After many years, the Pakistan Navy can be regarded as having survived. With China's advanced warships and submarines in place, the Pakistan Navy has ushered in a "big change".
The 054AP frigate and the S20P conventional-powered submarine are two advanced combat vessels, which will greatly enhance the surface and underwater combat capabilities of the Pakistan Navy, and break the long-standing technological advantage of the Indian Navy over the Pakistan Navy.
Pakistan spent billions of dollars from the mainland to buy 4 054AP frigates and 8 S20P conventionally powered submarines, and they spent so much money to reverse Pakistan's long-standing disadvantage at sea.
So, can the addition of China-made advanced ships achieve this goal for Pakistan?
1
China's second line, the main force of the Pakistani side
The Pakistan Navy's 054AP frigate is a warship that we have tailored specifically for Pakistan, and the prototype is our Navy's 054A frigate, which has been built and commissioned 40 units.
The 054AP frigate was built by our Hudong-Zhonghua shipyard, which is also one of our two shipyards that built the 054A frigate, and undertook nearly half of the construction tasks.
Therefore, when the 054AP was built, the proficiency of the Hudong-Zhonghua plant was already very high, and the construction speed was quite fast.
In the current system of the Chinese Navy, the 054A frigate is not the main force of front-line operations, but as a supplementary force for destroyers such as 052D and 052C, undertaking medium-range air defense tasks and taking into account anti-submarine operations.
We can understand it this way, in the Chinese Navy, the 054A frigate is a "auxiliary" role, so its configuration pays attention to cost performance, and it does not have much advanced technical performance.
But in the Pakistani Navy, they do not have the ability to use the 054A frigate as a supporting role like the Chinese Navy, and this 4,000-ton warship is the capital ship for them.
Therefore, when customizing the 054AP for the Pakistan Navy, we upgraded the weapons and ship power of the 054AP.
The most significant change is to replace the 054AP with an active phased array radar to replace the flat slot radar on the 054A, thereby improving the 054AP's air search and tracking capabilities.
There is information that the 054AP, a single-sided rotating active phased array radar, uses the "machine phase sweep" mode, which can not only rotate the array to achieve all-round search, but also fix and search for key directions.
Another key improvement is the replacement of anti-ship missiles, the 054AP no longer uses the YJ-83 anti-ship missile equipped on the 054A, but uses the supersonic anti-ship missile CM302 of our foreign trade, which is the export version of our YJ-12.
Obviously, compared to the 054A frigate, the 054AP has a higher configuration in both air defense and anti-ship directions. However, after all, the Pakistan Navy does not have much money, so it has chosen a simple configuration in some configurations.
For example, the 054AP's 730 close defense gun has been simplified, and some of the search fire control equipment has been canceled, and it has been replaced with unified control of the fire control radar on the frigate, so as to reduce costs.
2
A low-key underwater killer
Compared with the well-known 054AP frigate, the S20P submarine we exported to Pakistan is much more low-key, but this submarine is an out-and-out "big killer".
The S20P is the Pakistani version of China's foreign trade conventionally powered submarine S20 submarine, which is a foreign trade equipment developed by us based on the Type 039B conventionally powered submarine.
The S20P is a bit smaller than the 039B, it has a displacement of around 2,000 tons, while the 039B has a displacement of nearly 3,000 tons.
However, the S20P is small, but the advanced technology it uses is not ambiguous at all. The most important technology on the entire submarine is the AIP power system independently developed by China.
AIP stands for "air-independent propulsion device", which is a technology that can power submarines without the need for air, and generally speaking, when discussing AIP technology, it will be distinguished from nuclear propulsion technology.
The AIP power technology route used by our Type 039B submarine is the Stirling engine mode, which has the advantage of being reliable and not low in output.
After using AIP power, the underwater endurance of our Type 039B submarine can be extended from dozens of hours to more than ten days of traditional diesel-electric submarines, greatly improving the underwater combat capability.
In fact, traditional diesel-electric submarines are mostly in a state of surface navigation, and will only dive into the water when they engage the enemy, and their maneuverability is greatly weakened after diving, and AIP submarines have greatly improved these problems.
After using AIP power, the S20P has an underwater endurance second only to nuclear-powered submarines, and the quietness is better than that of India's nuclear-powered submarines.
The S20P's firepower is unambiguous, it has six 533mm torpedo tubes, and can fire foreign trade heavy torpedoes or submarine-launched anti-ship missiles, the former with a range of 50 kilometers and the latter with a range of 200 kilometers.
The S20P is a greater threat to the Indian Navy than the 302AP equipped with CM054 supersonic anti-ship missiles, because the Indian Navy has more or less some capabilities for intercepting supersonic missiles.
But for underwater targets, the Indian Navy, which is extremely lacking in anti-submarine capabilities, really has no choice, at most it will dispatch their Kilo-class submarines to conduct underwater confrontations.
But this kind of underwater confrontation, even if it is a nuclear-powered submarine, cannot guarantee a tight defense line, not to mention that the Kilo-class of the Indian Navy is just an ordinary diesel-electric submarine, and the underwater endurance is far inferior to the S20P submarine of the Pakistan Navy.
3
Chinese weapons change the India-Pakistan contrast
For a long time, Pakistan had to confront India's huge military power when its national strength, economy and population were far inferior to India's.
Pakistan's poor economic situation has allowed them to spend their limited resources on the Air Force for a long time, introducing advanced Western fighter jets.
However, the development of the huge army and the expensive navy can only be postponed until a large number of advanced Chinese weapons appear on the international market.
Chinese weapons have the performance of weapons that are not inferior or even stronger than Western weapons, and their prices are much lower than those of Western countries, because China has a developed industrial system, and China's foreign trade is much more conscientious than that of Western countries.
As a result, Pakistan was able to import a large number of Chinese-made army and navy equipment, including VT4P tanks and SH15 vehicle-mounted guns that can be equipped with several armored divisions, and the Navy's 054AP and S20P.
The Pakistan Air Force has also begun to turn to Chinese equipment, and they have begun to equip the Thunder Dragon Block 3 fighter jet and the J-10CP fighter in batches, two fourth-generation and a half generation fighters that have established the Pakistan Air Force's technological advantage over the Indian Air Force.
For the foreseeable future, it would be wise for Pakistan to choose China's side for the sake of mutual interests.