075 LHD thread

[sunnymaxi]

What i'm still very interested in is what is the relation between 075 and 076. Is the 076 the de-facto successor or they are going to be built in parallel, and if so how many more 076s will be build to serve alongside the at least 6 075s built/building, at least in the near future?

zero evidence about next 076 unit or how many they are planning to build.. without testing and evaluation i don't think so PLAN will order further ships.

075 make sense as China's attack helicopter fleet growing and growing.

 

[4Tran]

I actually don't like that China is building so many LHDs rather than building more actual carriers. Carriers provide more utility for China in contesting the western pacific rather than LHDs which will be sitting ducks anywhere outside the first island chain, unless supported also by a carrier.

Moreover, LHDs are less useful in a Taiwan scenario and more about blue water projection of power.

A more balanced approach would be to have equal number of LHDs and carriers just like the US does.

Frankly, until the Taiwan situation is resolved, China needs LHDs more than it needs carriers. In fact, China doesn't need carriers at all because it doesn't fight expeditionary wars, and land based aircraft can hit pretty much all the targets it really wants to anyways. Carriers are a luxury for the time being, and China is in the position of having the resources to do both so it's much more of a long term investment.

The other side of it is that carriers are still a very new thing for China so it makes sense to figure out what works and why it works before going all in on any particular design. In other words, China is doing what the US should have been doing with the Ford-class.

zero evidence about next 076 unit or how many they are planning to build.. without testing and evolution i don't think so PLAN will order further ships.

075 make sense as China's attack helicopter fleet growing and growing.

I think that the 076 is largely an experimental design for figuring out whether the PLAN should go with older 075-style helicopter carriers, with new-style drone carriers, or with light carriers. There are no predecessors for this paradigm so China can't crib from someone else's homework.