China’s Hudong Heavy Machinery Company recently unveiled on its mobilization meeting that its 16PC2-6B diesel engine is being used by China’s project of amphibious assault ship (call as Type-081 on the internet), which should be able to compete with France’s Mistral class amphibious assault ship and Japan’s Izumo-class “helicopter destroyer”.
This proves that the new-type amphibious assault ship of China adopts a straight deck, just like Mistral and Izumo class amphibious assault ships, and is the first time that China’s homemade straight-deck amphibious assault ship is confirmed by official information.
Actually China has exhibited its model of straight-deck amphibious assault ship on international exhibitions for times, yet China also put a Type 071 landing platform dock (LPD) into service not long ago.
China military analyst said that Type 071 LPD will not be able to meet China’s ocean-going operations in the long run. And armed helicopters and LCACs will all become effective weapons for the straight-deck amphibious assault ships.
Other analyst thinks that China has equal shipbuilding capacity as France, so it doesn’t have to purchase Mistral class amphibious assault ship. And China’s homemade straight-deck amphibious assault ship now is using the same power system just like Mistral’s, but the ship is even larger.
Chinese general Yin Zhuo said on a TV program that Z-10 and Z-19 both might be allocated to straight-deck amphibious assault ships in the future, and Chinese marine corps will also be on the ships.
Yin Zhuo also predicted that China’s new-type amphibious assault ship will have a tonnage of about 40,000, one and half times of Japanese Izumo-class helicopter destroyer (26,000 tonnage), equal to U.S. America class amphibious assault ship.