Recently, it has been reported that the Chinese Navy has decided to remove all 72 056 series corvettes built in the early days of the 20 Type 056 general-purpose frigates, convert them and transfer them to the Coast Guard, leaving only the remaining 50 anti-submarine 056A frigates, as well as the two 056 general-purpose frigates of the Hong Kong garrison!
The Type 056 Type 511 Baoding ship is rumored to be undergoing modifications
It is said that these frigates have begun to be refitting work at the shipyard. The modification projects include: retaining the PJ-26 76 mm main gun and the PJ-17 type 30 mm secondary gun, removing anti-ship missiles, anti-aircraft missiles, torpedo launchers, rocket launchers and other weapons and equipment that are not suitable for maritime law enforcement operations; installing sound wave area denial equipment; installing maritime law enforcement equipment such as LED displays, and changing the original Navy gray livery to white, red and blue stripe coatings to coast guard standards. In this way, the Chinese Coast Guard will get a batch of maritime law enforcement ships that have only served 5 to 8 years, have just run the run-in period, and are in good shape. Moreover, these ships are proper military standard ships, which have quite obvious advantages over those foreign maritime law enforcement ships built with civilian standards!
The transfer of naval vessels to the Coast Guard is not a new thing, and in the early years, three 053H2G ships were transferred to the Coast Guard
In fact, in retrospect, there were early signs of 056's transfer to the Coast Guard. In view of the lack of reservation in the previous section and the large number of ships in service, resulting in a confusion in the number of ships, the Chinese Navy began a major adjustment of ship numbers at the beginning of this year, which also involved the 056 series. In this adjustment, all the 056A frigates in the original 5XX section have adjusted the hull number to 6XX, and it is obvious that the hull number of the corvette has been adjusted to the 6XX section, and all the 5XX sections have been vacated for the large frigates, and the most obvious evidence is that the 054A large frigate "Nantong" ship with the original hull number 601 has been adjusted to No. 533. However, the 22 056 general-purpose models that entered service earlier, all of which were in the 5XX section, have not seen the hull adjustment for a long time. Now it seems that when the hull number adjustment was determined, these 056s had already decided to transfer to the Coast Guard force, so they would be removed from service immediately anyway, and there was no need to make any more efforts to adjust the hull number.
Transferred to the Coast Guard's 053H2G
The Navy transferred all the 056 to the Coast Guard this time, and the reason was not the problem of the 056 ship itself. Although the 056 is only 1300 tons, its configuration is quite complete, which can be described as "although the sparrow is small, it is complete". The 056 is equipped with YJ83J anti-ship missiles, Hongqi 10 anti-aircraft missiles, Torpedo 7, main and secondary guns and various radar and electronic warfare equipment, as well as shipboard helicopter systems, it can be said that a frigate should have all the configuration. Type 056A frigate is based on the 056 to strengthen the anti-submarine capability, equipped with advanced towed active and passive joint sonar system, this sonar system is also the equipment of other large surface ships of the Chinese Navy, that is to say, in terms of anti-submarine sonar alone, the 1300-ton 056 and 12800-ton 055 configuration is the same, it can be seen that the scientific and technological content of this corvette is very high, not the foreign kind of simplified version of the offshore patrol ship OPV, which can play a great role in coastal defense operations.
8 combined HQ-10 anti-aircraft missile launchers
The most critical reason for the Navy's abandonment of all 056 is the huge change in the naval combat environment. With the spurt development of the Chinese Navy's large surface combat ships in quantity and quality, the Chinese Navy's defense line is constantly advancing into the open sea, and its ocean-going combat capability is rapidly improving. As a result of this change, the defensive pressure off China's coastal waters has been greatly reduced. Almost no country's navy has the ability to break through China's three-dimensional and powerful far-sea defense line, and can approach the combat range of China's offshore 056. The defensive pressure in China's coastal waters is only the threat from underwater submarines, so for the future coastal defense operations of the Chinese Navy, the 056A, which strengthens the anti-submarine combat capability, is the ship that the Chinese Navy needs for coastal defense.
056 Perfect electronic countermeasure equipment
As for the general-purpose 056 frigate, the future role will only be daily patrols and maritime territorial disputes and rights protection, and this task requirement has in fact overlapped greatly with the mission scope of the Coast Guard. Unless there is a state of full-scale war between the two countries, most of these areas of operations only need to be carried out using the coast guard's armed maritime law enforcement ships. There is also an advantage to the use of such coast guard law enforcement ships, in principle, such law enforcement ships are official ships, do not belong to the category of warships, can effectively control the situation to avoid the outbreak of full-scale conflict.
The Navy Boarding Inspection Squad on board the 056 was conducting a tactical exercise
Of course, if a full-scale conflict does break out, the Navy still has 50 056A frigates with the same offshore combat capability that can be immediately supported, and a large number of Navy large surface combat ships can be further escalated by the conflict. Therefore, instead of continuing to retain these 056s, which have little effect, it is better to replace them with larger, both coastal defenses and by 054A frigates that can operate in the open ocean. As for these replacement 056s, with its young hull, advanced equipment, and durability built with military standards, dismantling missile weapons and handing them over to the Coast Guard for maritime law enforcement tasks would be a very suitable equipment.
054A and 056 lean together
As for the naval forces, after the 20 ships are vacated, they will be able to replenish 20 larger ocean-going frigates, and the Navy has done just that. The new batch of 054A frigates ordered, numbering exactly 20, will replace these 056 frigates one-on-one and equip the naval frigate detachment. Although the 054A frigate is not a high-end equipment in the Chinese Navy equipment series, it is better than the extreme balance of performance and price, its performance is far more than the 056 ship, and it has the ocean combat capability that 056 does not have, in addition to performing daily patrol tasks, it can also effectively supplement the far-sea offensive force, although the price is much higher than 056, the improvement of the overall combat capability of the Chinese Navy is far more than that!
The new batch 054A is being built at full speed
Under the new equipment structure adjustment of the Chinese Navy, the surface ship equipment of the Chinese Navy will be further enlarged and oceanized. Just as the People's Liberation Army equipment construction briefing released by the Ministry of National Defense a few days ago said, the Chinese Navy is appropriately reducing coastal combat equipment, strengthening ocean combat capabilities, and pushing China's maritime defense line farther outward! The People's Liberation Army Navy is moving faster and faster on the road to deep blue, going farther and farther!