Latest pictures from Shanghai

I haven't posted anything recently, because I've been extremely busy at work and there is not many new extraordinary things coming out. But when I got home today, there was a host of new pictures coming out that I thought was worth sharing. Most of them come from Shanghai.
The first one is showing 092 SSBN after the major refitting that it underwent recently. It's not a new ship by any stretch of imagination, but we don't normally get to see PLAN SSBNs.


Now, we also got a bunch of pictures from Shanghai.
The first two shows the 4th 054A (or 8th overall) under construction from HD shipyard. Now, this one has actually seemed to have taken a lot longer than expected. The 4th one from HP shipyard launched a while ago and this one probably has another month to go before launching. And from that latest pictures coming out of HP shipyard, there won't be another 054A coming out anytime soon. Looks like they are continuing the policy of building ships in batch of 4s.


This ship is 112 (of 052A class). It was built in the early 90s and is powered by LM2500, which was purchased prior to the embargo. It looks like they are doing are major works on this ship by pretty much taking it apart. It has been sitting next to HD for the past 6 months. It'd be interesting to see if they will actually do anything to it.

This is PLAN's new ELINT ship. It was launched a while ago, but it looks like all of the sensors have been installed now and the scaffolding are all removed. Looks like this might be ready for sea trial soon. Unlike with frigates and destroyers, the big ships like this only get built one at a time. Or maybe they are just experimental unit until mass production. Although, PLAN doesn't really need to have the kind of numbers that would require mass production.



The pictures below are probably the most important development recently. The first one shows a module of a new LPD under construction. It looks like after all of the testings they did with the experiment class of 071, they are finally ready to mass produce it with whatever modifications they put in.

The two pictures below show the "Chinese LCAC" being delivered to PLAN. Now this is kind of interesting. We actually saw pictures of this starting in 2007. However, it took a good 3 years for it to complete all the work and testing needed to actually join service with PLAN. And with follow-ups coming in the 071 class, more of these units should join in.


And finally, more pictures of the first 071, 998 sailing around in Shanghai. 071 really represents the first major step that PLAN took in becoming a blue water fleet. So, it's quite significant that we are seeing its mass production starting and LCACs finally accompanying it.