reporting, especially when they report that a new class is replacing Sovs and Udaloys which are 7 to 8,000 ton class ships, and which are entirely reasonable for the 9,000t Project 21956 to replace, even on a one-for-one basis, but entirely ludicrous for the 17,500t Project 23560 to replace, which is far more suited to replace the ageing Kirovs. Smaller and yet more potent than Kirovs, they could potentially be built in larger numbers. I think it is quite unlikely that the Russian navy is moving towards a bimodal ORBAT consisting of frigates and cruisers while skipping the destroyer class entirely. This would give them a glut of not-quite capable enough ships supported insufficiently by not-quite-plentiful enough superships. No other navy employs this kind of fleet structure.

 

[Blitzo]

I don't take the paucity of new information on the Project 21956 as some kind of sign that it is not going to move forward. In fact I think it is entirely possible the media may have been getting the Project 21956 and the Project 23560 classes mixed up in their reporting, especially when they report that a new class is replacing Sovs and Udaloys which are 7 to 8,000 ton class ships, and which are entirely reasonable for the 9,000t Project 21956 to replace, even on a one-for-one basis, but entirely ludicrous for the 17,500t Project 23560 to replace, which is far more suited to replace the ageing Kirovs. Smaller and yet more potent than Kirovs, they could potentially be built in larger numbers. I think it is quite unlikely that the Russian navy is moving towards a bimodal ORBAT consisting of frigates and cruisers while skipping the destroyer class entirely. This would give them a glut of not-quite capable enough ships supported insufficiently by not-quite-plentiful enough superships. No other navy employs this kind of fleet structure.

I think what you've said is not inconceivable, and while I haven't been following the Russian Navy's overall progress and plans with the kind of magnifying glass I use for the Chinese Navy, I have been keeping tabs on their surface combatant projects, especially in the last two or three yars.
And I can say with quite a lot of certainty and confidence that in that time, there have been an increasingly large amount of news reports, many originating from Russian affiliated state media discussing the characteristics and parameters of the Lider class and the potential production run of that ship, and it is a ship that is 200m long (!), displacing slightly over 17,000 tons (!), and potentially even with nuclear propulsion, built in numbers of anywhere from 8-12.
Of course, I'm very skeptical as to those claims, but the problem is that all the media (Russian and otherwise) seem to be sticking to those characteristics for the ship, and there is a particularly well known model/design that has been consistently shown as being the Lider/Shkval/Pr 23560 class as I'm sure you've seen, and it looks.... well bizarre, like a miniature Kirov combined with the characteristics of a Gorshkov class frigate, with a pagoda on top for good measure.

However, through all of this time of increasing disclosures about the Lider class, there has been no indications that Pr 21956 has moved anywhere at all nor under any sort of active consideration by the Russian Navy. Of course maybe the Russian Navy will consider it, or a variant of Pr 21956 again in the near future, but at this stage there is no indication of it... and given that the Russian Navy is actually quite open about their future procurement plans going forwards to anywhere from half a decade to a decade, if they still haven't announced any plans to procure a Pr 21956 or similar design, then I can't see them intending for such a ship to be part of the foreseeable orbat to enter service within at least the next ten years or so.


As for what the Russian Navy's future force structure will be... who knows. Maybe they will announce an 8000 ton destroyer class in the next few years to fit the bill between the 17000 ton Lider and the 4500 ton Gorshkov, or maybe they won't, or maybe they won't be able to build anywhere near the number of Liders and Gorshkovs they want.

Of course, all this is off topic, and not really related to the 055 and even the Russian Navy's orbat is not really related to the Chinese Navy's orbat either.

 

[jobjed]

it is a ship that is 200m long (!), displacing slightly over 17,000 tons (!), and potentially even with nuclear propulsion, built in numbers of anywhere from 8-12.

Could this possibly be a side-effect of Russia's falling behind China in terms of next-gen R&D and systems integration? As POP3 reveals, the 055 in its current form is an extraordinarily optimised version of an original design that weighed over 20,000 tonnes, achieved due to a design emphasis on universality of systems (e.g. modular VLS, good systems integration).

If the Russians, in their cash-strapped state, can't afford to find/train/hire a large cohort of engineers to integrate systems and conduct R&D into next-gen systems, or can't afford to do so extensively, it's plausible that the Lider class is as heavy as it is because of inefficiencies.

I have mentioned before that I think the qualitative difference between a destroyer and a cruiser besides the improved capabilities is the presence of extra command facilities for an embarked SAG commander and his support staff, possibly at the level of Senior Captain/Rear Admiral. This ship would serve as a command ship in the absence of an aircraft carrier, or as the AAW command ship as part of a CSG. In addition a cruiser may be tasked with missions not normally given to a destroyer, such as ABM defense and ASAT warfare given that it would have many more VL cells to spare for these types of missiles.


Oh right, because the PLAN obviously needs several dozen cruisers when even the USN doesn't.

That's the case for the USN but I'm not sure if it is for the PLAN. POP3 has a thread

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where he explains various aspects of the PLAN's philosophy regarding C&C and the ships responsible for hosting them.

The PLAN differentiates between small and large command vessels. The small command vessels simply coordinate conventional surface actions. Every single new-built PLAN vessel has small-command capability by default including even the older Type 052, small Type 054 and Type 056. The large command vessels are fewer in number but pretty much every flotilla in the PLAN has such a ship. The large command vessels are capable of coordinating air, ground, surface, sub-surface, and space assets. The first such vessel is the Type 051 DDG-134 'Zunyi', which is still in service. To POP3, the fact that DDG-134 is still in service illustrates an insufficient number of large command vessels. However, the fact that every flotilla has a large command vessel already far exceeds PLAN expectations, which they laid down a decade ago. He predicts that the PLAN is about to double their aspirations to equip every flotilla with two large command vessels instead of the current one. But I digress...

You believe the PLAN doesn't need that many Type 055s because, to you, it is a cruiser and represents primarily increased C&C function over the Type 052D/E. But we have POP3 saying even a Type 051, that antiquated hulk, is capable of serving as a large command vessel. Additionally, DDG-112 is supposedly far superior to the DDG-113 in C&C capabilities even though they're both classed as Type 052s.

Therefore, I don't believe the Type 055 offers primarily better C&C capabilities over the Type 052D/D; that should not be a factor in your estimate of their eventual numbers. If the PLAN wanted another large command vessel, they could simply modify a Type 052D/E instead of building more Type 055s, like they modified the DDG-134 and DDG-112.

Of course, you could still make the case that the PLAN will procure the Type 055 in much smaller numbers than the Type 052D/E, but you'll need a different rationale.

 

[Blitzo]

Could this possibly be a side-effect of Russia's falling behind China in terms of next-gen R&D and systems integration? As POP3 reveals, the 055 in its current form is an extraordinarily optimised version of an original design that weighed over 20,000 tonnes, achieved due to a design emphasis on universality of systems (e.g. modular VLS, good systems integration).

If the Russians, in their cash-strapped state, can't afford to find/train/hire a large cohort of engineers to integrate systems and conduct R&D into next-gen systems, or can't afford to do so extensively, it's plausible that the Lider class is as heavy as it is because of inefficiencies.

I mean it's possible, but I also think the Russian Navy has different requirements for their large combatants (such as less requirement for universal VLS apparently, as they have differing VLS for SAM families vs ASHM families), and I'd also like to wait and see what the 055 actually ends up being before making too ambitious judgements about how that may reflect on the shipbuilding industry of the two respective nations.

 

[Blitzo]

That's the case for the USN but I'm not sure if it is for the PLAN. POP3 has a thread

Please, Log in or Register to view URLs content!

where he explains various aspects of the PLAN's philosophy regarding C&C and the ships responsible for hosting them.

The PLAN differentiates between small and large command vessels. The small command vessels simply coordinate conventional surface actions. Every single new-built PLAN vessel has small-command capability by default including even the older Type 052, small Type 054 and Type 056. The large command vessels are fewer in number but pretty much every flotilla in the PLAN has such a ship. The large command vessels are capable of coordinating air, ground, surface, sub-surface, and space assets. The first such vessel is the Type 051 DDG-134 'Zunyi', which is still in service. To POP3, the fact that DDG-134 is still in service illustrates an insufficient number of large command vessels. However, the fact that every flotilla has a large command vessel already far exceeds PLAN expectations, which they laid down a decade ago. He predicts that the PLAN is about to double their aspirations to equip every flotilla with two large command vessels instead of the current one. But I digress...

You believe the PLAN doesn't need that many Type 055s because, to you, it is a cruiser and represents primarily increased C&C function over the Type 052D/E. But we have POP3 saying even a Type 051, that antiquated hulk, is capable of serving as a large command vessel. Additionally, DDG-112 is supposedly far superior to the DDG-113 in C&C capabilities even though they're both classed as Type 052s.

Therefore, I don't believe the Type 055 offers primarily better C&C capabilities over the Type 052D/D; that should not be a factor in your estimate of their eventual numbers. If the PLAN wanted another large command vessel, they could simply modify a Type 052D/E instead of building more Type 055s, like they modified the DDG-134 and DDG-112.

Of course, you could still make the case that the PLAN will procure the Type 055 in much smaller numbers than the Type 052D/E, but you'll need a different rationale.

The question this raises for me is what that means for some recent combatants like 052C and 052D in terms of command facilities, and whether those facilities are or will be standard for any destroyer of ship class. Because pop3 almost badges it sounds like the navy will decide some ships of a class will be built with certain command facilities and some ships will not, so on what basis do they make such a decision, and one cannot help but wonder if that kind of non uniform command facilities among an entire class of destroyer or warship may be an impediment in potential cases of attrition.

I also am a little sceptical to his claim/suggestion that destroyers as old as some 051s are as capable of command capability as new build destroyers modifications notwithstanding... Because I think the sheer difference in hardware and software that those ships are able to support must surely have an impact on the actual real world command capability that those ships can discharge.