The 7th 054A was commissioned today with PLAN ESF as No. 548. According to this article, it was named after the city Yiyang from Province Hunan. There is also a news report here.
We found out some interesting stats on 054A like that its standard displacement is 3600 tons (we previous found out that full displacement is 4053 tons), length is 134 m, width is 16 m and maximum speed is 27 knots.
However, the more interesting is the procurement cycle for PLAN. It reported that this unit was first ordered to be built by HuangPu shipyard in 2006. It was chosen to be named after Yiyang in April of 2009. It was launched in Nov of 2009, started sea trials in May of 2010 and got commissioned in Oct of 2010. So, it takes less than a year to go from launching to commissioning. At the same time, it takes 3 years to go from getting the order to being launched. I'm not sure if the earlier ships of this batch 571 was placed at the same time, so the construction time to launching + preparation work could be much shorter than 3 years.
Thứ Sáu, 29 tháng 10, 2010
Thứ Năm, 14 tháng 10, 2010
PLAN MCM
There is a new minesweeper class coming into service with China recently. I thought it would be a good time to go through the history of PLAN mine warfare development.
MCM operation has long been a huge weakness in PLAN. If ASW is widely viewed as the Achilles Heel of PLAN, then MCM is not that far behind. As numerous navies started to develop a new generation of MCM ships in the 70s and 80s built with glass-reinforced plastic material, equipped with remotely operated vehicle mine neutralization system and advanced minehunting and classification sonar, China was stuck with Soviet 50s era T-43/Type 6610 minesweepers.
China bought the licensed production to Project 254K and 254M minesweepers in the 50s. The first 4 vessels that were built with Soviet supplied kits were Type 6605. After that, China started to build Type 6610 based on Soviet documentations to Type 254M minesweepers. As time went on, China eventually indigenized everything after the Soviet-China split and made more modifications to turn Type 6610 into more of a patrol boat.
A total of 33 Type 6610 vessels were built all the way up to 1987 and several of which were even involved in real combat against Vietnamese Navy. Even now, PLAN still operates about 15 of these Type 6610 minesweepers including the frequently photographed No. 830 to 834 of East Sea Fleet.
By the late 1970s, China started development of a new type of coastal minesweeper. This class, known as the Type 082 Wosao class, first joined service in 1988. They are 44.8 m long, 6.2 m wide and have a draft of 3.7 m. They were the first sign of a post T-43 + modernized minesweeping design by China. They were equipped with Type 316 mini contact sweep, type 317 magnetic sweep, type 318 acoustic sweep and type 319 infrasonic sweep. These vessels can also be used to control the Type 312 remote minesweeping drones. This ship class basically consists of the original Type I variant ships (No. 801 to 803) and the improved Type II variant (No. 806、807、816、817, 820 to 827). You can recognize the difference just by looking at the bridge. Here are some of the ships from this class.
As we arrived at the current wave of PLAN modernization, MCM was clearly a huge weakness in PLAN. The Type 082 class is modern compared to T-43, but they are only suitable for coastal operations and are not modern by international standard. PLAN needed MCM vessels that would push it to the modern level of MCM ships that came into service with different NATO navies in the 80/90s like the Avenger class, Tripartite class, Sandown class and Type 343 Hameln class. PLAN has kind of moved into this new era of MCM operation with 2 new classes in the past few years. The first one is the Type 081 minesweeper. They are built more for seagoing mine warfare operations than Type 082. They are larger, probably close to the size of T-43s, equipped with more modern sweeping systems, mine detection sonar and modern command system (like GPS, radar, display console, combat system). At the current time, we know of at least 4 units of this class (805, 810, 839 and 840). Each of these ships cost around $37 million in 2008. The second MCM class is the Type 082II (or another designation) minehunter. So far, there is only one unit of this ship built. As you can see with the photos below, it is very similar in size to Type 081. I would say they are both around 550 to 600 ton in displacement.
I think it has taken a while for the next ship of this class to come out, because it represented too much of an advancement in PLAN. Similar to other ship series, this first unit is testing out a lot of new equipments and concepts before further units are built. This is probably the first MCM ship in PLAN system that does not use any kind of mechanical sweep and probably the first one to be built with Glass reinforced plastic. As shown below, it is also the first MCM ship to be equipped with mine disposing ROV (+crane to lower ROV) and advanced sonar management system. The sonar system is reported to be able to track and identify everything with several hundreds meters. In fact, one of the pictures showed a scale of up to 200 m, but I'm not sure if they have a longer tracking mode.
As it happened, we saw a new class of remote controlled minesweeping drones recently. This development is kind of interesting, because China has been studying different navies around the world for ideas in improvement. In most cases, PLAN follows the path of USN (like 052C + combat system, 071/LCAC, Type 920 hospital ship). In this case, it seems like PLAN found German navy's Ensdorf class to be the one that would be the best for its given requirements. The dimensions of 804 is very similar to Ensdorf class and the dimensions of this new Type 8041 drone is very similar to Seehund drones. It looks like 804 will be operating with 3 or 4 of these drones + ROVs in disposing mines.
MCM operation has long been a huge weakness in PLAN. If ASW is widely viewed as the Achilles Heel of PLAN, then MCM is not that far behind. As numerous navies started to develop a new generation of MCM ships in the 70s and 80s built with glass-reinforced plastic material, equipped with remotely operated vehicle mine neutralization system and advanced minehunting and classification sonar, China was stuck with Soviet 50s era T-43/Type 6610 minesweepers.
China bought the licensed production to Project 254K and 254M minesweepers in the 50s. The first 4 vessels that were built with Soviet supplied kits were Type 6605. After that, China started to build Type 6610 based on Soviet documentations to Type 254M minesweepers. As time went on, China eventually indigenized everything after the Soviet-China split and made more modifications to turn Type 6610 into more of a patrol boat.
A total of 33 Type 6610 vessels were built all the way up to 1987 and several of which were even involved in real combat against Vietnamese Navy. Even now, PLAN still operates about 15 of these Type 6610 minesweepers including the frequently photographed No. 830 to 834 of East Sea Fleet.
By the late 1970s, China started development of a new type of coastal minesweeper. This class, known as the Type 082 Wosao class, first joined service in 1988. They are 44.8 m long, 6.2 m wide and have a draft of 3.7 m. They were the first sign of a post T-43 + modernized minesweeping design by China. They were equipped with Type 316 mini contact sweep, type 317 magnetic sweep, type 318 acoustic sweep and type 319 infrasonic sweep. These vessels can also be used to control the Type 312 remote minesweeping drones. This ship class basically consists of the original Type I variant ships (No. 801 to 803) and the improved Type II variant (No. 806、807、816、817, 820 to 827). You can recognize the difference just by looking at the bridge. Here are some of the ships from this class.
As we arrived at the current wave of PLAN modernization, MCM was clearly a huge weakness in PLAN. The Type 082 class is modern compared to T-43, but they are only suitable for coastal operations and are not modern by international standard. PLAN needed MCM vessels that would push it to the modern level of MCM ships that came into service with different NATO navies in the 80/90s like the Avenger class, Tripartite class, Sandown class and Type 343 Hameln class. PLAN has kind of moved into this new era of MCM operation with 2 new classes in the past few years. The first one is the Type 081 minesweeper. They are built more for seagoing mine warfare operations than Type 082. They are larger, probably close to the size of T-43s, equipped with more modern sweeping systems, mine detection sonar and modern command system (like GPS, radar, display console, combat system). At the current time, we know of at least 4 units of this class (805, 810, 839 and 840). Each of these ships cost around $37 million in 2008. The second MCM class is the Type 082II (or another designation) minehunter. So far, there is only one unit of this ship built. As you can see with the photos below, it is very similar in size to Type 081. I would say they are both around 550 to 600 ton in displacement.
I think it has taken a while for the next ship of this class to come out, because it represented too much of an advancement in PLAN. Similar to other ship series, this first unit is testing out a lot of new equipments and concepts before further units are built. This is probably the first MCM ship in PLAN system that does not use any kind of mechanical sweep and probably the first one to be built with Glass reinforced plastic. As shown below, it is also the first MCM ship to be equipped with mine disposing ROV (+crane to lower ROV) and advanced sonar management system. The sonar system is reported to be able to track and identify everything with several hundreds meters. In fact, one of the pictures showed a scale of up to 200 m, but I'm not sure if they have a longer tracking mode.
As it happened, we saw a new class of remote controlled minesweeping drones recently. This development is kind of interesting, because China has been studying different navies around the world for ideas in improvement. In most cases, PLAN follows the path of USN (like 052C + combat system, 071/LCAC, Type 920 hospital ship). In this case, it seems like PLAN found German navy's Ensdorf class to be the one that would be the best for its given requirements. The dimensions of 804 is very similar to Ensdorf class and the dimensions of this new Type 8041 drone is very similar to Seehund drones. It looks like 804 will be operating with 3 or 4 of these drones + ROVs in disposing mines.
Thứ Năm, 7 tháng 10, 2010
China Maritime Surveillance
In the recent time, the Fisheries Law Enforcement Command made a lot of noise with the deployment of YuZheng-310 to South China Sea. Even so, China Maritime Surveillance has slowly become the biggest fish of the five Chinese coast guard agencies as mentioned in the last post on this project. The force is responsible for enforcing laws and order within China’s territorial waters, exclusive economic zones. Since China is having so many disputes with USA and neighbouring countries recently on the issue of territorial waters and EEZ, CMS has clearly jumped to prominence over time.
It is taking over some of the roles previously assigned to the navy, so it's not surprising to see that the naval expansion also led to CMS expansion. In fact, it has received some 037 ships as part of this recent movement in retiring PLAN ships into the Coast Guard force. As PLAN rise in stature, CMS is also continuing to rise in stature. Unlike its military counterpart, I see a balanced growth of each of the fleet of the North, East and South Sea Headquarter of CMS. This trend clearly differs from that of PLAN, which favours the growth of blue water assets for SSF and anti-access assets for ESF (while leaving NSF to rot).
This is a recent summary of the major cutters of each of the three HQs of CMS.
This expansion of CMS was made into part of the 10th 5 year plan in 2000. The first phase of the buildup happened from 2004 to 2005. A 3000-ton class Haijian-83 was built by JiangNan shipyard. A 1500-ton class Haijian-51 was built by WuChang shipyard. Three 1000-ton class Type 1 Haijian-46, 17 and 71 were built by WuChang shipyard. A final 1000-ton class Type 2 Haijian-27 was built by HuangPu shipyard.
We have now reached the second phase of the CMS buildup. There are numerous cutters being built at multiple naval shipyards for CMS. In the Huangpu shipyard, there have been two cutters Haijian-23 and Haijian-75 that have been launched recently.
They are two of the four 1000 ton Type-II class cutters that are on order for HP. They are 75.8 m long and 10.2 wide. It's actually quite amazing to see how fast these 2 ships got launched. They only began earlier this year and will be delivered before the end of the year.
In the WuChang shipyard, Haijian-15 and Haijian-84 are currently launched and fitting out the electronics.
They are the 2 1500 ton class cutter that are on order for WuChang. Each cutter is 88 m long, 12 m wide and has 5.6 m draft. The actual displacement of the ship is 1740 ton. They were launched earlier this year and may be delivered before the end of the year. Although, WuChang does not build ship as fast as HP, so it probably won't make that time frame.
Finally, a 3000-ton class Haijian-50 started construction in WuChang in April of this year and is scheduled to be delivered to East Sea in May of Next Year. It will be similar to the Haijian-83 built for South Sea.
On top of that, WuChang is also contracted to build numerous 600-ton cutters for CMS. So, WuChang clearly has a large part in this 2nd phase of CMS build up. I would say that HP shipyard is making much better progress on its orders from the recent photos. Although, I'm sure 054As and Yuan submarines are still getting higher priority in these shipyard than the CMS ships.
The third phase of the buildup is probably going to happen at the end of the 12th 5 year plan if we go by the time line of the first 2 phases of the buildup. One of the projections is that they will be going for 3 5000-ton class, 3 4500-ton class, 4 3000-ton class, 6 2000-ton class, 16 1500-ton class and 14 1000-ton class. I doubt that they will go for that many, but the next phase will probably be larger, because PLAN will be expected to operate further away from the shore. With PLAN (especially SSF) becoming more blue water, CMS will only be given more tasks to protect China's shoreline. So, I think WuChang and HuangPu shipyard will be really busy cranking new cutters out in 3 or 4 years.
It is taking over some of the roles previously assigned to the navy, so it's not surprising to see that the naval expansion also led to CMS expansion. In fact, it has received some 037 ships as part of this recent movement in retiring PLAN ships into the Coast Guard force. As PLAN rise in stature, CMS is also continuing to rise in stature. Unlike its military counterpart, I see a balanced growth of each of the fleet of the North, East and South Sea Headquarter of CMS. This trend clearly differs from that of PLAN, which favours the growth of blue water assets for SSF and anti-access assets for ESF (while leaving NSF to rot).
This is a recent summary of the major cutters of each of the three HQs of CMS.
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This expansion of CMS was made into part of the 10th 5 year plan in 2000. The first phase of the buildup happened from 2004 to 2005. A 3000-ton class Haijian-83 was built by JiangNan shipyard. A 1500-ton class Haijian-51 was built by WuChang shipyard. Three 1000-ton class Type 1 Haijian-46, 17 and 71 were built by WuChang shipyard. A final 1000-ton class Type 2 Haijian-27 was built by HuangPu shipyard.
We have now reached the second phase of the CMS buildup. There are numerous cutters being built at multiple naval shipyards for CMS. In the Huangpu shipyard, there have been two cutters Haijian-23 and Haijian-75 that have been launched recently.
They are two of the four 1000 ton Type-II class cutters that are on order for HP. They are 75.8 m long and 10.2 wide. It's actually quite amazing to see how fast these 2 ships got launched. They only began earlier this year and will be delivered before the end of the year.
In the WuChang shipyard, Haijian-15 and Haijian-84 are currently launched and fitting out the electronics.
They are the 2 1500 ton class cutter that are on order for WuChang. Each cutter is 88 m long, 12 m wide and has 5.6 m draft. The actual displacement of the ship is 1740 ton. They were launched earlier this year and may be delivered before the end of the year. Although, WuChang does not build ship as fast as HP, so it probably won't make that time frame.
Finally, a 3000-ton class Haijian-50 started construction in WuChang in April of this year and is scheduled to be delivered to East Sea in May of Next Year. It will be similar to the Haijian-83 built for South Sea.
On top of that, WuChang is also contracted to build numerous 600-ton cutters for CMS. So, WuChang clearly has a large part in this 2nd phase of CMS build up. I would say that HP shipyard is making much better progress on its orders from the recent photos. Although, I'm sure 054As and Yuan submarines are still getting higher priority in these shipyard than the CMS ships.
The third phase of the buildup is probably going to happen at the end of the 12th 5 year plan if we go by the time line of the first 2 phases of the buildup. One of the projections is that they will be going for 3 5000-ton class, 3 4500-ton class, 4 3000-ton class, 6 2000-ton class, 16 1500-ton class and 14 1000-ton class. I doubt that they will go for that many, but the next phase will probably be larger, because PLAN will be expected to operate further away from the shore. With PLAN (especially SSF) becoming more blue water, CMS will only be given more tasks to protect China's shoreline. So, I think WuChang and HuangPu shipyard will be really busy cranking new cutters out in 3 or 4 years.
Chủ Nhật, 3 tháng 10, 2010
New wave of Chinese naval ship construction + closer look in its SSK program
I think that the period of late 2002 to 2007 was probably China's first naval shipbuilding boom. During that period, we saw a lot of new platforms introduced like the new DDGs(051C,052B/C), new FFGs (054, 054A) and even larger ships (like replenishment ships and Type 071 LPD). After that, we had a couple of years in 2008 and 2009 where we had a lull and only saw the end of the 022 production run, numerous 054As and some Yuan coming out. The only new ship we saw were the large hospital ship and the new submarine tender.
Part of the reason for this slow down was the move of JiangNan shipyard to ChangXin and changes in other major shipyards. A larger reason for this is the raw number of new hardware coming into service that was simply overwhelming PLAN's ability to absorb them. A final reason is the PLAN philosophy in introducing new platforms. They typically make a huge leap in the first prototype while continuing to building ships of existing variant. Once they sort out all of the problems in the first prototype, they start to mass produce this new class. As they mass produce, they continue to make smaller tweaks until the end of the production run. A typical example of this is the 054 series. They commissioned a pair of 054s in 2004, but they built 2 more older Jiangwei class frigates after that. By 2006, they started to mass produce the improved variant 054A. They have made a couple of small changes after the first 4 054As, but the production run have generally remained constant throughout the past 4 years. We have seen 10 054As appearing by now. In some cases like 022, they built the first 4 units and it did not take very long before they really started cranking them out.
And finally, there are the destroyers and the amphibious ships. 052C was a huge technology leap from what China had before. The jump was so huge that PLAN did not order another 052 series DDG until the current DDGs under construction in JiangNan (a span of 5 years). Type 071 LPD is another example where the leap was huge. The first ship 998 was commissioned by late 2007, but we only started seeing the second unit under construction in the past few months. They took a long time to learn how to operate a much larger amphibious ship with support for multiple helicopters and LCACs. I believe that we have really entered a second shipbuilding boom for PLAN, because mass production has started for some of those prototype units they built in the first period of boom.
The most interesting case study is probably PLAN's conventional submarine program. They built the first song submarine 039 in 1994. Even though it was not very advanced, China was so technologically backward back then that it didn't enter service until 5 years later. They made several changes and commissioned 3 of these modified Song (039G class) submarine from 2001 to 2003. They made some more smaller changes and really mass produced 9 to 12 of these improved Song (039G1 class) submarine from 2004 to 2006. These are currently the workhorse of PLAN. At the same time, they launched the lead unit in the Yuan (039A class) submarine in 2004, which probably commissioned in 2006. I would say that the technological leap from 039G1 to 039A was not all that great, but it still took them 3 years before we saw the next Yuan submarine coming out. The next 3 Yuan submarine launched in 2007 and 2008 were slightly modified from the first Yuan, so we could call that 039A1. The interesting part is that we did not see any more photos after the early part of 2008 of new unit (at least none that we were sure about). There was possibly one as shown below, but I'm not 100% sure.
While this was happening, I heard a lot of rumours that there were a bunch of new submarines under construction at WuChang shipyard. This was obviously verified in the past month when we saw that mysterious new diesel submarine showing up. I've been calling it 039B, but PLAN probably has a different designation for it. It probably represents a much larger evolution in technology over Yuan compared against Yuan's evolution from Song. So, I would say that this submarine is in the same position that Yuan was in 2004 to 2005. Another similarity is that Yuan submarines are still getting pumped out. These are a couple of pictures that shows the new submarine with a Yuan class submarine in the background. I do find the submarine in the background to be slightly different from the previous Yuan submarines (as shown in the first photo). The front top edge of the sail seems to be curved and it's also hard to see any torpedo tube launchers. If we look at the second photo (which gives a better prospective of the sizes), I would say that the new submarine has much longer sail and is probably a little larger too. Since Yuan is already quite a large conventional submarine, the new one seems to be designed to be quite an ocean going submarine. It's quite possible that we've had a couple of other units of this slightly modified Yuan submarine built in the past 2 years, but the pictures from WuChang shipyard don't come out as often. We know that JiangNan shipyard has started to crank out naval vessels again, so both WC and JN are probably building Yuan submarine at this point. It's the same scenario that we had in 2004/2005 with Song and Yuan. At that point, we were seeing 3 or 4 submarines coming out each year for a 3 years production run. That probably would not happen this time around, but we will probably see mass production of the latest variant of Yuan until the new submarine is ready for mass production.
Part of the reason for this slow down was the move of JiangNan shipyard to ChangXin and changes in other major shipyards. A larger reason for this is the raw number of new hardware coming into service that was simply overwhelming PLAN's ability to absorb them. A final reason is the PLAN philosophy in introducing new platforms. They typically make a huge leap in the first prototype while continuing to building ships of existing variant. Once they sort out all of the problems in the first prototype, they start to mass produce this new class. As they mass produce, they continue to make smaller tweaks until the end of the production run. A typical example of this is the 054 series. They commissioned a pair of 054s in 2004, but they built 2 more older Jiangwei class frigates after that. By 2006, they started to mass produce the improved variant 054A. They have made a couple of small changes after the first 4 054As, but the production run have generally remained constant throughout the past 4 years. We have seen 10 054As appearing by now. In some cases like 022, they built the first 4 units and it did not take very long before they really started cranking them out.
And finally, there are the destroyers and the amphibious ships. 052C was a huge technology leap from what China had before. The jump was so huge that PLAN did not order another 052 series DDG until the current DDGs under construction in JiangNan (a span of 5 years). Type 071 LPD is another example where the leap was huge. The first ship 998 was commissioned by late 2007, but we only started seeing the second unit under construction in the past few months. They took a long time to learn how to operate a much larger amphibious ship with support for multiple helicopters and LCACs. I believe that we have really entered a second shipbuilding boom for PLAN, because mass production has started for some of those prototype units they built in the first period of boom.
The most interesting case study is probably PLAN's conventional submarine program. They built the first song submarine 039 in 1994. Even though it was not very advanced, China was so technologically backward back then that it didn't enter service until 5 years later. They made several changes and commissioned 3 of these modified Song (039G class) submarine from 2001 to 2003. They made some more smaller changes and really mass produced 9 to 12 of these improved Song (039G1 class) submarine from 2004 to 2006. These are currently the workhorse of PLAN. At the same time, they launched the lead unit in the Yuan (039A class) submarine in 2004, which probably commissioned in 2006. I would say that the technological leap from 039G1 to 039A was not all that great, but it still took them 3 years before we saw the next Yuan submarine coming out. The next 3 Yuan submarine launched in 2007 and 2008 were slightly modified from the first Yuan, so we could call that 039A1. The interesting part is that we did not see any more photos after the early part of 2008 of new unit (at least none that we were sure about). There was possibly one as shown below, but I'm not 100% sure.
While this was happening, I heard a lot of rumours that there were a bunch of new submarines under construction at WuChang shipyard. This was obviously verified in the past month when we saw that mysterious new diesel submarine showing up. I've been calling it 039B, but PLAN probably has a different designation for it. It probably represents a much larger evolution in technology over Yuan compared against Yuan's evolution from Song. So, I would say that this submarine is in the same position that Yuan was in 2004 to 2005. Another similarity is that Yuan submarines are still getting pumped out. These are a couple of pictures that shows the new submarine with a Yuan class submarine in the background. I do find the submarine in the background to be slightly different from the previous Yuan submarines (as shown in the first photo). The front top edge of the sail seems to be curved and it's also hard to see any torpedo tube launchers. If we look at the second photo (which gives a better prospective of the sizes), I would say that the new submarine has much longer sail and is probably a little larger too. Since Yuan is already quite a large conventional submarine, the new one seems to be designed to be quite an ocean going submarine. It's quite possible that we've had a couple of other units of this slightly modified Yuan submarine built in the past 2 years, but the pictures from WuChang shipyard don't come out as often. We know that JiangNan shipyard has started to crank out naval vessels again, so both WC and JN are probably building Yuan submarine at this point. It's the same scenario that we had in 2004/2005 with Song and Yuan. At that point, we were seeing 3 or 4 submarines coming out each year for a 3 years production run. That probably would not happen this time around, but we will probably see mass production of the latest variant of Yuan until the new submarine is ready for mass production.
Thứ Bảy, 2 tháng 10, 2010
More detailed look at Chinese "LCAC"
Before, we starting looking at the Chinese version of LCAC, I have a couple of pictures showing the new amphibious ship under construction in HuDong shipyard. They have finally assembled all the modules together so that we can see the hull of the ship as a whole sitting in the dry dock. It broadly takes the hull shape of Type 071's lead ship 998. A bunch of fanboys have tried to point out minor differences here and there, but I don't want to really conclude anything before it really takes shape. For LPD, China seemed to have taken the typical path of building one lead ship, learn how to use it, sort out the problems and then mass producing later. We seemed to have moved onto the mass production phase now with this second unit.
Speaking of mass production, the 5th 054A of HD shipyard has been uncovered and is shown below. For those counting, we have basically 6 054A in service. We have 2 054A launched at HP shipyard. One of which already had number painted, but returned for some reason. We also have another 054A launched at HD shipyard that's getting the electronics installed right now. At this point, I don't know if they will build any more pairs of 054As after this 5th pair.
And finally, a more close look at the Chinese LCAC. Once in a while, we actually get a detailed description of a new PLAN asset. Although I can't be sure this is 100% accurate, it's still a good source to look at.
In the first picture, we see a nice diagram with description of each part. We can see that the steering cabin (or bridge? Not sure what I should be calling it) is on the right side of the picture and the left side if we are on the craft looking forward. On the American LCAC, it's on the other side. Following that, we see 1 large engine cabin on each side with a smokestack pointing out. After that, we see 2 lift fans on both side. And finally, we see the large propellers. The deck of the Chinese LCAC is 28.8m long, 50% longer than American counterpart and can carry 2 light armored combat vehicles.
This one really does a nice comparison. It states that the Chinese LCAC has much inferior maneuverability compared to the American LCAC. Then, it describes in what ways the American LCAC can move and shift that the Chinese one just can't. I think the author is attributing this to American one having 2-shrouded reversible pitch airscrews.
The specs themselves are more interesting. According to the table, the Chinese one is 33 m in length vs 26.8. It is 16.8 m wide vs 13.3 m. The deck is 28.8 m vs 20.4 m in length but 7.2 m vs 8.24 m in width. It makes sense since the Chinese propeller and engine cabin take more space. Front ramp is 7.5 m vs 8.65 m and the rear ramp is 4.9 m vs 4.5 m. The Chinese LCAC has a payload of 60 ton and displacement of 170 ton vs 68 ton and 165 ton for the American one. They both have maximum speed of about 40 knots and range of 200 nm. Chinese one is powered by 2 QC-70 engines (7000 kw each) and American one is powered by 4 TF-40B (3400 kw each).
Speaking of mass production, the 5th 054A of HD shipyard has been uncovered and is shown below. For those counting, we have basically 6 054A in service. We have 2 054A launched at HP shipyard. One of which already had number painted, but returned for some reason. We also have another 054A launched at HD shipyard that's getting the electronics installed right now. At this point, I don't know if they will build any more pairs of 054As after this 5th pair.
And finally, a more close look at the Chinese LCAC. Once in a while, we actually get a detailed description of a new PLAN asset. Although I can't be sure this is 100% accurate, it's still a good source to look at.
In the first picture, we see a nice diagram with description of each part. We can see that the steering cabin (or bridge? Not sure what I should be calling it) is on the right side of the picture and the left side if we are on the craft looking forward. On the American LCAC, it's on the other side. Following that, we see 1 large engine cabin on each side with a smokestack pointing out. After that, we see 2 lift fans on both side. And finally, we see the large propellers. The deck of the Chinese LCAC is 28.8m long, 50% longer than American counterpart and can carry 2 light armored combat vehicles.
This one really does a nice comparison. It states that the Chinese LCAC has much inferior maneuverability compared to the American LCAC. Then, it describes in what ways the American LCAC can move and shift that the Chinese one just can't. I think the author is attributing this to American one having 2-shrouded reversible pitch airscrews.
The specs themselves are more interesting. According to the table, the Chinese one is 33 m in length vs 26.8. It is 16.8 m wide vs 13.3 m. The deck is 28.8 m vs 20.4 m in length but 7.2 m vs 8.24 m in width. It makes sense since the Chinese propeller and engine cabin take more space. Front ramp is 7.5 m vs 8.65 m and the rear ramp is 4.9 m vs 4.5 m. The Chinese LCAC has a payload of 60 ton and displacement of 170 ton vs 68 ton and 165 ton for the American one. They both have maximum speed of about 40 knots and range of 200 nm. Chinese one is powered by 2 QC-70 engines (7000 kw each) and American one is powered by 4 TF-40B (3400 kw each).
Thứ Bảy, 18 tháng 9, 2010
Some recent developments in Chinese Shipyards
We've had some new photos coming out recently showing new ships under construction. Probably the biggest development is what we saw in Wuchang shipyard in Wuhan. The photos below shows a new variant of the 039 series of ships that is noticeably different from 039A (aka Yuan class). I haven't posted the photos until now, because the earlier ones all looked like pictures of models or seriously photo-shopped pictures. Remarkably, they decided to make this new variant look a lot like a kilo submarine. Here are the photos and I will let you guys decide.
Right beside the new submarine, they are also in the midst of building a new cutter Haijian-15 for CMS.
At JiangNan shipyard, we've seen several really unclear pictures that we think are new DDGs for PLAN. It's really hard to tell much right now. Just have to play the usual wait and see approach with PLAN.
We've also seen a couple of new photos of the new amphibious ship currently under construction in HuDong shipyard. It looks like this ship could be ready to be launched before Chinese New Year.
And finally, the Type 920 hospital ship sailed for Gulf of Aden around the end of last month. It has finally reached Gulf of Aden and we got several pictures of its rendezvous with replenishment ship 887 and destroyer 170.
Right beside the new submarine, they are also in the midst of building a new cutter Haijian-15 for CMS.
At JiangNan shipyard, we've seen several really unclear pictures that we think are new DDGs for PLAN. It's really hard to tell much right now. Just have to play the usual wait and see approach with PLAN.
We've also seen a couple of new photos of the new amphibious ship currently under construction in HuDong shipyard. It looks like this ship could be ready to be launched before Chinese New Year.
And finally, the Type 920 hospital ship sailed for Gulf of Aden around the end of last month. It has finally reached Gulf of Aden and we got several pictures of its rendezvous with replenishment ship 887 and destroyer 170.
Thứ Bảy, 21 tháng 8, 2010
A more indepth look at Chinese maritime law enforcement
I've spent sometime the last couple of days preparing for a more informative post on cutters from different Chinese coast guard/maritime surveillance agencies. This is my attempt at a comprehensive look at Chinese maritime enforcement.
I would say that a good place to start is by looking at the Law Enforcement Cutters section of the Sinodefence Naval Vessel Page. Generally speaking, there are five agencies with a large hand in China's maritime law enforcement. The picture below shows the agencies and what is the prefix for their ship names.
The first one listed in there is the China Maritime Surveillance (CMS) of the State Oceanic Administration (SOA). The CMS has the primary mission of patrolling China’s exclusive economic zone (EEZ). A 2008 report in China Daily revealed that CMS had a total of nine aircraft and more than 200 patrol vessels. The largest CMS ship right now is Haijian-83. It is in 3000 ton class and here is an article on it
That is followed by the 1500-ton Haijian-51. This ship has gotten into numerous confrontations with the Japanese over at East China Sea.
The 1200-ton Haijian-27 (aka 1000t-class Type II) cutter.
The 1150-ton Haijian-17/46 (aka 1000t-class Type I) cutter
A new 600-ton design
There are more ships in CMS, but these are just an example of the ships. It also recently received two ships that used to be Type-037 patrol boats for PLAN.
In October 2008, CMS Deputy Director Sun Shuxian declared that, “The [CMS] force will be upgraded to a reserve unit under the navy, a move which will make it better armed during patrols … the current defensive strength of CMS is inadequate”. CMS has stepped up patrol in both South and East China Sea. The build-up in South China Sea is really significant because it comes on the heel of large PLAN SSF build-up and China's recent elevation of South China Sea to Tibet/Taiwan in terms of Sovereignty discussions. We all know about the numerous confrontations between China and USN in this area recently. We have also read about numerous issues with Vietnamese in the same area. It looks like CMS' desires to take over many of the duties currently conducted by SSF as that fleet is moving further blue sea. The diagram below is the organization of the South Sea branch of CMS.
Probably the more significant part is the tremendous expansion that is currently under way for CMS's South Sea branch. According to a June 2009 article, they are planning more cutters of 4000t, 1500t and 1000t class. In fact, we've already seen the first 1000t-class Type II launched in HP shipyard as Haijian-75. At the same time, a 1500t-class cutter is under construction next to the 5th 054A in the dry dock of HP. Rumour is that HP will build a total of 4 1000t-class, 2 1500t-class and 1 4000t-class. Either way, we are seeing a huge expansion of CMS.
The second listed ministry is the Fisheries Law Enforcement Command (FLEC) and its ships begin with the prefix YuZheng. FLEC is given the task of preventing illegal fishing activities in China’s coastal fisheries. The largest FLEC vessel to this date is YuZheng-88. It is actually converted from replenishment ship 888 that had just entered PLAN SSF a few years ago, so this is a 15,000t-class ship.
There are also several other large cutters in service like the 2500t-class Yuzheng-310 and 4000t-class Yuzheng-311
There are several other larger cutters like Yuzheng301 and Yuzheng303
The third listed ministry is the Maritime Safety Administration (MSA) of the Ministry of Transport. Its ships begin with the prefix Haixun or Haibiao. In terms of manpower, MSA exceeds any of the other maritime enforcement agencies with over 20,000 personnel, reflecting both the power of China’s commercial maritime interests generally, and the range of missions—from certifying seafarers to maintaining aids to navigation—that MSA oversees. MSA is headlined by the two largest ship in their inventory Haixun-11 and Haixun-31. They are both 3000t cutters.
Haixun-11 is built for Shandong branch of MSA
Haixun-31 is built for Guangdong branch of MSA.
There is also the 1500t-class Haixun-21 built for the Shanghai branch.
And here are a couple of other smaller MSA ships.
Despite having the most personnel, MSA does not have the most impressive fleet of cutters. The expansion of MSA is more even than CMS, with Shandong (next to yellow sea), Shanghai (next to East China Sea) and Guangdong (next to South China Sea) all getting their largest cutters. MSA cutters come together in South China Sea or East China Sea for patrolling exercises a couple of times a year. MSA will also be getting a 5000t-class cutter soon, which will be the largest and most modern cutter in service (if we don't include YuZheng-88).
The fourth listed ministry is the anti-smuggling force of the General Administration of Customs. Its ships begin with the prefix Haiguan. It is probably the ministry that has seen the least new ships. I guess that indicates the general lower rank of the customs. It just have a few smaller ships like below.
The fifth listed ministry is the Coast Guard (aka Maritime Police in Chinese), which is under the control of PAP. Despite its name, it is neither the largest or the most influential of the ministries. Its ships begin with the prefix Haijing.
The most modern vessel in its fleet is Haijing-1001.
It has received 2 ex-Jianghu class frigates which were given the numbers 1002 and 1003. I believe as more Jianghu ships get decommissioned, the coast guard maybe getting more of them.
I have also posted several other vessels below, but they are really not that modern compared to what we are seeing for some of the other ministries.
In summary, it looks like CMS and MSA are undergoing the largest expansions among the ministries. I believe much of those ships will be delivered to the branches serving the East and South China Sea. These are part of China's effort to have more control in the disputed waters. As with PLAN, civilian maritime fleet were seriously neglected until recent times. So even with the recent expansion effort, it is much smaller and less potent than US and Japanese Coast Guard. The different agencies are procuring more aircraft recently to help with maritime patrol, but they are still tiny compared to that of US and Japan. At the same time, I'm also wary about how so many agencies would be able to work together in offshore patrol. Even so, the maritime agencies (especially CMS and MSA) have indeed expanded and improved a lot in the recent year. And with all of the major recent incidents, they have only expanded the pace of their expansions. I am also interested in seeing how these civilian agencies interact with the navy in patrolling duties. For example, would PLAN delegate patrolling activities to these agencies and not bother with having an OPV class?
Regardless, I think this is one significant development in Chinese maritime aspirations that is not really covered that well by PLA-watchers like myself or foreign government agencies.
I would say that a good place to start is by looking at the Law Enforcement Cutters section of the Sinodefence Naval Vessel Page. Generally speaking, there are five agencies with a large hand in China's maritime law enforcement. The picture below shows the agencies and what is the prefix for their ship names.
The first one listed in there is the China Maritime Surveillance (CMS) of the State Oceanic Administration (SOA). The CMS has the primary mission of patrolling China’s exclusive economic zone (EEZ). A 2008 report in China Daily revealed that CMS had a total of nine aircraft and more than 200 patrol vessels. The largest CMS ship right now is Haijian-83. It is in 3000 ton class and here is an article on it
That is followed by the 1500-ton Haijian-51. This ship has gotten into numerous confrontations with the Japanese over at East China Sea.
The 1200-ton Haijian-27 (aka 1000t-class Type II) cutter.
The 1150-ton Haijian-17/46 (aka 1000t-class Type I) cutter
A new 600-ton design
There are more ships in CMS, but these are just an example of the ships. It also recently received two ships that used to be Type-037 patrol boats for PLAN.
In October 2008, CMS Deputy Director Sun Shuxian declared that, “The [CMS] force will be upgraded to a reserve unit under the navy, a move which will make it better armed during patrols … the current defensive strength of CMS is inadequate”. CMS has stepped up patrol in both South and East China Sea. The build-up in South China Sea is really significant because it comes on the heel of large PLAN SSF build-up and China's recent elevation of South China Sea to Tibet/Taiwan in terms of Sovereignty discussions. We all know about the numerous confrontations between China and USN in this area recently. We have also read about numerous issues with Vietnamese in the same area. It looks like CMS' desires to take over many of the duties currently conducted by SSF as that fleet is moving further blue sea. The diagram below is the organization of the South Sea branch of CMS.
Probably the more significant part is the tremendous expansion that is currently under way for CMS's South Sea branch. According to a June 2009 article, they are planning more cutters of 4000t, 1500t and 1000t class. In fact, we've already seen the first 1000t-class Type II launched in HP shipyard as Haijian-75. At the same time, a 1500t-class cutter is under construction next to the 5th 054A in the dry dock of HP. Rumour is that HP will build a total of 4 1000t-class, 2 1500t-class and 1 4000t-class. Either way, we are seeing a huge expansion of CMS.
The second listed ministry is the Fisheries Law Enforcement Command (FLEC) and its ships begin with the prefix YuZheng. FLEC is given the task of preventing illegal fishing activities in China’s coastal fisheries. The largest FLEC vessel to this date is YuZheng-88. It is actually converted from replenishment ship 888 that had just entered PLAN SSF a few years ago, so this is a 15,000t-class ship.
There are also several other large cutters in service like the 2500t-class Yuzheng-310 and 4000t-class Yuzheng-311
There are several other larger cutters like Yuzheng301 and Yuzheng303
The third listed ministry is the Maritime Safety Administration (MSA) of the Ministry of Transport. Its ships begin with the prefix Haixun or Haibiao. In terms of manpower, MSA exceeds any of the other maritime enforcement agencies with over 20,000 personnel, reflecting both the power of China’s commercial maritime interests generally, and the range of missions—from certifying seafarers to maintaining aids to navigation—that MSA oversees. MSA is headlined by the two largest ship in their inventory Haixun-11 and Haixun-31. They are both 3000t cutters.
Haixun-11 is built for Shandong branch of MSA
Haixun-31 is built for Guangdong branch of MSA.
There is also the 1500t-class Haixun-21 built for the Shanghai branch.
And here are a couple of other smaller MSA ships.
Despite having the most personnel, MSA does not have the most impressive fleet of cutters. The expansion of MSA is more even than CMS, with Shandong (next to yellow sea), Shanghai (next to East China Sea) and Guangdong (next to South China Sea) all getting their largest cutters. MSA cutters come together in South China Sea or East China Sea for patrolling exercises a couple of times a year. MSA will also be getting a 5000t-class cutter soon, which will be the largest and most modern cutter in service (if we don't include YuZheng-88).
The fourth listed ministry is the anti-smuggling force of the General Administration of Customs. Its ships begin with the prefix Haiguan. It is probably the ministry that has seen the least new ships. I guess that indicates the general lower rank of the customs. It just have a few smaller ships like below.
The fifth listed ministry is the Coast Guard (aka Maritime Police in Chinese), which is under the control of PAP. Despite its name, it is neither the largest or the most influential of the ministries. Its ships begin with the prefix Haijing.
The most modern vessel in its fleet is Haijing-1001.
It has received 2 ex-Jianghu class frigates which were given the numbers 1002 and 1003. I believe as more Jianghu ships get decommissioned, the coast guard maybe getting more of them.
I have also posted several other vessels below, but they are really not that modern compared to what we are seeing for some of the other ministries.
In summary, it looks like CMS and MSA are undergoing the largest expansions among the ministries. I believe much of those ships will be delivered to the branches serving the East and South China Sea. These are part of China's effort to have more control in the disputed waters. As with PLAN, civilian maritime fleet were seriously neglected until recent times. So even with the recent expansion effort, it is much smaller and less potent than US and Japanese Coast Guard. The different agencies are procuring more aircraft recently to help with maritime patrol, but they are still tiny compared to that of US and Japan. At the same time, I'm also wary about how so many agencies would be able to work together in offshore patrol. Even so, the maritime agencies (especially CMS and MSA) have indeed expanded and improved a lot in the recent year. And with all of the major recent incidents, they have only expanded the pace of their expansions. I am also interested in seeing how these civilian agencies interact with the navy in patrolling duties. For example, would PLAN delegate patrolling activities to these agencies and not bother with having an OPV class?
Regardless, I think this is one significant development in Chinese maritime aspirations that is not really covered that well by PLA-watchers like myself or foreign government agencies.
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