Oh yes, and there are three frigates also under construction in the same dock. It’s worth mentioning that the building yard, CSSC Hudong Zhonghua, is better known for building commercial container ships and LNG carriers, some of which have had reliability issues. So there is hope that the Type 076 might be a bit rubbish, but hope is not a strategy.
In some ways one could see this new mega-amphib as a fantasy fleet ship where everything gets added partly for operational reasons but partly because you can. If you are working to a budget, as everyone other than China is, you wouldn’t crossover capabilities like this. You’d keep your huge and expensive carrier force separate from your rough and ready, cheaper amphib force.
The other side of the argument is to suspect that the Chinese, having mastered electromagnetic catapult technology, have looked at the expensive, partly crippled jump jets of the West and the likewise partly crippled J-15s that they operate from the Liaoning and the Shandong. They’ve decided they want something like an America-class LHA but they don’t want to mess around with jump jets or ski-jump ramps – they want their relatively small, LHA-style jet group to be fully capable and not unduly expensive. And so they’ve decided that a single cat makes sense.
We should bear in mind that when the America class was designed, electric cats didn’t exist. Modern gas turbine powered warships, having no steam available, can’t use steam cats so the US didn’t even consider catapults for the America class. But American designers might well have done if they’d had the option. An America class with a single cat and a small group of F-35C tailhook jets might well cost less overall than the actual ships equipped as they are with F-35Bs, and it would definitely be more capable.
In the end, we can say for sure that the PLAN is currently rewriting the rules on how long it takes to build big, complex warships. This is in turn set to rewrite the forecast on how soon the PLAN may match the US Navy on tonnage and firepower, rather than just hull numbers. And we can also say that the sight of the biggest invasion ship in the world taking shape in a Chinese yard will be making the Taiwanese military very thoughtful.
At this stage it’s not clear if the PLAN has just rewritten the rule book on amphibious operations as well (a development which Nato navies would struggle to match) or alternatively created an expensive white elephant that won’t work very well – time will tell. Not very much time, though.
Tom Sharpe is a former Royal Navy officer