055 DDG Large Destroyer Thread

[szbd]

I bet she will be named Nanchang

 

[Blitzo]

The Daring cost >$1.6billion per ship. Was it also too expensive? Would you like me to name some more destroyers?

Actually Daring was also indeed quite expensive. As was Hobart class, among other destroyers built in the western nations.

Sejong class OTOH, being built by a big shipbuilding country like SK (similar to China) was able to keep the unit costs of their Sejong class quite low considering the bang for buck they got. So IMO the statement that Burke, Daring, Hobart, et al being "too expensive" is a bit of a red herring, it's more that different nations can have vastly different unit costs depending on the state of their overall shipbuilding industry.

 

[szbd]

probably not. I doubt all three are radar arrays. One of them might be.

But it's ridiculous to put other antennas so close to an AESA radar,that just give you a lot of trouble on heat management and maintenance.

 

[jobjed]

I still find this number hard to believe given the extremes of sensor integration we are seeing on this ship. Hull/mast integration essentially quadruples the cost of many of the sensors, which are easily the most costly of all the components of a warship. And yet this ship is supposed to be less than half the cost of an Arleigh Burke?

Pop3 indicated it was 6 billion yuan. Considering he took part in the preparation of the 055 program, I'd be confident the cost is close to what he says.

Like others have pointed out, the Sejong is a Burke on steroids but is somehow cheaper. Wouldn't that be unbelievable to you as well? The reality is some countries are very efficient at building ships; the US isn't one of them.

"Fleet command system" clearly refers to a cruiser-type function that has not been stated to be aboard the 052C/D destroyer. It would also obviously necessitate a CEC-type network for it to work.

The PLAN didn't introduce a fleet-command function onto the 055 so much as they improved it. I've told you this before; all PLAN destroyers have task force-command capabilities but only some have fleet-command capabilities. While the Burkes have no fleet-command capabilities, the 052Ds do, as do other select ships in the PLAN destroyer fleet. Of note, a Type 051 antique and DDG 112 are two of those 'select' ships. The rest of the 051s and DDG 113 do not have those command facilities and are handicapped in that regard like the Burkes.

That is how the PLAN does things; integrate fleet-command facilities into select destroyer hulls. It might be different to how the USN does things but these are PLAN ships and they can delegate to them whatever roles they want. The Type 055 is classified as a destroyer and will be employed like one so it's a destroyer to me. The USN can call it whatever they want when they talking amongst themselves but they're not the ones who conceptualised, developed, built, and will be operating it so their classification is not authoritative beyond USN circles.

As a analogy, if I classified the Burke as neither a destroyer or cruiser, but as an Aegis yatch, the USN isn't going to care how I've classified it because I'm not the one who conceptualised, designed, built, and operated the Burke so my classification is not authoritative. I can call the Burke a yatch when I'm talking to my friends but outside my circle, the Burke is a destroyer, not a yatch. Likewise, outside USN circles, the 055 is a destroyer, not a cruiser.

I'm not sure where he is getting his numbers from here. The 056 is larger than other 1,000t ships and the 052D is larger than other 6,000t ships (e.g. French FREMM).

He seems to have gotten most of his info from pop3. Pop3, and the rest of the PLAN for that matter, uses normal displacement and full displacement; no such thing as standard displacement. Under normal displacement regime, the 056 is 1k tonne-class, 054A is 4k tonne-class, 052C/D are 6k tonne-class and 055 is 12k-tonne class.

It should be noted that even in this article the 055 is described as having cruiser-type functions ("fleet command") that have not been used to describe 052C/D, so regardless of what it's named, a cruiser by any other name.... would still smell like a cruiser.

It's a cruiser to the USN because they don't integrate fleet-command to the ships they call "destroyers". The Chinese do.

Further showing how obsolete the "destroyer" and "cruiser" differentiation is, consider that 052Ds, by merit of having fleet-command facilties, can qualify as USN cruisers despite being only 7k tonnes full. It's time to ditch the superfluous "cruiser" classification altogether just like it's time to ditch imperial measurements. But, as the US has showed us, it's gonna take a while cos y'all are special. Or least believe yourselves to be.

 

[Blitzo]

But it's ridiculous to put other antennas so close to an AESA radar,that just give you a lot of trouble on heat management and maintenance.

it's not that unprecedented, the thales i-mast does it, and an even more extreme example is the australian ceafar radar which has something like ten aesa arrays all mounted on the same fairly small single bulbous mast.

I don't think the 055's integrated mast has multiple sets of AESAs on it, however the technical feasibility of it isn't the reason for my doubt.

 

[szbd]

it's not that unprecedented, the thales i-mast does it, and an even more extreme example is the australian ceafar radar which has something like ten aesa arrays all mounted on the same fairly small single bulbous mast.

I don't think the 055's integrated mast has multiple sets of AESAs on it, however the technical feasibility of it isn't the reason for my doubt.

thales’s ARPR block2 is almost entirely an X-band AESA isn't it?

 

[wych]

This must be a reference to an MRSAM, since the 055 will already have an LRSAM (HHQ-9B) and an SRSAM (HHQ-10). DK-10A?

Yes, the French original in fact reads: "...un nouveau type de missile anti-aérien de portée moyenne", i.e a new type of medium range surface to air missile.

 

[AndrewS]

If an enemy manages an attack with 64 harpoons in a single salvo against single ship - well, you're dead.
And it's very unlikely anyone will be so kind to specifically limit attack density to a sustainable level for defender. Quite the opposite.

Larger missile pool isn't about single ship self defense, it's about:
1)Ability to carry more missile types at the same time, w/o compromising main tasks. For example, 055 can carry strike package against multiple land targets, yet remain fully capable in both AAW and ASuW.
2)Better perform coordinated defense, if integrated (fleet) fire control is capable of doing so.
Basically, you can "lend" missiles to endangered sectors of defense.
...
and so on.

I disagree that 64 Harpoons (or indeed any subsonic cruise missile) against a Type-55 is deadly.

With the radar horizon, that is at 60 seconds of engagement time, which would be enough for at least 2 SAM engagements. Then you've got the RAM, then CIWS.

So the size of the missile pool does matter.

And if destroyers start to mount airborne radars powered by an electrical tether, the available engagement distance/time increases dramatically.

 

[davidau]

She's launched....

 

[AndrewS]

The Daring cost >$1.6billion per ship. Was it also too expensive? Would you like me to name some more destroyers?

Already had a look at this when I was doing the cost estimate for the Type-55 last year. It's all on an old post in this thread.

The Daring and Burkes are very expensive. See list below.

Daring (1.6 Billion USD)
Arleigh Burke (1.8 Billion USD)
Sejeong AEGIS DDG (0.923 Billion USD)
Kongo AEGIS DDG (approx $1.1 Billion USD)

The Koreans and Japanese do their AEGIS destroyers for around HALF the cost of an Arleigh Burke.
And note they buy the same AEGIS weapons sets

So China building a Type-55 for 6 Billion Yuan (0.88 Billion USD) looks correct.