China builds the world's largest amphibious assault ship Type 076

Satellite images of the Chinese shipyard on Changxing Island showed that the Chinese are rapidly building a Type 076 ship, which could become the largest amphibious assault ship in the world.

Here's What We Know

The vessel will be called Yulan, and although the completion of the work is still far away, we can already talk about the truly "fabulous" characteristics of the ship. In addition, it also shows that China is building up its power projection capabilities in the Pacific.

The CSIS think tank suggests that we should pay attention to the dimensions of the Chinese Yulan multipurpose amphibious assault ship. Satellite imagery shows that this LCS will have a flight deck 260 metres long and 52 metres wide, which is significantly larger than the US America-class ships and Japanese Izumo-class light aircraft carriers.

In addition, the Chinese Type 076 will generally outperform its closest foreign counterparts. The Yulan is also impressive in terms of the expected capacity of the amphibious assault and air group that this ship is expected to accommodate. It will allegedly be able to take on board about a thousand marines, a certain number of landing craft and several dozen UAVs.

Another feature is that the configuration of the flight deck will allow this ship to be used as a light aircraft carrier. This will be facilitated, in particular, by the placement of elevators to lift aircraft to the flight deck and the provision of an electromagnetic catapult to launch aircraft in a similar way to conventional aircraft carriers.

Source: CSIS