![]() The Luda Class is a low-tier command ship, optimized for surface combat. On the other hand, the class was the Chinese Navy's first domestically designed and produced warships in the post-war era, and long-served as the backbone of the PLAN fleet. The oldest examples served until the mid-2000's before being decommissioned several of the latest vessels remain in service, as of 2015.Įvaluated objectively, the Luda class was obsolete upon commissioning, and never quite managed to match Western equivalents despite extensive reconstruction. The seventeen vessels comprising the class were build between 19. Successive upgrades improved the capabilities of the class, but left a dizzying number of variants in what was a modest number of ships, with many individual ships differing wildly in configuration toward the ends of their lives. Various combinations of radar and combat data systems were also fitted. However, the layout of the class' vessels went through major revision over the course of their lifetimes, with the torpedo launchers being replaced, first by HY-1 missiles (Chinese P-15 Termit copy) and later on, by the indigenous C-802 AshM Anti-aircraft guns were supplemented by HQ-7 SAMs (Chinese Crotale copy). This initial layout placed the first vessels of the class well behind Western and Soviet developments, both of whom were beginning to focus on missile armaments and anti-submarine warfare. ![]() The original vessels were relatively close to the design philosophy of the Second World War, armed with guns and torpedoes, with modest ASW capability, and driven by steam turbine engines. The Type 051 was apparently patterned off of the 1950's era Soviet Neustrashimy class, or early versions of the later Kotlin class. The need for a larger, longer-ranged vessel was the impetuous for the construction of the Type 051 Luda-class. China's small collection of ex-Soviet, WWII-vintage, Anshan-class destroyers and smaller, but marginally more modern Chenghu-class frigates (ex- Riga) were inadequate for supporting ICBM testing deep into the Pacific. However, by the late 1960's the Chinese Nuclear program was in full swing, despite the ongoing turmoil of the cultural revolution. ![]() The Sino-Soviet split after 1960 ended further Soviet assistance, while the generally abysmal state of the Chinese economy during the period restricted any substantial naval construction programmes. As late as the early 1970's, the core of the PLAN consisted only of a handful of ex-Soviet warships, donated during the brief period of Sino-Soviet collaboration in the 1950's. In the years immediately following the Chinese Revolution, the People's Liberation Army Navy (PLAN) operated only a minor naval force, relative to the size of the country. It first appeared in Wargame: Red Dragon. The Luda-class destroyer is a REDFOR command ship and naval combatant.
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