Posted on 03/22/2014 2:09:17 PM PDT by Jeff Head
DDG-172, Kunming
March 21, 2014 The Chinese Navy commissioned the first of class, Type 052D, destroyer, DDG-172, Kunming, on March 21, 2014. This is a new class of destroyer that is a significant upgrade over the Type 052C, Lanzhou Class, destroyers that the Chinese have finished building six of. The Lanzho Class was Chinas first true multi-rile, wide area defense destroyer employing a sophisticated battle management system, Phased Array Radars, and Vertical Launch missile systems. That earlier class had 48 cells for surface to air missile to defend a large group ships (like a carrier battle group) against air attack from aircraft or missiles. The Type 052D Class, or Kunming Class, has been upgraded significantly. This vessel employs 64 cells of vertical launch missiles that are capable of launching anti-air missiles, anti-surface missiles, or anti-submarine missiles from the same cells, similar to the US Navy Mk-41 Vertical Launch System. In addition, the vessel sports a new main gun, a 130mm dual purpose gun supposedly capable of firing extended range munitions. Critically, the vessel is also fitted with larger and more powerful Active Phased Array Radars (APARS) over the Lanzhou Class, which will undoubtedly have longer range, and may well have better discrimination and resolution over their earlier APARS. In addition, rather than two 30mm Close in Weapon System (CIWS) guns, the Kunming carrier a CIWS gun forward, but now has a 24-missile launcher, the FL-3000N, aft, over the helicopter hanger deck for close in missile defense. This system, also deployed on the Chinese aircraft carrier, Liaoning, CV-16, appears to be the equivalent of the US Navy RAM missile system. With these improvements, the Chinese Navy, with the Kunming Class, are approaching parity with the US Navy systems deployed on the AEGIS Destroyers of the Arleigh Burke Class...though the Chinese vessels are 2,000 tons lighter and less heavily armed. Here are pictures from the commissioning of the vessel.
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The second in class, the DDG-172, Changsha, is preparing for sea trials and should also be commissioned later this year.
The third in class was launched last year and is currently fitting out. The fourth in class is about to be launched for fitting out. The fifth in class in under construction, with the modular pieces of the sixth in class ready to go into the Chinese construction facilities. It is expected that the Chinese will build at least twelve of these very capable vessles, and perhaps as many as 18. With the previous six Lanzhou Class, this will give the PLAN eighteen very capable, very modern destroyers of this type. They also have eleven or twelve other modern detroyers of different classes.
> When you consider this in light of the twenty very capable and very modern Type 054A Frigates that have built over the last five years, and the twenty Type 056 modern corvettes they have built in the last two years, with another twenty of those slated to be built, the rapid expansion, growth, and modernization of the Chinese Navy is a significant occurance, with broad impact in the western Pacific. Specifications for the Kunming Class follow: Designation: DDG
CHINESE AND INDIAN AIRCRAFT CARRIER EXERCISE LINKS:
1ST CHINESE CARRIER BATTLE GROUP EXERCISES INDIAN NAVY CONDUCTS JOINT AIRCRAFT CARRIER EXERCISES OTHER LINKS OF INTEREST: THE RISING SEA DRAGON IN ASIA
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Blue pixelated uniforms on Red China Navy...
It is because our guys wear them.
Heck they steal the ship, weapons, tech designs and general force strategies from us, why not the clothing as well.
More of the “white might” inferiority complex. They hate us but strive in every way to be like us.
Wish there was some better overheads of these Chinese ships though. Easier to recognize them when they are all at the bottom of the Pacific.
Maybe when the uniform gets wet, it looks like flotsam?
Buuump!
Thanks for the posting and all of the photos, Jeff!
No, that’s the enclosed compartment for the ship’s launch. One on each side.
A typo. Multi-role.
Obama believes that the Unityed States, as established and its constitution, is the bad guy. He means to cut us down numerous notches and is going about it with a will.
That is what was meant by his "fundamental change."
In every aspect of our society they are relentlessly marhcing toward their goal of a humbled, down trodden America...and they are accomplishing what the mightiest military forces in the world could not do.
Militarily, economically, health care, education, the structure and make up of the family...heck, the very definition of "family," our manufacturing, energy, our borders, morally...you name a critical area, and you will see that the progressives/liberals have attacked it head-on now in an effort to bring to a conclusion their decades long efforts at subverting all of those things.
If ever there was a time for the American people to awaken from a slumber, to stand upo and be counted, and to put down these efforts...it is now.
In the meant time, the second in class of this vessel, their DDG-173 Chungshan, just took to sea on its sea trials today. Number three is outfitting, number four is about to be launched, and number five's componenst are all ready to go into the building hall as soon as number 4 is launched. They are building at a breathtaking rate.
And their economy continues to slow. They are experiencing the “Soviet problem” in which they divert badly needed (and really, scarce) capital into military stuff. The ONLY way this can be sustained is through expansion, but India And Russia not exactly expansion material.
They have their eyes on the South China Sea and the resources that are there in abundance.
Every time that’s tried-—Hitler, Japan, it fails. You cannot grab what you don’t have, and expect it to pay for a war machine. Sorry, I don’t see China as this big a military threat. Now, if we were on LAND over there, it would be a different story. Sooner or later, if they get aggressive, they will run into Putin. That should be fun.
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