Chinese language shipyards have made progress with deep modernisation of Individuals’s Liberation Army Navy’s Sort 051C class destroyers, with unconfirmed reviews indicating that the ships might combine superior new vertical launch methods and fashionable radars to revolutionise their fight capabilities. Solely two Sort 051C class destroyers had been constructed for the Navy, with these launched in January 2006 and January 2007. Their improvement allowed the capabilities of Chinese language shipyards and different related areas of the defence sector to be introduced ahead, serving as a stepping stone in the direction of a small manufacturing run for the Sort 052C class destroyer, earlier than the Sort 052D class might be made prepared for service entry and far bigger scale manufacturing from the mid-2010s.
The Sort 051C has a specific excessive proportion of Russian-made gear onboard, together with the Russian-made three-dimensional air surveillance radar, the 30N6E1 single-sided rotating phased array radar, and 48 Russian missile launch cells housing S-300FM lengthy vary surface-to-air missiles. Its air defence capabilities had been revolutionary for his or her time for a Chinese language-built ship. Though no new destroyers had been laid down for the Russian Navy after the disintegration of the Soviet Union, Russia was capable of produce additional navalised S-300 methods for China for integration onto the Sort 051C class ships, after which subsequent Chinese language destroyers used the considerably extra superior HHQ-9B air defence system. Forty-eight launchers on every ship accommodate these missiles, which have 150 kilometre ranges, evaluating poorly to the 300 kilometre ranges and much superior goal monitoring capabilities of the HHQ-9. It stays attainable that when retired, the missiles from the S-300FM system could also be offered again to Russia, the place they’re nonetheless closely relied on.
It’s seemingly that the Sort 051C class ships will each combine new electronics, together with sensors, in addition to a brand new main armament. This might embody a single use canister launch system primarily based on that of the Sort 052C class destroyers, permitting for the carriage of 48 missiles from the HHQ-9 system. A extra formidable and dear refurbishment might see the ships combine fashionable multirole vertical launch methods primarily based on these of the brand new Sort 052D and Sort 055 class destroyers which can be at present in manufacturing, which might enable the ships to make use of quite a lot of fashionable surface-to-air missile sorts, in addition to a variety of cruise missile sorts. As this latter possibility would require considerably extra complete adjustments to the ships, together with to their electronics, it seems extra seemingly that they are going to as a substitute be modernised to the same customary to the Sort 052C class ships, which though much less versatile are nonetheless fashionable and might proceed to play necessary roles within the Navy. Whereas Russia has targeted on modernising its Soviet period destroyers comprehensively, the scale of Chinese language destroyer manufacturing means that it’ll seemingly be less expensive to construct extra Sort 052D class ships than to improve the Sort 051C right into a multirole destroyer.
