#头条首发大赛#
Recently, the media have reported and paid more and more attention to the 0.55 million ton drive, although most of them are sincerely proud of the development of the mainland's military forces, but there are also 055 to deduce or fabricate some data or "jokes" to create an illusion of "055 is invincible in the world"! Of course, the latter "complacent" approach is not advisable, although the 055 is already the world's top destroyer today, but as United States begins to plan the next generation of destroyers, Japan has begun to build two 12,000-ton "Aegis system ships" that integrate today's various advanced equipment, and the days when 055 can continue to "stand proudly at the top" are not many. So, is the "successor" of 055 ready? Will it be able to maintain its superiority over the new destroyers of the United States and Japan?
Although 055 now has an absolute advantage over the capital ships of other countries' navies, mainland scientific researchers have never relaxed the improvement and further development of 055, and even according to the usual practice, they should have already started the pace of research on the next generation of capital ships. Not long ago, a master's thesis of Harbin Engineering "Conceptual Design of the Appearance Configuration of a New Generation of Destroyers" circulated on the Internet, as well as the beginning of the reconstruction of the Wuhan cement 055 model, all made people full of expectations for the 055 improved 055B. Of course, in the end, we may also usher in a new model to replace the 055, but for the time being, we will refer to the 055B as this new warship that has changed a lot in the paper.
Since the title of the paper reveals that its main research is on the "exterior configuration" of the new generation of destroyers, let's first take a look at what significant changes have been made to the appearance of this new ship compared to 055. In terms of the appearance and stealth treatment of large capital ships, the mainland began to have its own unique design ideas from 052D, and then showed a more mature stealth appearance configuration on 055. But on the whole, in terms of "stealth effect" alone, the appearance design of the 055 is still more conservative than the new stealth ships of small European countries. Of course, the 055 is "conservative" because we first have to meet its mission needs as an aircraft carrier "escort with a knife". But on the new generation of destroyers, we can do our best to achieve the "ultra-high stealth" design on the basis of the existing capabilities of 055, such as the appearance renderings presented in the paper.
Now the front unit 64 of 055 can only "lean back" after hanging down
And for the PLA Navy, which also suffers from "fear of insufficient firepower", how can it not upgrade the weapons system on this 20,000-ton giant ship? As a result, we saw that the main gun in the bow of the 055B ship was replaced with an electromagnetic railgun, which directly increased the distance and density of firepower by an order of magnitude. After that, the whole ship's missile vertical launch system unit was greatly increased from 112 pits in 055 to 144 pits (80 pits in the front + 64 in the rear). With a hull size of 20,000 tons, the 055B's vertical launch system not only retains the use of Hongqi-9B for long-distance air defense, but also relies on the "one pit and four bombs" technology to greatly improve the density of the medium-range air defense network. The YJ-21 will naturally bring more, and even the Dongfeng-17, a hypersonic missile that can "quickly" make the enemy's large warship or aircraft carrier enter the countdown to life, will also become the "standard"!
High-energy laser cannon and projectile cannon integrated close defense weapon
Pod-type thrusters
In addition, the original 055 1130 near-defense artillery and Haihongqi-10 close-in defense missiles will also be replaced by high-energy laser cannons and projectile integrated close-in defense weapons, and new concept weapons such as microwave weapons have also been added. Some netizens even speculated that because the pod thruster independently developed by the mainland is very mature, it is very likely that two 55-65 MW pod thrusters will be used on the 055B in the future, which can drive the 20,000-ton giant ship to run at a high speed of 30 knots. Of course, although these "speculations" in the paper seem a little too "radical", considering that the publisher of the paper is a student of Harbin Institute of Technology, and the paper itself has a lag. Therefore, even if the real-life 055B will not be designed exactly as described in the paper, at least some of the content will appear on the real 055B.
Does the United States Navy, which is the number one naval power in the "Blue Star" today, watch the Chinese Navy develop so rapidly? Of course not, but under the double pressure of the greed of domestic arms dealers and the lack of military spending, the "DDG (X)", the next generation of capital destroyers used by the United States Navy to replace the Burke-class, is still quietly lying on the slowly updated PPT. As of July 2024, United States Navy sources show that the DDG(X), originally planned to enter service in 2020, is still being designed, and the construction of the first ship has now been postponed to about 2032.
And because it uses too many cutting-edge new technologies, including "directed energy weapons", the cost of a single ship is as high as 3.5 billion US dollars, which is 1.3 billion US dollars more expensive than the current Burke 3, but only the same 96-cell missile vertical launch system as the Burke 3 is installed. What is even more outrageous is that under the current situation that the United States shipbuilding industry cannot even complete 2 Burke Type 3 destroyers in 1 year, the United States Navy actually requires that the construction of 1.5 "DDG (X)" and 2 Burke Type 3 destroyers must be completed every year after the start of construction - is the United States Navy forcing stones to lay eggs? So when the "DDG(X)" project is progressing so badly and seriously lagging behind, there are rumors within the United States Navy that the project will be "canceled".
On July 12, 2024, the Ministry of Defense of Japan released the 2024 version of the National Defense White Paper, which released the latest design drawings and development progress notes of the Aegis System Ship of the Japan Maritime Self-Defense Force. The "Aegis System Ship" is an alternative after Japan abandoned the installation of two sets of United States "Aegis System" on its own land, and the original "Aegis System Ship" designed by Japan was a behemoth with a displacement of up to 26,000 tons. As soon as the news was announced, countries around the world believed that Japan was trying to rebuild the "Yamato" of the Imperial Japan Navy in World War II, and suspected that it had an intention to expand its armaments. Therefore, based on the sensitivity of this huge tonnage, as well as the perverted technical threshold and financial constraints for the construction of such a super-large destroyer, Japan finally reduced the design of the "Aegis System Ship" to the scale of 12,000 tons per ship and began to allocate funds, planning to start construction in fiscal 2024.
According to the Japan 2024 National Defense White Paper, the core of the "Aegis System Ship" is the J7.B version of the SPY-7 phased array radar and the Baseline 9 version of the "Aegis" system purchased from United States. This combination will enable Japan to obtain several times more missile detection capabilities than before, which can enable it to effectively monitor ballistic missiles or multiple ballistic missiles launched by neighboring countries, especially the detection network of SPY-7 also poses a considerable threat to the mainland's air defense security because it can penetrate far into the mainland's interior. In particular, it will also be equipped with Japan's self-developed "Type 12 anti-ship missile" and the "Tomahawk" cruise missile with a range of more than 2,000 kilometers purchased from United States, as well as up to 128 missile vertical launch systems. All this shows that the ship is not only suitable for the "missile defense" purpose declared by Japan, but also has a strong strike capability against the inland depth of the mainland!
055B renderings made by netizens
It can be seen from this that although our 055B still has a considerable advantage in technology, especially in contrast to the gradual decline of the United States Navy. However, Japan, as our close neighbor, is sparing no effort to develop high-end military equipment for the mainland, and even at the same time as the yen exchange rate is plummeting, it is still ensuring that the construction plan of the two "Aegis system ships" is carried out normally. In this regard, Japan's attitude of "not dying in the heart of self" is still very obvious. Therefore, our 055B development must not be relaxed, after all, Japan can be more murderous than United States!