Type 051 Luda-class guided missile destroyer
The Type 051 Luda-class guided missile destroyer, known in China as "Brigade" class, was the first anti-ship missile destroyers designed and built in China, are generally similar to the smaller Soviet Kotlin class. Intended for anti-ship strikes, the primary offensive armament is pair of "Sea Eagle I" ship-to-ship missiles.
World wide military circles did not rate the Type 051 destroyer very high, thinking that its lack of effective air defense and anti-submarine firepower; backward structural design, less water-proof compartments of the entire hull, lack of adequate protection between cabins, poor anti-sinking and anti-damage design; lack of perfect air-conditioning equipment and nuclear, biological and chemical three-proof systems. The communication and electronic equipment are backward, and the early models do not have an integrated combat command center. The tonnage of the entire ship is too small, the length-to-width ratio of the ship is large, which is unfavorable to the rigidity and strength, and the seaworthiness is not good; the man-machine interface and the habitability are not good The temperature of the engine room was high, there is no mess hall, and the living conditions are very difficult.
These problems are mainly due to the limitation of China's industrial level, the influence of China's political environment, and the lack of sufficient experience in the design team. The Chinese navy was also aware of these problems, and continuously modified and upgraded the ships. Although the technical level of this class of ships is not high (approximately equivalent to the level of the foreign navy in the 1960s), this class of ships ended the era of the Chinese navy relying on foreign scrap ships, so that the Chinese navy gained experience in the design and use of medium and large ships, laying the foundation for designing larger ships in the future.
The construction of the Type 051 "Luda" class destroyer was a huge advancement in Chinese ship development concepts and construction technology, but this progress is only a leap from scratch, which is still an era different from the developed countries of the world. In terms of layout, the "Brigade" class inherits the "Kotlin" class, and the combat style is closer to the 57-type "Krupny" class destroyer. These destroyers are the product of Soviet naval combat ideas in the early 1950s, and have begun to change their uses in the 1960s. When China is still following Soviet ideas.
When the United States thought about the design of the "Luda" class destroyers from the early 1950s, developed countries had already begun to develop and build destroyers that faced the battle mode of the 1970s. Among them, the United Kingdom began to build 42 type "Sheffield" class destroyers, the United States is building a "Spruance" class destroyer, the Soviet Union is also designing "modern" class and "brave" class destroyers. These destroyers have been gradually in service since the late 1960s, far surpassing China's "Brigade" class based on the level of the 1950s and the concept of the early 1960s in terms of combat capability and technical level.
In the early 1950s, the United States and the West proposed the design of a destroyer combat command center. The radar, sonar, and electronic systems that were previously separated in each cabin were centralized in a command center, and these independent devices were connected by communication cables. In order to control the ship's combat and navigation system in a unified way, some devices are also connected by communication cables, which can transfer data signals to each other. Construction started in the late 1960s
On a ship-to-ship basis, not only is there a combat command center that can centrally arrange equipment, but also various devices and systems have been able to fully interconnect and share data.
The equipment on the "Luda" class destroyers built in the early 1980s was still scattered in the various cabins of the ship. They were not centralized, nor did they have the form of a combat command center. A single piece of equipment is only connected to the specified subsystem, and the connection between the subsystems is not completed, which is equivalent to the situation in the early 1960s of the US Navy. The loopholes caused by this situation before the 1970s are not very obvious, but after the mid-1970s, small anti-ship missiles began to become popular and the level of electronic countermeasures has greatly improved, but it has become a fatal flaw.
The experience of designing and using Chinese naval destroyers has gradually accumulated from zero to some. It is these experiences and lessons and equipment to promote the progress of thought, 051 "Luda" class destroyers laid a cornerstone of modern Chinese navy ship development.
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