[chinawhite]

Supposely having russian VLS system, the first picture we had was a scene of its construction about 1 month ago and nows its completed. I wonder what other secrets china is hiding. Two hulls hav been indentifed and more are expcted to be produced


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Russian SA-N-12
Chinese Type-730 CWIS
Chinese C-803 Anti-ship missle

[duskylim]

Dear Chinawhite:

Thanks for the picture; always appreciated, although I may have seen something similar in another forum, perhaps Huitong's Chinese Military Aviation.
As the vessel that is most likely to constitute the PLANs largest surface combatant class of warship in the near future, developements regarding 054A FFG are always interesting.

What really frustates me is the lack of a clear picture of the ship's Vertical Launch System (VLS) and its mechanism - cold launch or hot lauch? Admittedly, the shipbuilder always seems to take care to cover it up but it seems many of the so-called "stolen" shots don't try to show it. There are many profile shots but little vertical ones. Once again, it seems that many of these pictures are controlled releases by the PLAN's propaganda dept., just trying to keep us guessing.

In the same vein, the 052C's DDG's have yet to be seen launching either their VLS SAM's or their new big ASM's, although there seem to be a lot of pictures of the ship on "manuevers" with other PLAN vessels. Note an interesting observation - the shipbuilder of the 052C did little to cover-up that ship's VLS system, nor it's missile loading crane during construction, not to mention the new phased array radar! And it (the 052C) is supposedly the more important and sophisticated warship.

So why so much secrecy with what is a less important vessel? Or have I got it all wrong and the careful covering is really because the missiles and launch system are not as weatherproof as those in the 052C?

So many questions, so few answers.

Best Regards,

Dusky Lim

[edisonone]

Simply adding
new life to what's otherwise a dead thread.
No more no less.

[Sampanviking]

It appears that up to 6 of these ships have been commissioned and some are speculating that another 6 may be scheduled for serial production.

We shall see!

[Xiongmao]

This is a really cool video showing off some of the 054A's systems. Nothing new here but the graphics are good.

http://www.youtube.c...RHL9AskfYg&NR=1