China’s second Type 055 warship, Lhasa, is combat-ready, state media reports

China’s second Type 055 warship – its largest and most advanced destroyer – is combat-ready, state media reported.

The stealth guided-missile destroyer Lhasa has been conducting a series of drills in the Yellow Sea in the past week to test its operational capabilities, state television said.

Eight days of exercises began with radar detection of a target in undisclosed waters and simulating firing to destroy it, according to the report.

Other training included attacks on maritime targets with missiles and artillery, search and attack on submarines, defence against nuclear, biological and chemical weapon attacks, searching and seizure of suspected civilian ships, personnel rescue and damage control.

“This will contribute to the bolstering of the new ship’s comprehensive ability to fight and accelerate the rapid generation of new-type combat capabilities,” Captain Li Guoqiang, chief of staff at the vessel training centre of the Northern Theatre Command Navy, was quoted as saying.

“We will take advantage of scientific and technological methods to explore new ways of training and set new examples in training with science and tech.”

Named after the Tibetan capital, the vessel was commissioned to the North Sea Fleet last March and is based in Qingdao. Having become fully operational, it is expected to be assigned to the navy’s significant missions later this year, as was the case for its sister ship Nanchang.

Nanchang, the country’s first Type 055 ship, entered service two years ago. It last year took part in a cruise near Alaska, a joint drill in the Sea of Japan and joint patrol around Japan with Russia, and exercises as part of the Liaoning aircraft carrier group.

The Type 055 is regarded as the second-most powerful destroyer after the US Navy’s DDG-1000, or Zumwalt-class stealth ship. While the Zumwalt is focused on land attack, the Type 055, with its 112 vertical launch missile cells, is more of a multirole warship, with balanced air-defence, anti-missile, anti-ship and anti-submarine weapons.

At more than 180 metres (590 feet) long and 20 metres (66 feet) wide and with displacement of 12,000 tonnes, the Type 055 is designed to guard the Chinese aircraft carriers as well as Type 075 amphibious assault ships.

Five things to know about China’s home-built destroyer

In a shipbuilding spree that has given China the world’s largest navy by number of ships, eight Type 055 large destroyers were launched between 2017 and 2020.

By the end of last year, the third and fourth Type 055 vessels had been delivered. The fifth one is expected to be commissioned in the first half of this year.