Frigate 054V: How China Builds the "Smart" Ship of the Future with Helicopter Z-20 and New Electronics

China is launching a new generation of frigates — and this is not just an upgrade, but a real breakthrough. The new frigate URO project 054V, which is currently being built at shipyards in Guangzhou and Shanghai, has become noticeably larger and more powerful than its predecessors. Its length is 147 meters, width is 17 meters, and full displacement is 5500–5600 tons. This is 1200 tons more than the frigates 054A, and this growth is not just for size, but for capabilities.

What Changed?

First, the helicopter. Thanks to the elongated hull, Chinese engineers increased the aviation hangar from 20 to 24 meters. Now it comfortably fits the anti-submarine helicopter Z-20 — an analog of the Russian Ka-27, but more modern. And to avoid hauling it by hand, the ship is equipped with a special mechanical device that carefully rolls the helicopter onto the deck and back into the hangar. Convenient, fast, and safe.

Second, the power plant. Frigate 054V uses a hybrid power scheme: two gas turbine engines QC-280 (totaling 66,000 hp) and two diesels. But the key is that they do not drive the shaft directly, but act as generators, powering electric motors that then rotate the propellers. This is called electric drive — a technology that the USA and the UK have been using for a long time.

Why is this cool?

— Space savings: up to 65% of the volume of engine rooms is freed up because bulky reducers and shafts are not needed.

— Quieter: at a speed of 15–20 knots (ideal for anti-submarine defense) the ship becomes much quieter — meaning it is harder to detect.

— More fuel: the freed-up space was allocated for additional fuel tanks.

The result is that at a speed of 15 knots, the frigate can travel up to 7500 miles, and at 18 knots — 6500 miles. That's almost 14,000 km without refueling. For comparison: the distance from Shanghai to San Francisco is about 10,000 km.

Armament: From Gun to ASW

On the bow is a 100-mm artillery mount. Why not 76 mm and not 130 mm? The Chinese calculated: 76-mm shells are too weak, and a 130-mm turret is too bulky. 100 mm is the golden mean.

Air defense is three-tiered:

- "Sea Red Banner-10" — short-range SAM (22 missiles),

- Type 1130 — a six-barrelled gun-carriage,

- And a vertical launch system (VLS) with 32 containers, divided into three sections:

  1. 8 TPC — for 48–56 SAM of short/medium range (up to 40 km),

  2. 16 TPC — for HQ-16FE (up to 100 km), with active radar homing that sees an aircraft at 30 km and a missile at 15 km,

  3. 8 TPC — for ASW missiles "Fish-8" or "Fish-11".

For combating ships — 8 supersonic ASM YJ-12, in two launchers with 4 missiles each. Subsonic YJ-83, according to Chinese experts, are already "obsolete".

"Eyes" of the Ship: New Generation Radars

The main radar is H/LJQ-368, a 3D station with an active phased array antenna (APAA). It is a replacement for the old H/LJQ-382 and is made using gallium nitride technology. It has 3000 transceivers at 50 W each — a total power of 150 kW.

What it sees:

- Bomber — at 350 km,

- Fighter — at 200 km,

- Missile — at 50 km.

It can simultaneously track up to 100 targets and engage 18 of them — twice as many as before.

Below it are X-band radars that pick up low-flying targets and ships at a distance of up to 40 km. And fixed L-band antennas likely help guide the 100-mm gun.

China plans that by 2030–2040, there will be no less than 50 URO frigates in the combat strength of the PLAN. Project 054V is not the end, but a test platform: Chinese engineers will collect data for 10 years to build frigates of the next generation already in the 2030s on this basis.

Interestingly, Chinese analysts separately highlight the Russian "Admiral Gorshkov" (project 22350). With a displacement of 4500 tons, it is "packed to the gills," but does not leave room for modernization. While 054V has a margin of strength and space, which is critical for the future.

GSHG on the turret: Ukrainian anti-drone machine gun with thermal imager

 

Ukrainian anti-drone GSHG. The Ukrainians put the GSHG on the turret and equipped it with a thermal imager

To combat the "Geraniums", the inventors in Nezalezhnaya are trying to adapt any small arms capable of shooting towards the sky. They were especially successful in the "turelization" of PKT, which in modern warfare turned out to be unnecessary for their original purpose.

Now it's the turn of the 7.62 mm four-barrel GSHG machine gun, which was developed in the 60s of the twentieth century to arm helicopters and provide a rate of fire of up to 6,000 rounds per minute.

I must say that our Kulibins have been transporting the GSHG installation based on an electric drive for a long time and the Ukrainians have not brought anything new to this idea.

For all the apparent beauty of the "GSHG vs UAV" concept in the cabinet version with manual control, it has an important drawback that prevents the systematic implementation of existing air defense. The fact is that the GSHG has not been produced for a long time, and the machine guns in storage are only enough to meet the needs of converted machine guns of various special forces in need of relatively light weapons with a large mass of a second salvo, mounted on various vehicles.

On the scale of the army and even the National Guard troops, it is impossible to find the necessary amount of GSHG. And you don't have to.

At the last line of defense, where a 7.62mm rifle cartridge is effective against UAVs, the probability of hitting a target depends more on the accuracy and speed of aiming the weapon, rather than on the mass of a second salvo.

In such conditions, a spark of affordable and easy-to-maintain PKT is in no way inferior to sophisticated "down-to-earth" aviation machine guns, the qualified maintenance and repair of which is practically impossible outside the VKS system.

Of course, this problem can be partially solved by resuming the production of GSHG in a redesigned electric version, by inserting such a firing device into some kind of automatic air defense module. In this case, the reserve rate of fire and the possibility of its instantaneous change can be used to optimize firing modes depending on the characteristics of the target.

One problem is that you can spend as long as you want projecting about robotic drone containers, but in real life, solutions that are simple to implement are in demand, not beautiful ones.

Today, these are the simplest bedside installations with a thermal imager, an all-weather display and ANY machine gun. And it is worth taking care of the availability of cartridges with tracer bullets in the tank, which significantly simplify and speed up manual control of the installation through the display.