PRC Peoples Liberation Army Navy

koxinga

Well-Known Member
Perhaps, but the range issue would still be of concern for any potential land fire support against any near pier opponent.
It is a moot point.

If you are going up against a near peer opponent, they will have a lot of other ways to kill a ship, 150km, 200km, 300km and up, land fire support mission, open water engagement etc.
 

Ananda

The Bunker Group

PLAN Newest Frigate class the type 054B already join Liaoning Carrier Group during exercise near Philippines water. Still I put in here more on the talk of both STOBAR Carrier (Liaoning and Shandong) are being modified to be able operate J-35.

CATOBAR fighter being use in STOBAR is not new. In fact India final contender for their new STOBAR carriers is CATOBAR Fighter. Still if J-35 able to operate from both PLAN STOBAR carrier, means all 3 carrier now will using same fighters configuration (J-15 and J-35). Wondering though how realistic the speculation on Chinese forums on modified both STOBAR carrier with one EMALS in the angle deck. This to make both Liaoning and Shandong also able to operate PLAN AEW&C.
 

Ananda

The Bunker Group

Few days ago, Deino X account shown the progress of PLAN 004 carrier aft section.

HO44suwbEAEQnmI.jpg

Now seems there's some leak on the front section.

HPMtuIJXcAEWwEZ.png

Still not clear enough if 004 will be CVN or still CV. Chinese forums and weibo talk before of type 003A as another conventional CATOBAR. While speculation both being build simultanously but from different yards.

It is being circulate that PLAN want to put 6 Carriers by next decade. 2 STOBAR, 2 Conventional CATOBAR and 2 Nuclear CATOBAR. If 003A also in progress with 004, then it seems PLAN due aim for that 6 Carriers set up.
 

Ananda

The Bunker Group

HPl7-3XXQAAaD4h.png

This is good representation of current PLAN fleet inventory. From 3 carriers, 4 LHD, LPD (type 71 and 72), Type 55 and 52D destroyer, Type 54 Frigate, type 56 corvettes and other older assets. On submarine there are seems already discarding older Romeo based SSK and now mostly used their own design.
 

John Fedup

The Bunker Group
The PLAN seems to be building a big mothership for large drone submarines according to this naval news article. Like huge missile arsenal ships, a huge amount of military kit in a tempting target. Mind you, China can build and replace kit with alarming speed. Frankly I would be more worried about a large underwater mothership for submarine drones.

 

John Fedup

The Bunker Group
A second mothership for drone submarines has appeared. It is somewhat smaller than the first ship. As the article suggests, the PLAN seems to consider these ships as an important asset for their navy’s future.

 

koxinga

Well-Known Member
It is a drone tender/mothership for XLUUVs. What is interesting to me is how they perceive the CONOPS to be.

No other Western nations are working on motherships of this sort of size or complexity and their CONOPS seems to rely on their extreme long ranges and deploy them straight out of their primary, sovereign bases.
 

Sandhi Yudha

Well-Known Member
A second mothership for drone submarines has appeared. It is somewhat smaller than the first ship. As the article suggests, the PLAN seems to consider these ships as an important asset for their navy’s future.

So those chinese UUVs like the AJX002 have a similar size and shape as the Russian Status-6 Poseidon, but they have another role and different propulsion.
 

John Fedup

The Bunker Group
It is a drone tender/mothership for XLUUVs. What is interesting to me is how they perceive the CONOPS to be.

No other Western nations are working on motherships of this sort of size or complexity and their CONOPS seems to rely on their extreme long ranges and deploy them straight out of their primary, sovereign bases.
Given the huge distances wrt the Pacific and the current endurance of XLUUVs, motherships perhaps make sense. Same applies to the Indian Ocean from a PLAN perspective. Western nations simply don’t have the ship building capacity to match unless other critical warship requirements are bypassed, just my two cents though.
 

Ananda

The Bunker Group

Put it here, as not often come across relative good video of PLAN Project 956EM Sovremenny Destroyer. Now all four practically rebuild by Chinese own sensors and system and using Chinese VLS and Missile. Modification and upgrade that Russia have know how to follow, but simply can not affort to do it.
 

StevoJH

The Bunker Group
The Russian ships are all gone, keep in mind that they were all significantly older than the ships built for the PRC.

As a design they also need a large crew and operate a steam plant. It’s probably much more efficient to replace them with a new frigate that has more capability at a much reduced operational cost.
 

Ananda

The Bunker Group
When looking toward Chinese forums and weibo, seems China choose to upgrade those 4 Project 956EM as stop gap until their own Type 52D and 55 numbers are sufficient.

There's argument that the life span still considerable enough, it can be used toward 2030's before being taken out. That at least provide additional 15+ years interim stop gap, from middle last decade. The upgrade shown the potential for the design being strech toward VLS environment standard. 48 VLS is quite good to strech an older design like this.

I do think if Russia has enough industrial capacity to upgrade their own project 956 and pararelly build new ships just like China do, perhaps they are doing it. As such upgrading one Kirov class battle cruiser already take most of their upgrade capacity.
 
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StevoJH

The Bunker Group
The Russian ships were all 10-15 years older than the ships sold to the PRC.

It could probably be argued that they operate in much harsher conditions in the northern latitudes than the ships of the PLAN as well.
 

Sandhi Yudha

Well-Known Member
When looking toward Chinese forums and weibo, seems China choose to upgrade those 4 Project 956EM as stop gap until their own Type 52D and 55 numbers are sufficient.

There's argument that the life span still considerable enough, it can be used toward 2030's before being taken out. That at least provide additional 15+ years interim stop gap, from middle last decade. The upgrade shown the potential for the design being strech toward VLS environment standard. 48 VLS is quite good to strech an older design like this.

I do think if Russia has enough industrial capacity to upgrade their own project 956 and pararelly build new ships just like China do, perhaps they are doing it. As such upgrading one Kirov class battle cruiser already take most of their upgrade capacity.
Who knows, maybe next decade china will sell them back to Russia. It will be for Russia much cheaper to upgrade those 956EMs instead of building brand new 22350Ms.
 
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