The first ship of the mainland's new frigate 054B was launched just five months ago, and the sea trials have officially begun.
That's a big deal. The 054B frigate sounds like a small ship, but its essence is a large ocean-going frigate of more than 5,000 tons, and its displacement, weaponry level, and even manufacturing difficulty are close to the main destroyers of some countries. After all, there are only 96 vertical frigates of the 32 vertical frigates of the United States, and they are still the main destroyers. It is no wonder that Americans have always had an opinion about the naming of Chinese warships.
And what about the United States? The answer is far less. It also takes about nine months for a warship of the U.S. Navy to go from launch to sea trials. Admiral Gilday, chief of naval operations, complained: The current US shipbuilding industry cannot even build the hulls of three warships a year, let alone the work of perching and loading. The delivery of the lead ship of the new Constellation-class frigate of the United States has been postponed from 2026 to 2027 for various reasons.
In comparison, the Chinese navy's dumpling capacity has far surpassed that of the United States. It has been ahead of the United States for at least three years.
The main reason why the outfitting of the 054B frigate is so amazing is that the frigate on the mainland already has a very high degree of completion when it is launched. The main electronics and core armament are already in place, so there is no need for additional assembly work after launching.
Some people may ask, why the United States does not use this method to build warships? The reason is not difficult to understand, mainly because of its industrial strength.
We can look at the video of the ship launching, and we can find that the whole process is relatively rough, and when the battleship is launched, it will have a large impact, which will lead to the deformation of the hull and the displacement of equipment.
However, modern weapons and equipment have extremely high requirements for precision, and once displacement and deformation occur, it will lead to the failure of the overall function, and it will take more time to calibrate the equipment, and it is not necessary to carry out outfitting after disembarking.
However, China's industrial standards are higher, which can ensure that the accuracy and integrity of weapons will not be greatly affected after a large impact on warships. In this case, we naturally dared to complete the outfitting of the battleship in advance in this way. Installing weapons in the factory in advance and launching them before installing them is not at all a grade of difficulty and efficiency.
Coupled with the Chinese Navy's strong cost control capabilities and the extremely high construction speed brought by the huge number of engineers, the 054B may become the core frigate of the mainland navy around 2025, which will be used to replace the old frigates before the 054A and further enhance the combat capability of the mainland's main fleet.
When the U.S. Navy was at its most powerful, it could launch 40 Aegis destroyers and cruisers in 9 years. But now it takes an average of 10 years for the US Navy to produce eight Aegis. In the words of the previous admiral, it is not possible to build three hulls in a year. What's more, the U.S. Navy has at least 50 warships lined up for decommissioning in the next decade.
However, of the 28 large-scale naval battles in human history that have determined the course of history, 23 have been won by the superior side in numbers. Only five were victories due to the generational gap in naval weapons technology. At the current pace, it is only a matter of time before the Chinese Navy surpasses the United States in the number of capital surface ships. In the absence of a significant generational difference in weapons between the two sides, it is understandable that the US Navy will become increasingly anxious.