China’s shipbuilding industry has been hard at work on a new class of amphibious assault ships, building the first ship of the class at an astonishingly fast pace.
But what purpose the large and advanced Type 076 warship could serve is still a mystery. In fact, there are still many unknowns surrounding this unusual ship.
Satellite images, provided to Business Insider by the Center for Strategic and International Studies, show shipbuilding progress on the Type 76 amphibious assault ship, also known as the Yulan class, in Shanghai. Changxing Island Shipbuilding Base. The images, dated July 4, capture a number of details about the ship.
Compared to its Type 075, the Yushen-class predecessor, it appears to have a number of notable differences. Perhaps the most obvious is the size. The Type 076 is much longer and larger than the Type 075, and when completed, will be the largest amphibious assault ship in the world, easily surpassing its American and Japanese counterparts, according to a CSIS analysis of the ship cloud.
A satellite image shows the upper deck of the Type 76. CSIS/China Power/CNES 2024
The benefits of a larger warship include a potential capacity for more aircraft, more space to host a variety of personnel on board, and internal storage space for other assets.
But perhaps the most striking aspect of the Type 076 is that it appears to feature a catapult launch system for fixed-wing aircraft, technology also featured on China’s new aircraft carrier CNS Fujian, which features an electromagnetic aircraft launch system like the youngest in the USA. aircraft carriers, Ford-class ships.
“This is not something we’ve seen before,” Matthew Funaiole, a senior fellow with the China Energy Project at CSIS, told Business Insider. “No other country has an LHA that has a catapult system on it,” he said, referring to a landing helicopter assault ship. This capability would place the warship somewhere between a traditional attack ship and an aircraft carrier.
An F/A-18F Super Hornet, assigned to Air Test and Evaluation Squadron (VX) 23, takes off from the flight deck of USS Gerald R. Ford (CVN 78). US Navy photo by Mass Communication Specialist 2nd Class Ruben Reed
The addition of a catapult launch system to the Type 076 suggests, Funaiole added, that China is confident in that technology despite just introducing it in Fujian. But it remains unclear what types of fighter jets China would field from the Type 076 or whether those planes would be manned at all.
With the Fujian, China made a technological leap from the ski-jump-style aircraft launch systems of its earlier carriers to advanced electromagnetic catapults, completely bypassing steam catapults in the process.
A J-15 fighter jet takes off from the aircraft carrier Shandong during a combat readiness patrol and military exercises around Taiwan. A Ni/Xinhua via Getty Images
China may use the catapult system, as leading China experts and observers have suggested, to launch unmanned aerial vehicles. But if it can, despite its operational and technological limitations, launch manned aircraft, that would make the Type 76 almost a kind of hybrid, mini-carrier, fulfilling an unusual role. Catapults, a wide flight deck and a clean runway will support this, although it is not easy.
Bryan Clark, a former US Navy officer and defense expert at the Hudson Institute, explained that China likely wants the ability to launch long-endurance unmanned aerial vehicles, and the new catapult is a “creative” way to do it. this for some of its drones. .
China’s military operates a variety of attack and reconnaissance drones, and years ago, as CSIS notes in its analysis, photos surfaced of what appeared to be drones on a catapult test track. And at the Changxing facility, apparent models of unmanned aerial vehicles have been seen in a test facility, although the intent and purpose is unclear.
According to Funaiole, it is likely that the Type 76’s biggest role, at least initially, will be to better integrate with how China uses its UAVs with naval operations.
But just as important as its capabilities is how quickly the Type 076 was built.
“I think it’s just as important, if not more important, to emphasize how impressive China’s ability to build ships is,” Funaiole said, noting that while the exact timeline of its construction is unclear, china started building 076, likely. giving it priority while finishing the new dry dock it was in.
It is just a small example of the capacity and size of China’s shipbuilding power. The big takeaway from the Type 076 build, Clark said, is that it shows how once China “has a hot production line” and is “able to leverage commercial shipbuilding capacity essentially to build military ships,” it “can build ships, like a type 076, very quickly.”
A satellite image showing the Type 76 being built around other ships. CSIS/China Power/CNES 2024
As unusual as the Type 76 appears to be, the US could certainly have built a ship of this nature, Funaiole said.
But the U.S. “has been heavily and rightly biased toward supercarriers,” Funaiole said, which are inherently versatile, carry a variety of aircraft and can perform a diverse range of missions.
The US also has America-class and Wasp-class amphibious assault ships for other types of missions. “There may not necessarily be a need for this type of platform” in the US Navy, he added.
There are questions about the role of the Type 076 in a conflict scenario. It could, for example, play a role in an invasion or blockade of Taiwan, or support the use of drones and helicopters for surveillance, anti-submarine warfare and other reconnaissance.
But according to Clark, the Type 076 is most likely in line with China’s goal of becoming a blue-water navy capable of power projection far from its shores. Perhaps this flexibility is exactly what China wants – a ship that can perform a variety of missions and function as a key adjunct to its growing naval power.