Mogami-Class Frigate: How Japan Built a Production-Line Warship скачать в хорошем качестве

Mogami-Class Frigate: How Japan Built a Production-Line Warship

Japan’s “missile-armed eco-car” at sea. That’s one way to think about the Mogami-class frigate: a ship that looks like it walked out of a sci-fi movie, uses barely half the crew of a traditional frigate, can hunt submarines, fight surface ships, help with air defence – and doesn’t cost as much as a top-tier destroyer from the major powers. In this video, I walk you through the Mogami-class from the ground up – not just as a list of specs, but as a design answer to Japan’s real-world problems: limited manpower, limited budget, and a very long coastline to protect. We’ll start from the big picture: • Japan as a chain of islands, from Hokkaido down to Okinawa, chokepoints everywhere, and sea lanes that need constant patrols. • The ageing Asagiri and Abukuma classes, and why simply replacing everything with big destroyers like the Akizuki- or Asahi-class would blow up both the budget and the crew requirements. • How this led to the 30DX / 30FFM programme: a “new-generation warship” that Japan could build in numbers, with fewer sailors, but still capable across multiple mission sets. Then we dive into the Mogami-class itself: • A mid-sized hull in the ~3,900–5,500 ton range, with a length of about 132.5 m and a beam around 16.3 m – big enough for serious sensors and weapons, but not in full-size destroyer territory. • Stealth-focused shaping: sloped surfaces, very few right angles, and an integrated mast that makes the whole ship look like a clean metal wedge rather than a messy traditional silhouette. • A CODAG propulsion system with an MT30 gas turbine plus MAN diesels (around 70,000 hp combined), giving more than 30 knots when sprinting, but allowing economical cruising most of the time. • A crew of roughly 90 people, which is almost half of what older Japanese destroyers need – a massive difference over the ship’s lifetime in training, salary and rotation. On the combat systems side, we cover: • The sensor suite: OPY-2 AESA radar, EO/IR sensors, bow sonar and towed-array sonar for serious ASW work. • The main weapons: a 127 mm Mk 45 gun, eight anti-ship missiles, SeaRAM, torpedo tubes, mine-laying capability, and a 16-cell Mk 41 VLS (fitted from JS Niyodo onwards, with space reserved on earlier hulls). • The aviation and unmanned side: one SH-60L ASW helicopter plus UAVs/USVs/UUVs operating from the aft mission bay, giving Mogami a lot of flexibility in anti-submarine and special missions. We’ll also talk about how Japan builds Mogami like a production-line warship – using two major shipyards, alternating hulls and aiming for about two ships per year, so tools and workers stay busy and the average cost per ship comes down. Think “car factory mindset,” but for warships. Finally, we turn the camera to Thailand and run a thought experiment: If Thailand had a budget of about THB 35 billion and wanted two Mogami-class frigates, mostly built in-country with meaningful ToT – is that realistic, or are we fooling ourselves on the numbers? We’ll walk through what might be possible with that kind of budget if you: • Accept “baseline-level” Mogami rather than a fully maxed-out air-defence variant, • Split some of the weapon purchases into later contracts, • Use “fitted for but not with” spaces for future upgrades, • And focus most ToT on the hull and maintenance side, not on deep access to radar/EW software. In the end, I’ll sum up Mogami-class in one line: a medium frigate designed with an eco-car mindset. Not the cheapest, not the most powerful, not the biggest – but deliberately engineered to be “sensible and scalable” in total cost, crew requirements, lifetime operations and upgrade potential. So, if you could design your own navy from scratch, would you go for a few big, fully loaded ships, or a larger number of medium frigates like Mogami spread around your coastline? Let me know in the comments – I’ll be reading. Credit B-roll videos: • 護衛艦「もがみ」引渡式・自衛艦旗授与式（ダイジェスト） - DiscoverMHI (Mitsubishi Heavy Industries, Ltd.) • FFM Mogami ＆ Upgraded Mogami - DiscoverMHI (Mitsubishi Heavy Industries, Ltd.) • 海上自衛隊 FFM 「もがみ」型フリゲート_ JMSDF FFM “MOGAMI” Class - 防衛省 防衛装備庁公式チャンネル（ATLA Official Channel) • JS Kumano (FFM-2)「くまの」 Mogami-class Frigate of the JMSDF - Naval News • Japan (JMSDF) Commissions Mogami-class Frigate 'JS Kumano' into service - Defence Simplified • Japan's state-of-the-art frigate Kumano shown to media - Nippon Television News Japan • 【引渡式・自衛艦旗授与式】護衛艦「もがみ」引渡式・自衛艦旗授与式 - 防衛省 海上自衛隊 公式チャンネル • 海上自衛隊 護衛艦うみぎり 佐世保入港 DD-158 JS UMIGIRI JMSDF - 2016 - binmei