055 DDG Large Destroyer Thread

[Iron Man]

It isn't spin doctoring. Again, I point to the difference between the MK41 and MK57. They are of the same standard, but not the same model. You were the one clamoring about evidence earlier, so if you have evidence or reasoning that I am wrong, that we in fact *do* know the standard VLS is specifically the 052D's VLS and not just any VLS built to the GJB 5860-2006 standard, of which the 052D's was one, then I welcome it.

Oh, so now Mk41 and Mk57 are "of the same standard"??? LOL what "standard" is that, exactly? Please point out this "standard" via link and quote. Do you even know that the dimensions, capacities, venting and armoring of the Mk41 and Mk57 are so vastly different that to place them in the same "standard" is laughable at best and morbidly incompetent at worst? Let me guess, you pulled this "standard" out of your nether regions, right? Come on, man up here.

As for the universal VLS standard, do you actually even know of any other VLS within this standard other than the one present on the 052D? I mean, why am I even arguing this truly, mind-blowingly puerile nonsense with you? I find it difficult to believe that deep down in your heart of hearts you have any real doubts about the nature of the VLS on board the 055 and whether it is or is not what is present on the 052D.

Funny, you've done a lot of flippant hand waving yourself (because that's what questioning someone's motives and calling their arguments "spin" is). I spent quite some time reviewing what we actually knew about the 052D's VLS, and digging up pictures of the 055's MFR slot myself. My replies, like yours, take time to compose, so I would appreciate it if you don't indulge yourself with the pretentious entitlement that your time is being wasted.

If you haven't actually done the measurements, perhaps you should be more modest about your attitude and your assertions. Unfounded confidence usually isn't a great way to have a constructive debate.

Your replies certainly didn't, don't, and wouldn't take the time my analysis would, since you've obviously not done any yourself. Having been exposed to the ridiculous lengths that you personally seem willing to go to in order to deny reason and common sense right to its face, I will most certainly NOT waste my time for you.

I did not ignore your latest response. I was pointing out that your fixation on me calling those slots "radar" slots missed the broader point of my argument. You chose to nitpick at an offhand description while ignoring the actual contention (which was that we don't know what goes into those slots so we actually can't say what the ship's electronic's capabilities are, given that usually a modern naval ship's electronics capabilities are an integrated system and not determined by the sum of piecemeal equipment).

What are you even talking about here? You are now dishonestly focusing on the 055's "electronic capabilities" when my list that I made for you was FAR BROADER than "electronics". You have now purposely narrowed your focus to electronics because it is obvious we currently we know the least about this area. But we DO know or reasonably expect many of the other details of this ship. Let me list for you again: we know or reasonably expect that the main gun, VLS, CIWS, SRSAM launcher, countermeasures rocket launchers, AESA, and main propulsion are likely to be previously developed technology carried over from the 052D. What we know to be new: the ESM mast. What we don't know at all: the ECM hardware.

It's funny that you keep framing this discussion as my speculation vs your speculation, because my original point wasn't to assert my own speculations for the ship's equipment and capabilities so much as to point out that we have just as much reasonable basis for uncertainty behind the speculations you seem so confident about as the ones you seem to be arguing against. I was not making a binary argument.

Well seeing as how your speculation consists of hilariously attempting so hard to cast some kind of doubt on the "standard" vs actual VLS hardware of the 052D vis a vis the 055, posting a photo which purports to show a bigger AESA on the 055 when it actually does nothing of the kind, asserting that the 052C's AESA is the same size as the 052D's, and claiming that the main mast of the 055 will sport "3 radar arrays" (!) (and then attempting to downplay your speculation as "offhand" LOL), I would say that your speculations are slightly more speculative than mine, to put it mildly.

Instead of engaging with the actual reasons I've presented though, in most cases you seem to settle on a presumption of your own superiority, blind and personal accusations about my motivation, and pure condescension and disregard as appropriate responses. Those are not substantive arguments as much as projections of your own ego. You can afford to have a more modest attitude here, because I can assure you that you aren't going to be walking away with a Nobel prize for smartest person in the world just for being right. (And before you accuse me of breaking decorum, recall that *you* were the one taking potshots at my motivations first).

Wow, you sound real butthurt, which means you've already lost. Grow some thicker skin, gentle tulip. BTW, questioning one's "motivations" isn't nearly the same thing as calling one "an ass", so I think you win on "breaking decorum" here. But I don't mind; unlike you I do have a thick skin. I have to say that I really look down on intellectual dishonesty in any form, which is what you are probably picking up from me in this thread. The intellectually grotesque manner in which you chose to argue about the VLS, the contradictory manner in which you chose to be selective on pointing out "speculations", the frankly erroneous factual statements that I've caught you making, and the flippant manner in which you chose to disown your own claims, makes for a very "challenging" discussion, to be perfectly honest with you.

 

[Blitzo]

They are really the same things in this case since none of us here on SDF know anything of the extent or even nature of any potential advancements in the areas you mentioned, so speculating about contributions of one or a combination of any of these subsystems to a ship's overall warfighting capabilities necessitates random uninformed speculation about each one's potential contribution.

I have no issue with this statement and it is also consistent with my own position.

No need to make any reference to the 052D at all, because I have no doubt it wasn't even on his mind when he made the statement. This does not matter at all since it is obvious his "fruition" of technologies statement is being applied SPECIFICALLY to the advent of the 055, and thus by implication NOT to anything earlier (like the 052D). Things didn't fruit for the 052D 5 years ago and all of a sudden you're talking about their "fruition" now while gushing about the 055; talk about doing violence to the plain meaning of a statement. Things don't "fruit" now and somehow give you benefits 5 years before it fruits. I have no idea why you try to belabor this issue when it is so obvious what he was saying. As for the comment about the "one or two", the stronger the case that you try make for the 052D to be a minimal-change descendent of the 052C in your effort to front that the 3-ship production of the 055 is such a bigger deal than the 3-ship production of the 052D, the less you have any kind of point here, where the one or two could easily be accounted for by the production of the initial 052C pair in 2006 where most of the technologies validated for the 052C were also validated for the later 052D, thus no need for "one or two" 052Ds because their near-identical forebears the 052Cs had already gone through this trial.

He is saying that 055's production is a result of fruition of those advancements, yes.
But he is not saying that the fruition of those technologies only occurred before 055 was designed/produced (or after 052D was designed/produced).

Or, putting it another way -- saying that 055's manner of production is a result of fruition of those advancements means those advancements played a significant role in its manner of production.
However, not saying that 052D's manner of production is not a result of fruition of those advancements, does not mean those advancements did not play a role in its production nor does it mean those advancements didn't exist or reach fruition before its design/development process/etc.

It merely means that ships prior to 055 (including 052D) were not a prominent display of the fruition of those advancements, and that's simply because their manner of production is far less impressive than the manner of production of 055.

If 052D had been a clean sheet hull design or if it had been built in two shipyards at the beginning then I'm sure we would've all gushed about it as well, but due to various potentially historical, political, logistical reasons unrelated to the fruition of those advancements, that didn't turn out to be the case.

Your very response betrays you here. How can the 055 be a "more" prominent display of advanced technologies when you claim that he wasn't even thinking about the 052D? "More" invariably involves a comparison to something else, i.e. 055 to 052D. Your thinking is clearly going around in circles here. Either he wasn't making any comparison or reference to the 052D at all, or he WAS. So which is it? You can't have both even though you're trying for both.

"More" compares the display of 055's production to any other previous ship class that preceded it, and by extension, sure that means 052D, but it also means 052C, 052B, 052, 051C, 051B, 054A, 054 etc, or all ships (or at least surface combatants) prior to 055. He does not single out 052D or mention 052D's time of production as any particular reference in his statement or either of his posts.

As for saying that 055's manner of production is a more prominent display of those advances relative to ships produced in previous years or decades, again I repeat, does not have any bearing on whether those advancements existed for a specific ship in those previous years (such as 052D).

How can an initial rate of production represent any kind of confidence if the overall rate of completion is abysmal? Again, citing an extreme to bring out the logic, if a ship class gets built 20 at a time but finishes 1 every ten years, there is a huge disconnect in "confidence" and somebody's head is liable to roll. What engenders "confidence" is not just how many you start but whether you can finish them as expected. In fact this sounds like the fake and utterly surreal "confidence" of many Indian posters on places like BR. Unrealistic expectations coupled with lack of attachment to reality. And what is reality? Reality is how long it takes for a hull to hit the water from the time you start building it. Whatever "confidence" internet posters may or may not have is irrelevant to the metric that shipbuilders and warfighters use. This "initial rate of production" is a completely fabricated "metric" that you created for the sole purpose of this discussion, a metric which surely does not actually exist in the real world and did not even exist on this forum or in anyone's mind prior to you creating it. Why? Because again, nobody makes a distinction between "initial" rate and "overall" rate, or I would say "actual" rate, except you! And I would venture even further to say that even you never made any such distinction about ship production until a few pages ago, and you only did this because your own convoluted argumentation forced you down this path!

The overall rate of production has little reflection on the confidence of a design though -- the size and complexity of the ship itself is a much more important factor.
Obviously seeking to equate the production rate of a 12000+ ton ship to a 7000+ ton ship and using that as an important metric of confidence in design (or indeed even other design and production related competencies) without controlling for confounding factors such as difference in ship size would be ludicrous!

And I'm not sure what you mean by saying it's a metric "does not actually exist in the real world" -- if it is measurable in the real world, then it is a real metric.
Nobody talks about how many of a single ship are in production at once within the outset of a certain ship's class because no one else is having this ridiculously specific discussion! But within the context of this specific discussion, of course it is very logical to use this specific metric.

That's not really what he's saying. What we've "known" or rather expected is that changes would come by batch. What he seems to be saying is that changes are actually coming by INDIVIDUAL ship within the first batch itself.

Is that what he is saying?

"A interesting thing they said was there already plan for more then one version of 055 and like the 052D until they prefect the design they are not going to start massive building. We shouldn't be expecting a lot of new tech on the frist few 055 but for A B C D or whatever there should be new stuff added and tested each each time."

We shouldn't expect a lot of new tech for the first few 055s... sure, but by "first few" is that referring to two ships, or four ships, or more?

As I said in a previous post, there's a lot of ambiguity in certain key terms which prevents us from drawing the kind of more detailed production estimates we'd like.

 

[nethappyg4]

Anyone know some Chinese website with quality info I can translate some of it to English for you guy when I have some time.

 

[Iron Man]

I think most people expected this to be the case. For example, I along with many others, believed the initial order of Type 055 would be one or two hulls to sea trial the new design and systems. Followed by another one or two hulls with a change to IEP in a 055A variant. After that I personally expected mass production/adoption, where some others only believed a handful of Type 055 would be built to serve as command ships for SAGs and the CBGs.

What we seem to see now is a higher priority given to the overall program in getting hulls built and a much larger overall initial batch order than expected. I think its also a good initial indication that we will indeed see many Type 055 vessels inducted into the PLAN, rather than a handful of Command Ships. In the next 2-5 years we will know for sure, at this rate.

Nah, there is no contradiction between mass production and a "command" role for the 055, especially if the rest of the fleet is similarly beefed up. For example a Chinese navy consisting of 12 055s, 36 052C/D/Es, and 50+ 054A/Bs would easily constitute a "mass production" of 055s and yet allow the role of the 055 to be the AAW commander of a SAG or CSG.

 

[nethappyg4]

That's not really what he's saying. What we've "known" or rather expected is that changes would come by batch. What he seems to be saying is that changes are actually coming by INDIVIDUAL ship within the first batch itself.

I am not implying anything all I been doing is stating what been said. Furthermore in my personal point of view most likely the hardware update would come between batch but however software update could easily be update on individual ship as they try prefect the system before upgrading the whole batch. To China this is a learning process as well as they are playing a game of catch up at the moment.

I also believer that even if they are using the similar technology and similar system of the 52D on frist batch of 055. System intergration on the new ship is a challenges itself. Correct me if I am wrong.

 

[latenlazy]

Oh, so now Mk41 and Mk57 are "of the same standard"??? LOL what "standard" is that, exactly? Please point out this "standard" via link and quote. Do you even know that the dimensions, capacities, venting and armoring of the Mk41 and Mk57 are so vastly different that to place them in the same "standard" is laughable at best and morbidly incompetent at worst? Let me guess, you pulled this "standard" out of your nether regions, right? Come on, man up here.

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"Mk 57 VLS is the development of Mk 41 VLS."

As for the universal VLS standard, do you actually even know of any other VLS within this standard other than the one present on the 052D? I mean, why am I even arguing this truly, mind-blowingly puerile nonsense with you? I find it difficult to believe that deep down in your heart of hearts you have any real doubts about the nature of the VLS on board the 055 and whether it is or is not what is present on the 052D.

No I don't, but none of your points do anything to prove the 052D's VLS will be the exact standard VLS for other ships. That is speculation, equivalent to assuming the 052C's VLS would have been the same as the 052B's. You can scoff and rage and find excuses around this point, but you haven't brought up any evidence or articulated arguments to show that it isn't just speculation. Your only response has been to insist I am denying the obvious when I've already laid out why I do not think it's as obvious as you're making it out to be. You can find my actual position on this point difficult to believe, but your inability to believe doesn't change the reasoning behind my position, and as yet you have made no convincing counterarguments except to express feeble increduility.

Your replies certainly didn't, don't, and wouldn't take the time my analysis would, since you've obviously not done any yourself. Having been exposed to the ridiculous lengths that you personally seem willing to go to in order to deny reason and common sense right to its face, I will most certainly NOT waste my time for you.

Actually do the analysis, or stop complaining about how unreasonable I am. What's really unreasonable is making a confident claim, being an ass about it, and then dodging the actual work to justify your confidence. You can try to disrespect me by saying I'm not worth the time, but by saying you're not willing to put time into confirming your own claims you're really just undercutting your own credibility. You're not going to get around that credibility problem by trying to browbeat me into concession over a text box. You're a stranger in a forum who I have no particular need for affirmation from. Do the work, or don't, but if you want to be believed getting angry won't get you anywhere.

What are you even talking about here? You are now dishonestly focusing on the 055's "electronic capabilities" when my list that I made for you was FAR BROADER than "electronics". You have now purposely narrowed your focus to electronics because it is obvious we currently we know the least about this area. But we DO know or reasonably expect many of the other details of this ship. Let me list for you again: we know or reasonably expect that the main gun, VLS, CIWS, SRSAM launcher, countermeasures rocket launchers, AESA, and main propulsion are likely to be previously developed technology carried over from the 052D. What we know to be new: the ESM mast. What we don't know at all: the ECM hardware.

Go back and read my first post. I specifically focused on the electronics suite. I didn't narrow anything. You tried to broaden the debate to try to minimize my point that there are significant unknowns about the 055's electronic capabilities, but broadening the debate doesn't neutralize either my original point, or the fact that the electronics capability of a ship is not a trivial part of a naval destroyer's capabilities. You can keep parroting your list, but there are three slots and a tower on the mast unaccounted for and you are still presuming more confidence about the VLS and radar than is warranted. You have no basis for knowing with certainty the identity of either the VLS or radar. We have no pictures of the 055's VLS, and the only visual indication of the radar is a square cutout, whose size you refuse to actually measure and compare with the 052D's. Those are not strong starting points for drawing strong conclusions.

Well seeing as how your speculation consists of hilariously attempting so hard to cast some kind of doubt on the "standard" vs actual VLS hardware of the 052D vis a vis the 055, posting a photo which purports to show a bigger AESA on the 055 when it actually does nothing of the kind, asserting that the 052C's AESA is the same size as the 052D's, and claiming that the main mast of the 055 will sport "3 radar arrays" (!) (and then attempting to downplay your speculation as "offhand" LOL), I would say that your speculations are slightly more speculative than mine, to put it mildly.

You are trying to belittle and demean rather than make substantive arguments or present new evidence. I presume this means that you don't have an actual answer to my points, which I will take to be an ungraceful concession.

Wow, you sound real butthurt, which means you've already lost. Grow some thicker skin, gentle tulip. BTW, questioning one's "motivations" isn't nearly the same thing as calling one "an ass", so I think you win on "breaking decorum" here. But I don't mind; unlike you I do have a thick skin. I have to say that I really look down on intellectual dishonesty in any form, which is what you are probably picking up from me in this thread. The intellectually grotesque manner in which you chose to argue about the VLS, the contradictory manner in which you chose to be selective on pointing out "speculations", the frankly erroneous factual statements that I've caught you making, and the flippant manner in which you chose to disown your own claims, makes for a very "challenging" discussion, to be perfectly honest with you.

I'm not butt hurt at all actually. Just calling a spade a spade. Intellectual dishonesty comes in the form of condescending another person, trying to use rhetorical characterizations like calling reasoned arguments "spin", making strong assertions and then finding excuses not to do the hard analysis to back them, trying to side step and distract from standards of argumentation by demanding a bet, and taking potshots at a person's motivations rather than engaging with the substance of their arguments, all of which you have done plenty of in our exchanges. You might want to get off your high horse and take your ego down a few notches. I say that as friendly advice. If you can't have a debate without taking disagreement personally you might want to take a look at your own maturity. The kind of attitude you are adopting here doesn't usually end well in a professional setting.

 

[FORBIN]

All the same a lot of question marks ...

The 4th Type 055 destroyer appears in Dalian ?

A few weeks ago, in mid January, we talked about the construction of the 3rd copy of the new class of Chinese destroyer Type 055 at the Dalian shipyard. Today, with the new satellite images as of December 1, 2016, everything suggests that it is not one but two Type 055 that this shipyard in northern China is building, just like the construction site Naval Jiangnan Changxing in Shanghai

Indeed, on the satellite image of November 20 we could see three modules in the center of this destroyer of 12,000 tons being assembled. And on the image dating back to December 1st, a little more than 10 days later, two other modules with the same width at the fort appeared on the same dock.
Knowing that a Type 055 destroyer is composed of 3 modules at the center, 3 modules at the stern and 3 at the bow, whose width at the fort is not the same for these parts, we deduce that the new modules belong to a New vessel, and therefore the 4th.

A few weeks ago, in mid January, we talked about the construction of the 3rd copy of the new class of Chinese destroyer Type 055 at the Dalian shipyard. Today, with the new satellite images as of December 1, 2016, everything suggests that it is not one but two Type 055 that this shipyard in northern China is building, just like the construction site Naval Jiangnan Changxing in Shanghai.

Modules of the two Type 055 destroyers in Dalian (Source: Digital Global)
Indeed, on the satellite image of November 20 we could see three modules in the center of this destroyer of 12,000 tons being assembled. And on the image dating back to December 1st, a little more than 10 days later, two other modules with the same width at the fort appeared on the same dock.
Knowing that a Type 055 destroyer is composed of 3 modules at the center, 3 modules at the stern and 3 at the bow, whose width at the fort is not the same for these parts, we deduce that the new modules belong to a New vessel, and therefore the 4th.

CG image of some modules of Type 055 ( see pics )
According to a source close to the shipbuilders in China, the number of buildings ordered by the Chinese navy at the moment has increased from 8 to "two figures", without giving more precision. But this will not impact another destroyer program, the Type 052D, which is half smaller, of which at least 18 hulls have been signed.

This increase in the number of Type 055, designed for greater autonomy, endurance and combat capability on the high seas, is synonymous with a review of its overseas needs and its perception of threat by China for the near future, The 2025 horizon.

The construction of the second STOBAR currently underway in Dalian is another example of this development - unwanted either by the Chinese navy or by industry in the first place, it was political leaders who "imposed" this force projection tool While allowing the start of the CATOBAR aircraft carrier project long envisaged by the military and the builders.

The main reason for this "redundancy" of "non-ideal" tools is the desire to have two operational naval battle groups before 2022 to "face new external threats".

In the other shipyard in Shanghai, which was the first to start the construction of Type 055, the satellite image as of December 9 shows that the hull assembly is almost finished for the 1st ship, Now found next to the dry dock and ready to be integrated.

The second specimen is being assembled, with the three modules of the center fixed.

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Different looks the good

 

[delft]

So Henri K says it was a political decision to build Type 001A and to order a larger initial number of 055 and a larger production rate than would have been chosen by PLAN.

 

[latenlazy]

So Henri K says it was a political decision to build Type 001A and to order a larger initial number of 055 and a larger production rate than would have been chosen by PLAN.

Which isn't too surprising. We've been hearing about an accelerated timeline from multiple streams for a while now.

 

[Iron Man]

He is saying that 055's production is a result of fruition of those advancements, yes.
But he is not saying that the fruition of those technologies only occurred before 055 was designed/produced (or after 052D was designed/produced).

Or, putting it another way -- saying that 055's manner of production is a result of fruition of those advancements means those advancements played a significant role in its manner of production.
However, not saying that 052D's manner of production is not a result of fruition of those advancements, does not mean those advancements did not play a role in its production nor does it mean those advancements didn't exist or reach fruition before its design/development process/etc.

It merely means that ships prior to 055 (including 052D) were not a prominent display of the fruition of those advancements, and that's simply because their manner of production is far less impressive than the manner of production of 055.

If 052D had been a clean sheet hull design or if it had been built in two shipyards at the beginning then I'm sure we would've all gushed about it as well, but due to various potentially historical, political, logistical reasons unrelated to the fruition of those advancements, that didn't turn out to be the case.

There was no mention of more or less "prominent" ANYTHING, nor was there even any implication of more or less prominent anything. That is a logical twist that you inserted into the text to force-fit the text so that it can conform to your claims. Whereas I don't have to do any stretching of logic, I am taking the plain interpretation of the text. You are the one who has to "reconcile" a plain statement and a plain interpretation with a logically stretched version which is NOT the plain interpretation. The plain interpretation is that these technologies have been come into "fruition" with the production of the 055, not that they are somehow a "more" "prominent" "display" of such fruition compared to some prior time. This does great violence to the text and to the context of the text, i.e. what SanWenYu also said that subotai responded to.

"More" compares the display of 055's production to any other previous ship class that preceded it, and by extension, sure that means 052D, but it also means 052C, 052B, 052, 051C, 051B, 054A, 054 etc, or all ships (or at least surface combatants) prior to 055. He does not single out 052D or mention 052D's time of production as any particular reference in his statement or either of his posts.

As for saying that 055's manner of production is a more prominent display of those advances relative to ships produced in previous years or decades, again I repeat, does not have any bearing on whether those advancements existed for a specific ship in those previous years (such as 052D).

See above.

The overall rate of production has little reflection on the confidence of a design though -- the size and complexity of the ship itself is a much more important factor.
Obviously seeking to equate the production rate of a 12000+ ton ship to a 7000+ ton ship and using that as an important metric of confidence in design (or indeed even other design and production related competencies) without controlling for confounding factors such as difference in ship size would be ludicrous!

And I'm not sure what you mean by saying it's a metric "does not actually exist in the real world" -- if it is measurable in the real world, then it is a real metric.
Nobody talks about how many of a single ship are in production at once within the outset of a certain ship's class because no one else is having this ridiculously specific discussion! But within the context of this specific discussion, of course it is very logical to use this specific metric.

The "overall rate of production" is the ONLY metric of confidence relevant here. The "initial rate of production" does not exist in reality, and by does not exist I mean nobody uses "initial rate of production" as opposed to the overall rate of production. I have never heard of this metric being used ever, either here, on some other board, on the internet in general, or in any publication I have ever read. I have also never seen you use it until just now when you invented it out of thin air. Again, this a totally nonsensical artificially fabricated non-metric that I'm certain was invented in this very thread and used in the history of humanity by only one person ever. Prove me wrong. Go ahead.

Is that what he is saying?

"A interesting thing they said was there already plan for more then one version of 055 and like the 052D until they prefect the design they are not going to start massive building. We shouldn't be expecting a lot of new tech on the frist few 055 but for A B C D or whatever there should be new stuff added and tested each each time."

We shouldn't expect a lot of new tech for the first few 055s... sure, but by "first few" is that referring to two ships, or four ships, or more?

As I said in a previous post, there's a lot of ambiguity in certain key terms which prevents us from drawing the kind of more detailed production estimates we'd like.

What it sounds like is piecemeal testing of individual and DIFFERENT subsystems on different ships in the first batch.