China’s navy puts 2 more advanced Type 055 destroyers into service in push for blue-water fleet
- Anshan and Wuxi take part in night drill, according to state media report
- Vessels expected to play a big part in country’s aircraft carrier strike groups
The Type 055 is regarded as second in power only to the US Navy’s Zumwalt-class stealth ship and the People’s Liberation Army plans to have eight of them in service in a first batch.
Zhao Shugan, captain of the Wuxi, told CCTV that his crew were being assessed around the clock, with the evaluation starting from the moment they left port and continuing until they docked.
“We must be ready to deal with emergency situations at all times, and immediately raise the level of deployment to deal with sea and air situations once a danger is detected,” Zhao was quoted as saying.
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Compared with the land attack-focused Zumwalt, the Type 055 is designed to be a multirole warship, equipped with weapons to counter missiles, ships and submarines.
The destroyers are also equipped with the country’s most advanced integrated electric propulsion system, allowing them to travel up to 10,000 nautical miles without refuelling – 2½ times further than the navy’s Type 054 multi-role frigate, the most numerous PLA warship in service.
The PLA Navy plans for the destroyers to play a key role in aircraft carrier strike groups as well as amphibious assault combat groups.
In a shipbuilding spree that has given China the world’s largest navy by number of ships, the hulls of eight Type 055 destroyers were built between 2017 and 2020.
The first one, the Nanchang, was delivered in January 2020 to the Northern Theatre Command, or North Sea Fleet; and the second, the Lhasa, went into service in March 2021, also with the North Sea Fleet.
The third, the Dalian, was commissioned in April last year for the Southern Theatre Command, or the South Sea Fleet.
A military source told the South China Morning Post earlier that the Yanan, another Type 055, was also in service.
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The Anshan and Wuxi are named after cities in Liaoning and Jiangsu provinces.
The Anshan was also the name of the navy’s first destroyer, a second-hand Soviet Gnevny-class destroyer Rekordny, bought in 1954 and retired in 1992.
China has an aggressive plan to build a real blue-water navy. It aims to build at least six aircraft carrier battle groups by 2035.
