Originally Posted by
Asturias56
"The Times article quoted by Orac (above) also contained contrasting numbers on fleet size. Likely to be reasonably correct or aimed at justifying more money for the US Navy?2
A detailed analysis I read about about 3 years ago noted the rapid expansion of the Chinese Fleet - it noted this also involved a non- monetary cost - quite a few different types and even within types the equipment fit varies a lot. Some of the older ships (that is older in a Chinese PLA (N) sense not a Western Navy) front line ships are equipped with versions of relatively low capability Western commercial systems (secondary radars for example) as well
The writer noted that this sort of variation brings negative effects in W fleets and could see no reason why it wouldn't also affect the Chinese