China has commissioned a corvette variant focused on anti submarine warfare (ASW), expanding the capability of the People’s Liberation Army Navy (PLAN) to find and hunt submarines in the South China Sea, according to Tuesday local press reports via Jane’s Defense Weekly.
Zhuzhou is the 18th Jiangdao-class corvette to enter the Chinese fleet and the first specifically planned for ASW.
In addition to the array of guided anti-ship and anti-air missiles, the Type-56 corvettes already include a hull-mounted sonar, according to U.S. Naval Institute’s Combat Fleets of the World.
Some of the corvettes are also being equipped with towed sonar arrays, Combat Fleets author Eric Wertheim told USNI News on Wednesday.
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2 comments:
Hi Will - long-time reader in Namibia. Just read a report that China is planning to expand naval bases across the Indian Ocean and Africa, including one in Namibia (http://www.namibian.com.na/indexx.php?id=20409&page_type=story_detail&category_id=1) - can you recommend any good sources discussing the geopolitics of this (balance of power with U.S., China's strategic aims, etc.)? Thanks a ton.
Hi Nathan,
I am sure I am just NOT getting to this. I'll see what I can find, but I don't have any good reads on China in Africa at the moment. OTOH, I know someone who ought to and will ask.
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