"Military Sub-Plane" by Ivan the Great
Yesterday, our article "5 ships 052D started at the same time, the shipbuilding plan is unprecedentedly huge!" The US media exclaimed: This is not the largest shipyard in China! It briefly introduces the history of equipment development of the Chinese Navy from the 1990s to the present, and briefly looks forward to the possible shipbuilding plans of the Chinese Navy during the "14th Five-Year Plan" period.
In the article, Ivan the Great gave a high evaluation of the four 956 "Hyundai" class destroyers (2 Type 956E and 2 Type 956EM) equipped by the Chinese Navy from the late 1990s to the beginning of this century, believing that these four Russian-made destroyers, like the two Type 052 destroyers of the Chinese Navy, opened the door to modernization of the Chinese Navy.
Many readers may be a little curious, these four Russian-made 956 series destroyers, now look at it is four words: "its appearance is not proud", there is a huge tonnage but not much combat effectiveness, the ship's electrical and military armament system in the current Chinese Navy does not have any technical advantages, many military fans have been hoping that we can cheaply "sell these four ships to the big nephew" to pull down. So, how can these four Russian-made Type 956 destroyers occupy a place in the history of China's naval equipment development?
The Chinese Navy in the 1990s
In fact, from the perspective of the current situation of the equipment of the Chinese Navy in the 1990s, we can see that the Chinese Navy in the 1990s is still in what state it is in in the research and development of the Navy's main surface ships and surface ships supporting subsystems.
Type 052 destroyer Harbin
Overall, the largest tonnage surface main battleship built by the Chinese Navy at that time was the Type 052 destroyer, and the normal displacement was about 4200 tons, and even the Type 052 destroyer had only 2. What can really be built in large quantities is the 051G series destroyers and the 053 series frigates that have begun mass production.
051 series destroyers, we all know, the technical origin can be traced all the way back to the "Kotlin" class of the Soviet Union in the fifties; The Type 053 frigate is relatively new and is the result of our own development, but it was not until the performance of the Type 053H1 stabilized. But whether it is the 051G series or the 053H series, the normal displacement of these two main battleships is only two or three thousand tons.
On December 25, 2003, the Type 051B destroyer Shenzhen was escorted by the cruiser Ticonderoga-class guided-missile cruiser Using the Cruiser Chancellorsville.
After all, at the turn of the century, the Chinese Navy also built the 051B destroyer, and the normal displacement of this "Shenzhou First Ship" also reached about 6500 tons, but the key problem is the ship's subsystem, let's take stock one by one:
Situational awareness systems, whether 051G or 053H series, do not have a more reliable distant air situational awareness capability, the most advanced situational awareness system is the 052 type destroyer, purchased from France "Sea Tiger" radar, this type of radar is enough to guide the introduction of the legal "Sea Sidewinder" short-range point air defense missile system;
Shipboard command system, relatively advanced, we are also accompanied by the introduction of technology implemented by the Type 052 destroyer, the introduction of the French "Thomson" air defense combat command system, and at the same time, we also took advantage of the opportunity to contact the US military standard in the 1980s and develop the 1553B data bus, and launched our own H/ZKJ-4B combat command system in the early 1990s, which basically has tactical-level maritime command capabilities;
Shipboard main force system, the 051G series destroyers use the oldest steam turbine power group, which is nothing to say, and the 053 series frigate uses a domestic, researched and improved diesel engine power group, which sets the tone that the Chinese Navy frigate will use CODOD (alternating diesel engine and diesel engine) power group for decades to come. At the same time, the Type 052 destroyer also uses an advanced LM-2500 gas turbine and a CODOG (alternating diesel engine and gas turbine) power group, at least so that the Chinese Navy understands what advanced naval power is.
The above systems are barely enough, and some systems are really not enough: regional air defense systems, all ships of the Chinese Navy do not have regional air defense capabilities, whether it is HQ-61 ship-to-air missiles on the 053K or 053H2, or HHQ-7 ship-to-air missiles on the 052 and 053H3, are short-range air defense missiles, only have the ability to deal with short-range, single targets, basically do not have multi-target resistance capabilities, more surface ships still have to rely on anti-aircraft guns this old-fashioned air defense, Naturally, there is no real air defense combat command system;
Eagle Strike One anti-ship missile
Anti-ship missile system, the Chinese Navy has just completed the implementation of the "Linglong One", that is, YJ-8 anti-ship missile, the original "upstream" and "Seahawk" series of anti-ship missiles / shore ship missiles due to backward performance has been insufficient. In terms of the accumulation of supersonic anti-ship missile technology, in the 1980s, the mainland successively came up with the Eagle Strike-1 anti-ship missile and the Seahawk-3 shore ship missile, which can be regarded as the earliest ramjet supersonic anti-ship missile of our army. However, due to the failure to conquer the integrated ramjet technology, the missile was too large and was eventually not implemented.
At the same time, China's naval gun technology at that time was not even enough to see: in the field of naval main guns, the Chinese Navy's 051G series of old destroyers were equipped with Type 76 double 130 naval guns, which was an old-fashioned naval gun, and there was no need to say it again when the performance was outdated;
The 052 type destroyer and the 053 series frigate use the more advanced H/PJ-33 series double 100 mm automatic naval gun, the degree of automation of the naval gun is relatively high, and the strike accuracy has made great progress compared with the old 130 naval gun, but the rate of fire, range and other indicators are still not enough to see;
Therefore, China introduced two French 210-type 100 mm compact naval guns in the 1980s, and after the introduction, the mainland immediately began to study and imitate the work, but on the one hand, it was found that the French side had a false standard in the performance of the naval guns, and on the other hand, it was found that the mainland's industrial technology level was difficult to fully imitate French technology, and there was a dilemma.
Introduce the meaning of the modern level
After analyzing the current situation faced by the Chinese Navy in the overall and subsystem development of ships in the 1990s, it is not difficult to understand how much shock the four 956 series destroyers (especially the first 2) have brought to the Chinese Navy:
Overall, this was the first time that the Chinese Navy had been exposed to surface main battleships with a normal displacement of nearly 8,000 tons, nearly double the largest surface main battleships used by the Chinese Navy at that time. Although the Previous Chinese Navy has been pre-developing surface warships with large displacement, after all, it has never had relevant experience, and if there is no relevant experience or reference, it is indispensable to take a detour. The arrival of the Type 956E destroyer has made the R&D designers of China's military shipbuilding industry suddenly have a comparison.
The bigger advantage is that in the subsystem, the 956E power group system is relatively backward, as a soviet Red Navy's main bulk destroyer, it still uses the steam turbine power group, the whole ship includes 4 KBG-4 pressurized boilers and 2 GTZA-674 steam turbines, through two large shafts to drive twin propellers. The Chinese Navy believes that the power pack is reliable, but it is not as advanced as the Ukrainian UGT-25000 gas turbine power pack that the Chinese Navy is already negotiating to introduce;
However, the remaining subsystems of the Type 956E destroyer are almost a huge treasure trove, for example, in the air situational awareness, the Type 956E destroyer is equipped with an MR-750 "Warship Bird-MA" type near-air situational awareness radar. This type of radar adopts a unique back-to-back dual-band design, one side is the S band, the other side is the C band, the radar has a long distance to detect the air, the multi-target tracking ability is better, and the anti-interference ability is excellent;
For another example, in the sea situational awareness, the Type 956E destroyer is equipped with a unique "ore" active and passive composite radar, which realizes the detection of over-the-horizon targets through the principle of sky wave detection, and under the conditions of the test site, when using the active detection mode, it can locate targets 150 nautical miles away, and the positioning accuracy is enough to guide the 3M80 anti-ship missiles to carry out over-the-horizon attacks;
9M38 "Windless" missile single-arm launcher
In the regional air defense system, the Type 956E destroyer is enough to guide the 9M38 type air defense missile to carry out medium-range air defense operations under the condition of using the MR-750 radar and MR-90 irradiation radar, and is equipped with air combat intelligence and command systems such as "Ocean-956" and "Lake Baikal", which although this system is discrete, it has the function of an air defense command post;
The "Hyundai" class launches the "White Sandfly/Sunburn" anti-ship missile
In the sea combat system, the 3M80 anti-ship missile equipped with the Type 956E destroyer is in the anti-ship system of the Soviet Red Navy, although it is a drumming existence, but in the Chinese Navy's combat sequence, the status of this powerful supersonic anti-ship missile is still very high. What's more, the Chinese Navy also took the opportunity of the 3M80 missile to come into contact with the practical integral sub-combustion ramjet engine technology, which broke through the integral ramjet engine technology that did not break through on the Eagle Strike-1 and the Seahawk-3.
Finally, the type 956E destroyer's naval gun system is even a treasure trove for the Chinese navy. The Model 956E is equipped with two twin AK-130 130 mm main guns and several AK-630M secondary guns, the former's electrical system is not very good, but the design of the mechanical system impressed Chinese researchers and was considered to be extremely suitable for China's industrial level. And the huge power of the 130 mm naval gun is also far stronger than the French 100 mm compact naval gun, the Chinese Navy's new generation of H/PJ-45 type 130 mm naval gun, is partly absorbed from the advantages of the AK-130 type naval gun in mechanical design, the result of self-development;
The performance of the AK-630M secondary gun is poor, the performance inside and outside the gun chamber is unstable, the strike accuracy is also very poor, it is particularly difficult to resist the anti-ship missile and other small and sea-skimming targets, and it is completely unable to compare with the 7-barrel 30 mm secondary gun that the Chinese Navy was developing at that time and partially borrowed from the legal SAMOS close defense system. But fortunately, the gun has a simple structure, a cheap price, and a good price-performance ratio, so it has also been imitated by us and installed on our own Type 054 frigate and Type 22 missile speedboat.
The Chinese Navy was once the four king kongs
All in all, through the introduction of the Type 956E destroyer, the Chinese Navy has at least crossed the following difficulties at the fastest speed: first, the design and construction of an 8,000-ton large hull, second, reliable air situational awareness and the practical application of regional air defense systems, third, a reliable sea-making combat system (including situational awareness and anti-ship missiles), fourth, an integral ramjet engine for anti-ship missiles, and fifth, the design and use of advanced naval guns. It can be said that the Type 956E destroyer in the history of the development of the Chinese Navy's destroyers, like the Type 052 destroyer, is a real surface ship with the significance of carrying on the upper and lower levels, laying a solid foundation for the Chinese Navy.
Even now, the 956 series destroyers of the Eastern Theater Navy are far from being "retired from active service" or even turned around and sold to "big nephews" for two reasons:
From our side, the double-barreled AK-130 naval gun and supersonic anti-ship missile equipped on the 956E series destroyers play a really big role in the sea confrontation, and the deterrent force of the Japanese Maritime Self-Defense Force is strong enough, as long as there is a "modern" in hand during the sea confrontation, the Japanese Maritime Self-Defense Force will have to fight with 120,000 points of energy to deal with it, and this deterrent effect is not available in 052C or 054A;
The Hyundai-class 715 "Fast" was decommissioned last year, and since then the Russian Navy has not had a Modern-class guided-missile destroyer ...
From the perspective of the Russian Navy, the Russian Navy and this steam turbine battleship are naturally incompatible, and all the Russian Type 956 destroyers have been nested. Therefore, let's not go back and toss these 956Es, and let them spend the rest of their lives in the Chinese Navy is the best.