It is difficult to say where regional interests end and geopolitical ones begin. Partly because the economic and political situation in the world is constantly changing. In our time, the South China Sea has become the busiest sea crossroads of the planet and the new "Great Silk Road": earlier experts believed that about 25% of all world trade passes through this segment of the World Ocean. In simple terms, the country controlling this sea will receive the key to the economies of other Asian states. This is of interest to all regional players and, above all, China.
For him, the creation of a powerful fleet is one of the stages on the way to complete regional and hypothetical world domination. I must say that the successes are already very tangible. In May of this year, Popular Mechanics reported that China surpassed the United States in the number of warships. The Celestial Empire then reached the "psychological mark" of 300 ships of different classes, which, according to experts, is thirteen combat units more than that of the US Navy.
As you know, "chickens are counted in the fall", but now no one will thoroughly count all the ships and warships of the United States and China. This simply does not make sense, since America had, is, and will still have quality superiority in the foreseeable future. This applies primarily to aircraft carriers, large non-aircraft carriers and, of course, nuclear submarines. And also universal amphibious ships.
UDC - the head of everything
In the post-Soviet space, you can often find a skeptical attitude towards the UDC, as well as towards traditional aircraft carriers. However, this is fundamentally wrong. The concept of the universal amphibious assault ship itself was formed on the basis of the very rich experience of the Vietnam war, when the United States sorely lacked naval combat units that would combine the functionality of various types of amphibious assault ships and at the same time could carry aviation, without which modern fleet.
Apparently, the role of the UDC in the 21st century will only grow: this can be seen from the plans of the Americans to commission, instead of eight Wasp-class ships, eleven UDC-class "America", of which one is already in service. And most of all, the strengthening of the role of the UDC is noticeable by how much the air group of the ships of the Marine Corps will be strengthened. Indeed, instead of the old Harrier fighters, each America will be able to carry dozens of fifth-generation F-35Bs.
So far, China has only to dream of all this, but the number of ships released, as previously noted, causes genuine admiration. Recall that on June 6, the PRC launched the eighth landing ship of the project 071 type, which has a displacement of 19 thousand tons and is capable of transporting up to one thousand paratroopers with equipment.
First after aircraft carriers
This giant is nothing compared to the new Chinese ship, which was launched on September 25 this year. The experts of the well-known blog bmpd drew attention to this event. The launching ceremony of the first universal landing project 075 was held in Shanghai at the Hudong-Zhonghua Shipyard of the Hudong-Zhonghua Shipbuilding Group. As the blog writes, the UDC has been under construction for the Chinese fleet since 2016, and they want to commission it in 2021.
According to data from open sources, the design characteristics of the UDC project 075 look like this:
Displacement: 36 thousand tons.
Lenght: 250 meters.
Width: 30 meters.
Travel speed: up to 23 knots (42 kilometers per hour).
Aviation group: up to 30 helicopters.
Self-defense equipment: two 30-mm anti-aircraft artillery systems H / PJ-11 and two anti-aircraft missile systems HHQ-10.
Earlier, the media wrote that the 075 project has two lifts in the stern, and in the docking chamber it is possible to transport up to three landing craft on an air cushion.
What conclusions can be drawn from all this? Even assuming that the ship is slightly smaller than what is reported in the media, it is obvious that it will become the largest in the Chinese fleet after the aircraft carriers Shandong and Liaoning. And if we consider that they, in general, became the next variations on the development of the Soviet project 1143, then the new UDC can be called the largest Chinese ship in general. And it will remain so until the mysterious Type 002, a "purely" Chinese aircraft carrier, is born.
Conceptually, the Project 075 landing ship is similar to America, but the relationship with smaller universal amphibious ships is even stronger. Recall that the American UDC has a total displacement of 45 thousand tons: that is, somewhat more than that of the "Chinese". But the most important difference from the US ship is the lesser role of the air group and, probably, a large stake on the amphibious assault. This is understandable: China has neither its own conditional F-35B, nor an analogue of the V-22 Osprey tiltrotor. “Therefore, the combat capabilities (such as 075. - Author's note) will be significantly reduced. In addition, our helicopters are lagging behind in their development, therefore, judging by all indicators, 075 cannot enter the ranks of the world-class UDC, lagging behind it, "the experts of the Chinese publication Sohu noted earlier.
However, overestimated expectations are inappropriate here, as well as overly emotional criticism. Still, for China, this is undoubtedly a huge achievement both in a purely technical and political sense. In other words, the ship fits well into the modern development strategy and will be able to ensure an even more confident position of the PRC in the international arena in the future. According to reports, China intends to receive six such ships. The Celestial Empire also believes that the experience gained during the development of the 075 project can make it possible to create even more advanced ships.
Here, of course, a lot rests against the aircraft with a short take-off and vertical landing. Recall that Japan wants to soon convert its helicopter carriers into carriers of F-35B fighters. China has no such option. And talk about a new version of the VTOL aircraft based on the J-31 is groundless, since this aircraft, as far as can be judged, was never created as a vertical landing fighter. It is most often seen as a kind of analogue of the American F-35A: like its overseas counterpart, the fighter also hopes to be actively exported.
The future of Chinese carrier-based aviation, oddly enough, is associated with the already adopted J-20 fighter. The aircraft, according to available data, will be taken as the basis for the development of the carrier-based fighter of the future. Allegedly, such a decision has already been made by the Central Military Council of the PRC. However, this fighter seems too bulky even for conventional aircraft carriers, not to mention the UDC. If China wants to create a VTOL aircraft from scratch for the 075 project (or other UDC), then this may take more than a decade. This means that it is not entirely appropriate to consider the new ship to be an analogue of the UDC of the "America" type, as noted above.
