Semi-submersibles have also civil applications. Is this ship intended for PLAN?GSI kicked off to build a 90,000 ton half-submerged ship. The tonnage is similar to US Navy MLP-3 forward afloating marine base
Semi-submersibles have also civil applications. Is this ship intended for PLAN?
Occasionally warships, damaged ones or small new ones, are carried that way. Recently a couple of Vietnamese warships were taken from the Baltic to Vietnam by such a ship ( was it Dutch ? ).Could be used to salvage or lift damaged warships
But at 90,000 tons that's a giant!!!
Ministry of industry and information technology approved "critical technologies of multi-functional large hospital ship" study project proposed by 701 institute. This R&D project would be run from 2015 to 2017. Based on ship-building engineering experiences and according to market demands of hospital ship, this project studies international laws and regulations as well as technical standard specifications in order to selecting an appropriate ship types and suitable equipment, to comprehend key technologies of shipbuilding, and develop a multi-functional hospital ship weighted around 30,000 tons and equipped with 500 beds...
Is there any announcement whatsoever that this is a PLAN MLP?
It does not look right to me...does not look like it has the facilities for LCACs to dock.
In fact, from this angle it looks more like a heavy lift vessel, which uses a lot of the same principles as an MLP, but does it so that they can transport damaged vessels, or other vessels that they would rather not sail long distances.
I will not believe this is an MLP until I see different shots of the vessel to confirm its arrangement, and/or hear an announcement from the Chinese to that effect.