Since RFC is an old school Naval Warfare Fan

How large of a 1944 Battlegroup would it take to destroy one (1) modern Type 055 Destroyer?

(And yes, this was inspired by Zipang & Binkov's Kirov vs Burke video)

Let's break it down into specifics. We are to determine the minimum amount of 'points' the Downtimer Taskforce needs to win. Both the Type 55 and the Downtimer forces are highly trained, familiar with the equipment, and competently lead.

The Downtimers may buy a Iowa/Alaska/QE/Yamato (or French/German/Russian/Italian BB if they want) or any pre 1944 carrier per point. A point can also buy two of any pre 1944 submarines, three light cruisers or six destroyers. No more than one third of the fleet can be of any one unit type; i.e. no pure 20 carrier taskforce.

We'll configure the Type 055 with 112 AsHMs (say 56 YJ-18 + 56 YJ-100) + double reloads for its PJ-11 CIWS (really an AK-130 clone) and HQ-10 short-ranged SAM, and say, 50 Yu-7s for its two helos, though they're realistically not going to carry more than 2 at a time.

Go on. Setup your taskforce. Walk me through the battle plan and explain your conclusions.

NewAgeOfPower wrote:How large of a 1944 Battlegroup would it take to destroy one (1) modern Type 055 Destroyer?

(And yes, this was inspired by Zipang & Binkov's Kirov vs Burke video)

Let's break it down into specifics. We are to determine the minimum amount of 'points' the Downtimer Taskforce needs to win. Both the Type 55 and the Downtimer forces are highly trained, familiar with the equipment, and competently lead.

The Downtimers may buy a Iowa/Alaska/QE/Yamato (or French/German/Russian/Italian BB if they want) or any pre 1944 carrier per point. A point can also buy two of any pre 1944 submarines, three light cruisers or six destroyers. No more than one third of the fleet can be of any one unit type; i.e. no pure 20 carrier taskforce.

We'll configure the Type 055 with 112 AsHMs (say 56 YJ-18 + 56 YJ-100) + double reloads for its PJ-11 CIWS (really an AK-130 clone) and HQ-10 short-ranged SAM, and say, 50 Yu-7s for its two helos, though they're realistically not going to carry more than 2 at a time.

Go on. Setup your taskforce. Walk me through the battle plan and explain your conclusions.

It appears you are not going to get any takers. I certainly would not care to try even with 2 large IJN fleet carriers loaded with Kamikazi.

The difference isn't so much with the weapons, short of using nukes you are not going to stop an Iowa or other fast BB with the sort of weapons a modern DDG or CG carries before she tears you a new one if she brings you into weapons range.

You can mess her up, granted. But WWII BBs and cruisers were designed to take hits from weapons dealing the kind of punishment their own main armament can do and keep on coming. Unless you "put their eyes out" by destroying their optical rangefinders, if they manage to get within effective range of, let's say 15 miles (good visibility,) it's buh-bye. I know the battlewagons have a reputation of hitting targets out to 23 miles, but that is against stationary targets and not small moving ships. I know of only one that hit a ship at nearly 20 miles, HMS Warspite IIRC and even her Captain admitted that was a fluke.

The "secret" of your (Type 055) success will lay with the detection range of your sensors vs that of the old tech ship. The scenario you lay out could be considered a reinterpretation of the one from "Commander Cantrell in the West Indies" where a ship with a towed observation balloon could detect a threat from 2 to 4 times as far away as a pair of eyes at the masthead could and then deal with that threat armed with circa 1640 blackpowder cannon, destroying it with weapons that found their genesis in the era of the American Civil War or later.

Your surface search radar will pick up the battlewagon or CV and surface escorts between 3 and 5 times as far out as their weapons can reach, your ECM gear will pick up any radar emissions from them even further out.

Your air search radar will pick up the CVs very non-stealthy aircraft at ranges of 100 miles or more. 2 full deckloads MIGHT overwhelm your defenses, will overwhelm if they are Kamikazi.

The only doubt I have is the 055's ASW sensors. Even today, old style diesel electric subs running quiet are very hard to detect, even WWII era boats. Will your helos be dropping active sonobuoys or trailing MAD gear to pick up magnetic signatures? Will your DDG be actively "pinging" with her bow sonar (I hope so, THAT will let me track you long before you hear my hull return.) Unless I run shallow with a snorkel or on the surface I can't run diesels so I'm limited to about 24 hours on battery unless I run at more than 4 to 6 knots, then my endurance falls off fast.

I might hear your ship or might not, I don't know how quiet the 055 is. The older ships sound like wrecking machines and can be tracked from 50 or more miles away. A WWII boat of any nation should still track them from 10 to 15 miles away.

Assuming a US fleet sub, my magnetic exploders won't be worth a damn so I'd run my "fish" shallow and fire off a salvo of 4 with 2 in the tube for a reserve. Any ONE detonating on impact with your tincan skin will blow a 20 x 30 foot hole in your side. Who knows, I might get lucky.

A German or British sub's torps would do about the same amount of damage, the German IIRC has a slight edge in speed, 60 kts vs 52 to 55 knots. Both allied and German torps had a range limit of between 6 and 10 miles depending upon model.

A "Long Lance" from a IJN sub was reputed to have a range of up to 20 miles and will probably break your back. Your Type 055 might survive a single US torp, it won't survive a "Long Lance." The minimum the Japanese torp would do is blow your bow or stern off, but unless your Damage Control is top notch ... it's a long walk home.

Like Himself I'm a bit of a naval historian plus I have the benefit of a few years experience at sea in a Spruance class DD, hunting subs among other things. The above figures are just from the top of my head.

Ignoring fluke hits, how much of a WWII battlegroup could actually do real damage to a modern destroyer?

Annachie wrote:Ignoring fluke hits, how much of a WWII battlegroup could actually do real damage to a modern destroyer?

Well lemme see here ... ... nearly ANY warship or plane from WWII that manages to hit your modern cruiser or destroyer, other than one of the big Russian "Kirov" class is going to ruin your day.

A 60 to 70 pound 5" HE shell won't necessarily sink it but stands a good chance of "mission killing" the modern ship by knocking out generators and sensitive electronics through shock damage.

6, 8, 12, 14 and 16 inch shells ... well ... modern warships below the size of carriers or the Kirov type have only enough "armor" (mostly Kevlar) to stop shrapnel, and not even all of that.

An "armor piercing" 8 inch or larger round is likely to pass clear through the ship before detonating.

An HE round, I think you can imagine the damage that could be done, even assuming it doesn't touch off a missile, torpedo or deck gun magazine.

There are lots of videos on Youtube that show the effects of modern missiles and gunfire against retired Navy destroyers and cruisers during the various RIMPAC exercises off Hawaii. I think that if you haven't seen any you'll find them eye opening, especially the torpedo hits.

It doesn't take a lot to "mission kill" a modern destroyer or cruiser, they're much more fragile than the WWII counterparts.

There's also the evolution in armaments and weapon fit. A modern DDG may be as large as a WWII cruiser, but if the skipper is unlucky enough or dumb enough to try to duel with a WWII DD, he's toast. Most WWII DD's were armed with 4 or 5 4", 4.5" or 5" deck guns.

Many modern destroyers mount a grand total of ONE real deck gun (maybe 2) other than the point defense guns. Some don't mount ANY.

My old girlfriend, the Spruance class USS Caron mounted 2 5"/54 deck guns. We once tied up across the pier from a retread WWII Fletcher class 'can belonging to the Spanish Navy at the time. FIVE 5"/38 guns, each as powerful as ours and each capable of 15 to 20 rounds per minute versus our 20 rounds per minute from each of our 2. Theirs had a range of just under 10 miles, we would reach 12 miles. And we were a much bigger target. We could kill him, maybe, but she WOULD kill us in a fair fight ... no question. And she was FASTER than we were, we could reach just over 32 knots, limited because of the sonar dome under our bows, we tracked her at just over 36 knots. At need she could close with us or run away and force us to launch Harpoon missiles to kill her quickly.

Torpedoes. Modern surface ships don't carry "ship killer" torpedoes, they carry much smaller anti-submarine torpedoes which can be fitted to booster rockets to be fired out some distance from the ship, dropped from helicopters or fired "over the side" from deck mounted tubes.

The ship killers like the USN 21" diameter MK-48 are primarily submarine launched weapons, good against subs and surface ships. The MK-48 ADCAP (ADvanced Capability) will kill a battleship or carrier and will tear anything smaller into at least two pieces.

So really, the modern ships are all LAC's then?

Annachie wrote:So really, the modern ships are all LAC's then?

Pretty much that level of "armor," yeah. That's why destroyers to this day are still called "tincans." All of the ships that had armor are now either Hyndais, Toyotas or razor blades except for a very fortunate few that are now museums.

The exceptions are the big carriers, they DO have armor and other protection but how much and where it's placed is a very closely held secret for obvious reasons.

The "America" CV-66 was sunk with explosives as part of an experimental program to see how effective the armoring and compartmentation scheme was and how to improve on it for the new "Ford" class.

Sorry for recovering the old topic, but:

The main question: is the Type 055 equipped in anticipation to meet such "old-fashioned" opponents, or not?

In first case everything is relatively simple. Granted, most moder anti-ship missiles do not have armor-piercing warheads, but they could easily be fitted with relatively minor efforts. Its just "no one is using AP warheads because everyone know that they could use them - so no kne is bothering with armor anymore"

Supersonic anti-ship missiles, fitted with modern-build armor-piercing warheads would kill any WW2 era battleship quite easily, by slamming through her deck on Mach 3+ velocity. The anti-ship missiles COULD dive on high speed. They generally dont like to do that, because high-altitude approach required would make them vulnerable for targets SAM's, but WW2 ships have nothing like that.

So bascically if type 055 could hold the range and avoid massive air strikes (by shooting down recon planes by her oong-rane SAM and jamming the primitive WW2 era radars), she would won against a reasonably large battlegroup.

If the Type 055 is NOT specifically equipped against such enemies... well, she is still able to at least mission-kill anything smaller than capital ship (even HE warhead of modern ASM is powerful enough to disable the WW2 era cruiser), and inflict enough damage to battleships. Velocity is velocity, and kinrtic energy is kinetic energy.

P.S. I have no data on Chinese missiles, but many old USSR ASM's - like P-15 Termit (Styx) - were armed with not just HE, but combined HE/shaped charge warhead. Exactly against armored warships (there were still plenty of them in late 1950s, when this missile was designed). ZSo, even being formally HE, such missile could penetrate battleship's decks and inflict a lot of internal damage.