The Dalian, a Chinese Type 055 destroyer, disclosed training details, with crew members admitting that it faced challenges during a joint air defense assessment. This revelation underscores the importance the PLA places on naval air defense capabilities, which in turn enhances the overall combat capabilities of PLA surface fleets, enabling better preparedness for potential conflicts with the United States.
Recent footage released by the official CCTV account has garnered attention. In this video, although the Type 055 destroyer Dalian achieved outstanding results in a joint air defense assessment organized by a naval training center, crew members also admitted that they faced significant challenges posed by PLA Air Force aircraft acting as simulated enemies.
It’s worth noting that the Type 055 destroyer, as a 10,000-ton destroyer whose design has been emulated by the United States, boasts world-class solo combat capabilities, particularly in air defense. Many analytical organizations consider the Type 055 destroyer to be the air defense core of the PLA aircraft carrier strike group. If a vessel like this encountered difficulties in an air defense assessment against PLA Air Force aircraft, it raises questions about the intensity of such joint air defense assessments.
This raises concerns among observers. Despite advancements in technology, with factors such as informatization and intelligence playing increasingly significant roles in modern naval warfare, some perceive modern naval warfare as being as simple as playing a video game, just requiring keystrokes. However, it’s important to recognize that while informatization and intelligence have streamlined naval warfare processes and improved operational efficiency, they haven’t fundamentally altered the combat mode of modern naval warfare. Sinking enemy vessels still relies on launching anti-ship missiles from one’s own ships or naval aircraft.
This means that even if an adversary’s navy is at a disadvantage in a systematic confrontation, as long as their vessels possess strong individual performance, they can withstand a considerable period under a series of anti-ship missile attacks. And when these high-performance vessels form fleets, if the attacking side lacks sufficient means to breach their defenses, no matter how advanced or intelligent their system is, they’ll struggle against such a fleet.
This is the current state that the U.S. Navy perceives itself to be in. Despite believing that the U.S. Navy still holds a significant advantage over the PLA Navy in naval operational systems, the PLA Navy’s enhanced operational vessel capabilities are making it increasingly difficult for the U.S. Navy to breach the PLA Navy’s defensive threshold.
A typical example is the Burke-class destroyer, which, despite having a full load displacement of around 10,000 tons, is equipped with only about 8 Harpoon anti-ship missiles. Even the PLA Navy’s Type 052D destroyer, let alone the Type 054A frigate, could easily intercept such a simultaneous attack of 8 subsonic missiles.
As the risk of conflict between China and the U.S. grows, the U.S. Navy, aware of its insufficient anti-ship missile capabilities, is consciously strengthening its anti-ship capabilities, particularly in aerial anti-ship capabilities. For example, collaborating with the Air Force, using B-1B bombers to carry a large number of LRASM anti-ship missiles to suppress PLA Navy fleets, and procuring NSM strike missiles with better adaptability to enable F-35B/C fighters to strike moving vessels beyond visual range.
However, although the U.S. Navy is aware of its problems, constrained by the performance of these anti-ship missiles, its most effective anti-ship means at present is still to launch a large number of missiles to saturate the PLA Navy, hoping to overwhelm the PLA Navy’s air defense system under high-intensity air raids.
In this situation, the PLA vigorously conducts high-intensity joint air defense assessments, which inevitably leads to suspicions whether the PLA is preparing specifically for the U.S. Navy’s anti-ship capabilities. Because, unlike the U.S. Navy, which is well aware of its surface vessels’ anti-ship capabilities and must rely on the aerial superiority brought by aircraft carriers and overseas military bases to compensate, the Chinese Navy’s surface vessels possess extremely strong anti-ship firepower and receive support from the Rocket Force and land-based aviation in directions like the South China Sea, Taiwan Strait, and East China Sea. This puts the PLA’s anti-ship capabilities at the upper limit of the marginal effect curve, where further investment yields diminishing returns.
At the same time, because the Chinese Navy still lags behind the U.S. Navy in terms of both the quantity and performance of aircraft carriers, the air pressure faced by the PLA Navy’s surface fleets is equivalent to the missile defense pressure faced by the U.S. Navy. A series of factors necessitate that the PLA prioritizes the development of air defense capabilities as a key tactical skill, otherwise, when competing with the U.S. Navy, it could easily fall into a passive position under the influence of the adversary’s air superiority.
This is also why the Dalian faced challenges during the assessment, because ultimately, we are not the U.S. Navy and it’s difficult to completely replicate the state of the U.S. Navy’s aerial power when executing anti-ship tasks. To test the air defense capabilities of the Dalian in real combat conditions as much as possible, the only way is to increase the difficulty of the assessment.
So, rather than just an assessment, this joint air defense assessment could be seen more as a stress test, demonstrating that the Dalian’s air defense capabilities have reached the ideal level expected of a warship. And as more units undergo similar tests, the PLA will have more confidence in facing potential conflicts with the U.S., considering that the U.S. Navy also faces numerous problems and the reliability of its aerial anti-ship capabilities during wartime remains uncertain. This suggests that PLA training will likely involve preparing for various scenarios, providing more room for maneuverability when the time comes.
