First of all, the minehunter that was shown in a previous entry has now been launched from JiangNan shipyard.
Secondly, the second ship in the Type 071 class has also been launched in the past 2 days. I find the progress for this ship to be quite remarkable, because it was still in large blocks as recent as 3 months ago. Overall, the sensors and weapons fit do not appear to have changed, but there are a couple of minor changes to the hull (if you compare the bridge, you can see the difference). The question now is whether or not they are planning to launch more ships of this class. I would say that this class has started mass production, so we are likely to see more Type 071s come out in the next couple of years from HuDong shipyard.
And finally, we have some really nice updated photos out of Dalian shipyard. We see more work on the island and on the deck. I finally see smoke coming out. I don't know if that's exhaust from the stack or just some testing of auxiliary diesel generators. Either way, there are some serious work going on inside the island.
The other thing we can see is wide installations of Type 730 CIWS and HQ-10 (Chinese version of SeaRAM) on Varyag. They are installed in the 4 locations that Kashtan and AK-630 used to be installed on Admiral K class. In each of those locations, the 2 Kashtan + 1 AK-630 (maybe 2 AK-630 in a couple of spots) are now replaced by 1 Type 730, 1 HQ-10 and 1 mysterious installation (appears to be some kind multi-purpose rocket launcher for decoy purpose). I'm waiting to see if any VLS installations will appear in these locations, because Admiral K also had 6 VLS of SA-N-9 SAM beside each pair of Kashtan CIWS.
This is a shot of the Sea Eagle radar on top of Varyag. It seems to be a different variant compared to what we see on 054A.
4 comments:
It's alaways interesting to see the progression of the whole PLA... Thank you for this blog.
it is just getting exciting now
Feng, are the Chinese building more Carriers? Or is Varyag the only one in progress now?
I hope they build at least 3 more.
I hope they take a deliberate approach. They are probably starting their first domestic carrier by now. But I personally hope they don't go too fast. Regardless of what the military thinks, economy must come first and military will reap the rewards. It does not go the other way.
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