"I believe that we got good deals on both Type54APs and Baburs. PN got 4 quite capable frigates at subsidized rates. China's shipbuilding is the greatest in the world. It has huge production and number of hulls it produces is astonishing so that large scale production eventually makes per unit cost lower. Plus PN might have packaged the frigates and Hangoor subs together. On the other hand, Turkey / West cannot do the same but what we are getting is very important for the future. The 1.5B dollar package will be totally worth if Jinnah class becomes a success and PN produce atleast 4-6 units."
The issue of Chinas shipbuilding is not really relevant to this, its usually an argument used to compare the poor state of US shipyards in the case of a conflict. The reality is, the 054A actually a fair bit more expensive than what we paid. The same PLA leaker mentioned the PN paid significantly less than what the PLAN paid as the ships were subsidized. On top of this, they also have some level of degraded capabilities as some sensors were deleted, i.e the Towed Array (im not sure about the bow sonar though). The packaging of the Hangor and 054A is also not entirely relevant as both are built by different shipyards, with Hangor being built by Wuhan shipyards and 054A by Huangpu. Once again, the comparison of shipbuilding capabilities is not particularly relevant. In terms of numbers being built, we have already got 4 Babur class ships, which are customized and designed with our input in mind. Of course, with Jinnah, this is only further developed into another order of at least 4-6 ships. So we know it will materialise anyway.
"Some members have already given their verdict that Baburs are more advanced. I won't like to do so, as both ships have their strengths. If Babur is carrying subsonic Ashm and Tughrils are carrying Supersonic ones that I'd definitely rate Tughrils more capable to land a successful Anti-ship strike. "
The PN has two AShM programs in the works, SMASH and P282, P282 was stated to be a ship-based AShBM, with little to no details about SMASH. But, let me put on my realism hat for a second, the Chinese unveiled the YJ-21E, an export variant of their VLS-launched AShBM, its likely that P282 will just be a containerized version of this IMO, why this is relevant to this is because in the same way P282 is likely to be a domesticated YJ-21E, SMASH is probably going to be a local variant of the CM302, carried by the Tughril. The PN seems to refuse to officially recognise the anti-ship loadout on the Tughril, a possible explanation could be that by them doing so, either they need to refer to it as the CM302 or as SMASH, but by referring to it as the former, it discredits SMASH, by referring to it as the latter, they are jumping the gun as it is not fully ready yet (last year at PNMC maripur they begun work on a P282 storage complex, but none for SMASH yet.). It is likely that both ships will actually carry the same anti-shipping armament, but in the worst case, if they were to be equipped with Harbah, id argue the trade-off is a slower, but stealthier and smarter missile(PN has multi-mode seeker harbahs). But the comparisons above were in terms of defensive ability, i was the first person on this forum to harp about the limitations of the HQ-16, i will summarise for you here:
The primary issue with the 054A is its ability to defend against swarm attacks, the IN has ships with 8-16 VLS BrahMos, already a challenging target, but then, when we look at the HQ-16, the issue is that they require target illumination, the ships carry 4 MR90, one in each corner, however, each system can only guide 2 missiles at a time, so you are firstly limited in how many missiles can defend each sector (4 at a time MAX), and then secondly, how many targets you can intercept, Lets say hypothetically, we are attacked from ALL sides, we can intercept 4-8 targets, generally 4 with 2 missiles per target, that puts the ship in massive amounts of danger when attacked in a rapid fashion. Im sure you can imagine what happens if all the missiles are coming from one side.
A great example of the limitation of SARH missiles like these were the moskva downing, granted, it carried only one large illuminator, but the point is, the illuminator was being used against a different target, meaning the ship was left vulnerable to attack from the other 270 degrees, resulting in it becoming a submarine.
This problem isnt present with CAMM-ER.
Also, size and tonnage isnt thaaat relevant, see the SA'AR 6, as you can tell my laziness has kicked in and i cant be bothered to finish lol