PLA Navy news, pics and videos

Newsweek article featuring some of the usual suspects:

The container ship barge clearly has some overlap between different threads:

The UCAV/CCA thread, and the PLA News thread
Can I ask people to be careful about posting on topic replies to each component of the container ship in the right thread please? Thank you for your cooperation.

Given that 054A/Sovremenny VLS looks like this:
and given that to date we've not seen any other VLS other than the big one on any other Chinese ship, and given the visual similarities with the big VLS (given in earlier posts), AND given the rough length estimation of the VLS seen on the container ship - i'd say it is EXTREMELY likely we are seeing the same VLS as used on Type 055.

MwRYum said:

The optics of this is not aiming at Japan.

At this time, China got what it needs to glass Japan from Hokkaido at the north right down to Kyushu to the south and still has what required to make Americans live out Fallout 76 for real.

This is in response to US Navy doing "Pirates of the Caribbean", seizing oil tankers outbound from Venezuela.

A proper "demonstration" would be an ocean-going Panamax participate in combat operation, either demonstrating "sustained fire support" with its full deck of VLS land attack cruise missiles, or full-on "Alpha Strike" in fashion only the once-envisioned arsenal ship could pull off.

Click to expand...

That would be playing a good hand badly.

These modules are not magic, and cargo ships converted with them will not be a match for a proper warship of comparable tech levels.

What these modules does is it allows the PLAN to rapidly spin up potentially ridiculous numbers of combat auxiliaries that can multiply the combat capabilities of a PLAN fleet.

But even such a new combined fleet will be fighting against the odds trying to take on the U.S. in the Caribbean as the opening move of a direct superpower clash.

The Caribbean is America’s backyard, and trying to take on the US head on in a direct clash there would be as unwise as the US trying to fight to hold the Taiwan Strait from China.

Your other ‘demonstration’ examples defeat the whole purpose of the demonstration part as you are basically jumping straight into launching a new war.

That is one possible use of such ships, but firstly, China is clearly trying to avert a war, not trigger it. Secondly, if you wanted to do a surprise alpha strike, you will want to keep this capability under the most heavy of guard to make sure you can achieve the surprise part. Openly showing them off in from of a park is the last thing you will be doing if that was the case.

mack8 said:

A question, any idea how many such container ships, especially larger ones that the present ship, does China have that could be converted? Is there a list or a summary somewhere of such ships by displacement or TEU, and what is the minimum size required for a modular landing platform and arresting gear systems as discussed above?

Click to expand...

I understand your question, but it kind of doesn't matter. If a war has gotten to a place where this is needed en masse, its already in a bad spot globally. China (and other nations) could simply seize any non-aligned vessel and put whatever number of components on that vessel that it could support. The EMALs trucks may require a certain minimum length, but the others won't. And conversions of these ships can be done in a matter of days.

blackforest said:

View attachment 167422

Click to expand...

Source:

China South Sea Fleet:

2025 Surface Fleet new additions review:


PS: I don't think anyone would object if those posters on here who are active journalists/youtubers posted links to their articles/videos for the benefit of the rest of us, rather than waiting for randos like me to do so.