PLAN Zubr Large Air Cushion Landing Craft

gelgoog said:

What about the engines? The engines for the Zubr LCAC used to be made in Ukraine. Russia has designed the M70FRU gas turbine engine at UEC Saturn as a replacement and it was accepted into production a couple years ago. But I never heard of them actually ordering or producing any engines for serial ships.

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ACuriousPLAFan said:

Will need a top-down view of the 728 to confirm.



(Might as well reply to both at once)

Indeed. Zubr/728 are very useful for cross-strait ferrying of troops and equipment during Taiwan AR.

Even so, there are obvious operational limitations to Zubr/728, even for the cross-strait Taiwan AR scenario.

In order for the Zubr/728 to cross the strait, offload troops and equipment before returning to the mainland - All within one round-trip journey - The only locations and regions where landing and deployment locations for the Zubr/728 can be considered feasible are:
1. Islands - Within the Taiwan Strait only, i.e. Kinmen, Matsu and Penghu; and
2. Mainland Taiwan - From Keelung to the north until the northern shores of Tainan to the south.

Anywhere further than the aforementioned locations and regions (e.g. Tainan, Kaohsiung, eastern coastlines of Taiwan, Lanyu Island and the Ryukyu Islands) will require Zubr/728s to conduct at least one underway refueling throughout the entire to-and-back journey. Otherwise, larger ships with longer endurances (072-series LSTs, 071 LPDs, 075 LHDs) are required.

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ACuriousPLAFan said:

A brand new LCAC has appeared somewhere along the eastern seaboard of China, with the vessel number 3260.

View attachment 112573

Posted by

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on Weibo.

More information from his post:
1. First Zubr-class LCAC to be equipped by the Eastern Theater Command Navy.
2. First ever purely domestically-produced Zubr LCAC.
3. Name - Type 728-class LCAC.

Notable differences/improvements of the Type 728 LCAC from the original Zubr LCACs:
1. The positions of the two H/PJ-13 6-tube 30mm AA guns were moved forward.
2. An integrated photoelectric fire control instrument on the top of the bridge was replaced by an H/LJP-347G fire control radar (the foreign trade model is MR35).
3. H/PJ-13 finally doesn't rely on simple photoelectric aiming anymore.

Seems like China has fully mastered the technical requirements and knowhow to produce 728 LCACs completely on their own.

Now it's only the matter of entering serial production - Because of a certain couple of islands in the southeastern direction...

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drowingfish said:

makes more sense to not build too many of these and use them on those islands you just mentioned, especially penghu. taking penghu quickly is a massive game changer in a taiwan contingency.

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ACuriousPLAFan said:

Second Type 728 LCAC spotted with the vessel number 3261.

Posted by @xx笑而不语xx on Weibo, via

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on Twitter.

View attachment 115491

According to the poster, the serial production of the Type 728 is already underway.

China definitely needs more of these...

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sequ said:

AR is coming soon it seems. Macron said it some months ago when he returned from China.

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ACuriousPLAFan said:

Second Type 728 LCAC spotted with the vessel number 3261.

Posted by @xx笑而不语xx on Weibo, via

Please, Log in or Register to view URLs content!

on Twitter.

View attachment 115491

According to the poster, the serial production of the Type 728 is already underway.

China definitely needs more of these...

Click to expand...