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The Chinese navy is in the process of reviving mass production of its equivalent of the US LCAC, the
Type 726A , at the Jiangnan Changxing Shipyard in Shanghai, based on satellite images as of
December 9, 2016.
Ships under construction within the artificial basin of production line No. 4 at the Jiangnan Shipyard. (Source Digital Global)
Indeed, apart from the presence of two
Type 055 destroyers and six
Type 052D destroyers , two of them outside the artificial basin of production line 4, there are also two Type 726A in water and two Other on the ground (
in yellow frame ).
The first four of the
Type 726 class , a priori endowed with Ukrainian gas turbines
UGT-6000 ДМ71 (*), were produced at the same shipyard six years ago.
These 150-ton airplane landing craft designed to enter the raft of the Chinese Navy's
Type 071 amphibious vessel would have encountered a number of technical problems that temporarily halted production, forcing the four Type 071 shifting more than 20,000 tons to limit their projection capabilities to only amphibious IFVs and helicopters, not combat tanks.
The Ukrainian gas turbine UGT-6000 that equips the first Chinese Type 726 (Source: UkrOboronProm)
The most widespread rumors spoke of the concern to replace Ukrainian turbines with native ones, and also a problem of the steering system. But according to a source working at the shipyard in question, the problems were rather the low frequency vibration and also the loud noise.
The improved model and equipped with a Chinese propulsion, with the QC-70 gas turbine developed from the WS-10 aviation engine , seems to be called the Type 726A now.
Each Type 726 / Type 726A can carry up to 60 tonnes of payloads, the mass of a Chinese combat tank such as ZTZ-96A or ZTZ-99A. The distance is estimated at 320 km, sufficient to cross the Taiwan Strait at a speed of up to 80 kn, one way, if the sea situation is unknown.
In terms of development, it is interesting to note that the design of the Type 726 / Type 726A is not entirely realized by the players in the naval sector, but also by those of the Chinese aeronautical group AVIC.
For example, the assembly of the propeller fairing is made by the CAC (Chengdu Aircraft Corporation), a subsidiary of AVIC, which today produces
J-10B and
J-20 fighter jets .
The use of Dassault Systèmes DELMIA software in the assembly of the Type 726A propeller fairing (Source: AVIC)
And it is all the more surprising to note the presence of a little French touch in this Chinese LCAC - indeed, ACC, assisted by Nanjing University of Aeronautics and Astronautics, uses factory software Dassault Systemes, DELMIA, to plan and simulate a construction part related to the Type 726A.
To increase productivity and anticipate possible problems in the assembly of the fairing - which measures 4.7 meters in diameter and 1.9 meters in height, and weighing 1.3 tonnes in total - the Chinese engineers use the module DPE (DELMIA Process Engineer) for scheduling and scheduling operations, as well as DPM Assembly and Human modules, as a 3D interface, to simulate the editing sequence and ergonomics of the workstation.
The same software suite is used today in the assembly and installation of A350 aircraft.
It will also be interesting to know how these engineering and industrial data are managed, secured and shared in a cross-sector supply chain environment, between the avic group of the aeronautics sector and the CSSC group of the naval sector.
While waiting for the new Type 726A to be tested and delivered to the Chinese Navy, a recent video broadcast on local television shows that a new copy, registered 3332, entered service and participated in an amphibious landing exercise, Now only three Type 726 - registered 3319, 3320 and 3321 - have been seen.
