The PLAN LCAC Type 726 Yuyi Class

asif iqbal said:

As the saying goes better to have the capability and never need to use it than not to have it and need to use it

I believe US did amphibious landings in both Iraq wars in 1991 and 2003 and the Turkish Navy during Cyprus invasion in 1974

It's always a branch of warfare that one can use if needed no doubt it will be used again in future

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As far as I know, an amphibious operation against Iraq was planned in 1991, but was prudently abandoned.

Also as far as I know, it was 3 Commando Brigade, RM, that conducted a helicopter-borne assault against the Basrah area in 2003.

The deplorable Turkish invasions of Cyprus are not really relevant to US capabilities - but were mainly airborne as far as I recall. The British also conducted an unopposed landing on the Falklands in 1982.

Bltizo said:

I don't disagree with what you say. The question we should ask, however, is whether those capabilities are something the PLA desires and namely whether it is worth the investment into LCACs at this stage of the PLANs modernization drive.

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The simple answer is yes they do require them because they have built three LPD each able to carry four LCAC and four Z8 medium sized helos

franco-russe said:

As far as I know, an amphibious operation against Iraq was planned in 1991, but was prudently abandonned.

Also as far as I know, it was 3 Commando Brigade, RM, that conducted a helicopter-borne assault against the Basrah area in 2003.

The deplorable Turkish invasions of Cyprus are not really relevant to US capabilities - but were mainly airborne as far as I recall. The British also conducted an unopposed landing on the Falklands in 1982.

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With all due respect if the Turkish invasion was so deplorable then how come 1/3 of Cyprus is under Turkish control

asif iqbal said:

The simple answer is yes they do require them because they have built three LPD each able to carry four LCAC

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The simple answer doesn't cut it though. Having the well deck to hold four LCACs doesn't mean they should fit four LCACs in. We've seen pictures of just fully loaded of just how full the well deck can be with ZDB05s and ZTD05s, and the PLAN will have to balance what kind of force they want to offload and more importantly, whether the advantages of an LCAC are worth losing the large amount of space which can hold anywhere up to 6 or more ZTD/BD05s instead.

Personally I think the advantages of an LCAC is that it opens a wider number of potential landing zones — the benefits of an "over the horizon" assault are better fulfilled by helicopters IMO, because LCACs are pretty big targets and even if the LPD Mothership is out of range of an enemy's ASHMs, your un armoured LCAC will be charging into the teeth of it.

Bltizo said:

The simple answer doesn't cut it though. Having the well deck to hold four LCACs doesn't mean they should fit four LCACs in. We've seen pictures of just fully loaded of just how full the well deck can be with ZDB05s and ZTD05s, and the PLAN will have to balance what kind of force they want to offload and more importantly, whether the advantages of an LCAC are worth losing the large amount of space which can hold anywhere up to 6 or more ZTD/BD05s instead.

Personally I think the advantages of an LCAC is that it opens a wider number of potential landing zones — the benefits of an "over the horizon" assault are better fulfilled by helicopters IMO, because LCACs are pretty big targets and even if the LPD Mothership is out of range of an enemy's ASHMs, your un armoured LCAC will be charging into the teeth of it.

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Don't think USMC ever planned to use LCAC in the initial assault of a defended beach. AAAV /EFV was suppose to be the initial wave in a OTH assault. Helicopters carrying out diversionary landings behind the front line. LCAC also do diversionary landings on less defended parts of the beach and quickly bring up reinforcement after the initial wave.
With EFV cancelled, the USMC doesn't have the most vital piece in the OTH assault doctrine. AAV-7's waterborne performance just doesn't cut it, as it was realized when the OTH doctrine was originally formulated. USMC can still carry out OTH landing with existing kits, just not against a well defended beach. In which case why are you OTH in the first place? haha

franco-russe said:

As far as I know, an amphibious operation against Iraq was planned in 1991, but was prudently abandonned.

Also as far as I know, it was 3 Commando Brigade, RM, that conducted a helicopter-borne assault against the Basrah area in 2003.

The deplorable Turkish invasions of Cyprus are not really relevant to US capabilities - but were mainly airborne as far as I recall. The British also conducted an unopposed landing on the Falklands in 1982.

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The amphibious assault on Kuwait was a ruse to make the Iraqi Army think it was coming from the sea.

Bltizo said:

The simple answer doesn't cut it though. Having the well deck to hold four LCACs doesn't mean they should fit four LCACs in. We've seen pictures of just fully loaded of just how full the well deck can be with ZDB05s and ZTD05s, and the PLAN will have to balance what kind of force they want to offload and more importantly, whether the advantages of an LCAC are worth losing the large amount of space which can hold anywhere up to 6 or more ZTD/BD05s instead.

Personally I think the advantages of an LCAC is that it opens a wider number of potential landing zones — the benefits of an "over the horizon" assault are better fulfilled by helicopters IMO, because LCACs are pretty big targets and even if the LPD Mothership is out of range of an enemy's ASHMs, your un armoured LCAC will be charging into the teeth of it.

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As a matter of fact it is a very strong argument that at some point in the past, at least as recently as the construction of the two later 071 vessels, teh PLAN does have in mind four LCACs, otherwise she would have built a larger vehicle deck and smaller well deck for much greater flexibility. If you never actually intended to carry a full load of four hovercrafts such a large well deck would be an enormously inefficient design as well as weakening the ship's structure and increasing maintenance workload, flooding speed, etc and a whole host of issues. No other LPD of its class in the world has such a large well deck relative to its size; you do not need a well deck to carry ZBD-05s and ZTD-05s, a vehicle deck would suffice, all that empty space you see in those photos showing the vehicles could be another deck holding even more vehicles. quarters, stores, machinery, and any number of thing enormously useful to an amphibious force embarking on a ship.

Preux said:

As a matter of fact it is a very strong argument that at some point in the past, at least as recently as the construction of the two later 071 vessels, teh PLAN does have in mind four LCACs, otherwise she would have built a larger vehicle deck and smaller well deck for much greater flexibility. If you never actually intended to carry a full load of four hovercrafts such a large well deck would be an enormously inefficient design as well as weakening the ship's structure and increasing maintenance workload, flooding speed, etc and a whole host of issues. No other LPD of its class in the world has such a large well deck relative to its size; you do not need a well deck to carry ZBD-05s and ZTD-05s, a vehicle deck would suffice, all that empty space you see in those photos showing the vehicles could be another deck holding even more vehicles. quarters, stores, machinery, and any number of thing enormously useful to an amphibious force embarking on a ship.

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It is a solid argument, and one I've considered before, and I think the answer may lie in a PLAN preference have the option to carry four LCACs in their 071s if the opportunity ever required it, rather than only be limited to less LCACs while having a larger vehicle hall or more quarters etc.

An 071 with a bigger well deck will be potentially more flexible than a smaller well deck, and the PLAN is still relatively new to complex amphibious operations, and their ship procurement may have meant that they knew they'd only have a small number of LPDs for a few years before production later ramps up, and were willing to forgo the above mentioned advantages of a smaller well deck for the contingency that a greater LCAC complement may be of benefit.


And the well deck can be used to hold a variety of other craft other than LCACs too, whether they be future LCUs, or even something like the french EDA-R. I think the extra flexibility of a larger well deck is a logical choice in the PLAN's first class of LPD.

Bltizo said:

It is a solid argument, and one I've considered before, and I think the answer may lie in a PLAN preference have the option to carry four LCACs in their 071s if the opportunity ever required it, rather than only be limited to less LCACs while having a larger vehicle hall or more quarters etc.

An 071 with a bigger well deck will be potentially more flexible than a smaller well deck, and the PLAN is still relatively new to complex amphibious operations, and their ship procurement may have meant that they knew they'd only have a small number of LPDs for a few years before production later ramps up, and were willing to forgo the above mentioned advantages of a smaller well deck for the contingency that a greater LCAC complement may be of benefit.


And the well deck can be used to hold a variety of other craft other than LCACs too, whether they be future LCUs, or even something like the french EDA-R. I think the extra flexibility of a larger well deck is a logical choice in the PLAN's first class of LPD.

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It is indeed more flexible; flexibility however comes at a price, and the argument goes that they are willing to pay that (fairly steep) price only if they actually intend to make use of all that space for some contingencies; and that in turn suggests that they should have built at least one lot of four LCACs (though judging from our experience if you want 4 available at any time you would at least want 5-6 - hovercrafts are enormously unreliable beasts), and yet since 2009 we have only seen 3. This suggests to me that problems with the 726 does indeed exist to some degree, whether it be design, doctrinal, reliability or engine issues. On the up side, we are seeing new builds since 2012 so it is entirely likely that an LCAC design meeting the PLAN's satisfaction is introduced and it is merely being produced relatively slowly due to budgetary, manning and organizational issues; it must be born in mind that despite the enormous speed at which the PLAN had been modernising over the last decade, its organisation had changed relatively little and I should certainly imagine that something like a (say) 3 LCAC per LPD sort of organisation would take time to work out too. The Zubr is being produced more quickly of course but the Zubr is a mature design and naturally does not require much in the way of testing.

I raise yet another possibility, which is that the type 071 actually has some sort of removable deck system that would work as an ersatz vehicle deck, thus mitigating some of the problems (but not all) associated with such an enormous well deck.

Regardless, I believe the 071 to be a successful design considering that the PLAN built 2 more of largely identical design after 4 years of trials and working through its nuts and bolts, so they must have some sort of rationale for it.

Preux said:

No other LPD of its class in the world has such a large well deck relative to its size.

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Actually, the US Whidbey Island Class, of which eight were built and then commissioned between 1985 and 1992, and of which all are still in operation with the US Navy, can also carry four LCACs.

...and they are smaller than the Type 071 Class.


Whidbey Island Class:
Displace: 16,100 tons
Length: 608 ft.
Beam: 84 ft.
Draft: 19 ft.

Type 071 Class:
Displace: 22,500 tons
Length: 689 ft.
Beam: 91 ft.
Draft: 23 ft.

Bltizo said:

The simple answer doesn't cut it though. Having the well deck to hold four LCACs doesn't mean they should fit four LCACs in. We've seen pictures of just fully loaded of just how full the well deck can be with ZDB05s and ZTD05s, and the PLAN will have to balance what kind of force they want to offload and more importantly, whether the advantages of an LCAC are worth losing the large amount of space which can hold anywhere up to 6 or more ZTD/BD05s instead.

Personally I think the advantages of an LCAC is that it opens a wider number of potential landing zones — the benefits of an "over the horizon" assault are better fulfilled by helicopters IMO, because LCACs are pretty big targets and even if the LPD Mothership is out of range of an enemy's ASHMs, your un armoured LCAC will be charging into the teeth of it.

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Well if not then why not just build follow on units of Type 072A and III, they don't have well decks as such and don't deploy LCAC, if PLAN stratgdy was to use mass ZDB05 assaults swimming in from the sea they could easily build like 50 LST why go out of their way and build a 20,000 ton sophisticated Type 071 LPD which could take four helos, a massive deck and four LCAC in the well deck, one simple reason because they want to use the well deck, the well deck is for LCAC, a LCAC is large it's fast and is used for over the horizon amphibious landings as well as a powerful air complement of four medium sized helos

As someone said if vehicles swimming out of a naval platform was the future PLAN doctrine the Type 071 is the wrong platform, they could just have built a large vessal with rear door and fitted like 200 assault vehicles in it and there you go but thats not what they want that's not what they intend to use

Type 071 LPD is a amphibious assault ship, moreover it's clearly designed for a over the horizon landing, however it's designed for but currently not equipped for that mission, this is what we are trying to understand