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Advanced ship technologies now will help patrol littoral waters.
China has departed from tradition with a new naval ship design thai may be the vanguard of an entirely new class of littoral warships. These corvette-type vessels feature modernized systems that offer China unprecedented flexibility in a range of sea missions.
This new corvette design shows the Chinese commitment for increased People's Liberation Army Navy (PLAN) future littoral water goals, as does the littoral combat ship for the U.S. Navy. Only two new surface ships have been serial-built in multiple Chinese shipyards recently - the 053 Jiangkai series frigates and the 022 Houbei series missile catamarans. The corvette may be the third, and it promises enhanced capabilities that are offered only piecemeal on other ships.
Rumors have been circulating that the next mass-production warship would be a corvette, and the first piclure of what it would look like appeared in a Hong Kong University press release with a photograph of a Type 056 model in November 2010. Because the deputy commander of the Hong Kong military garrison. Maj. Gen. Wang Junli, PLA, presented it to Hong Kong University Vice-Chancellor Lap-Chee Tsui, some observers have suggested that the 056 would replace the six Houjian fast attack craft (FAC) based in Hong Kong since 1997. Chinese sources claim that the 056 is intended to replace old Houxin attack craft and early 053S series frigates.
PLAN Jiangkai Il modern frigates weigh 3,400 tons without combat load and crew light load) and 3,800 tons with fuel, ammunition, stores and crew (full load). However, the earlier 053S series frigates in the 1970s weighed 1,400 to 1,700 tons. Although the 056 tonnage is not confirmed, the size in the illustrations could be approximate to that. The ship certainly is not similar to the 528-ton Houjian or the 478-ton Houxin attack craft range. In fact, a tonnage estimate of between 1,000 and 1,800 tons shows the lack of information. The 056 seems intended to replace the decommissioned Jiangnan frigates and the 20 obsolete Jianghu I and // series frigates remaining in the East and South Sea Fleets. The comparison of hull lengths seems to back up this conclusion, with the attack craft having hull lengths of 63 and 65 meters compared...