071 LPD thread

Pusser01

Banned Idiot
Since Australia is much closer to Tonga, there's some margin of error they can live with...
Big deal, a ship broke down & was then fixed in situ after a few days. Adelaide is still on site providing support to the outer islands with its helicopters & landing craft.
 

by78

General
Official images from Tonga.

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51886961270_36bcdaaeda_k.jpg
 

Andy1974

Senior Member
Registered Member
Big deal, a ship broke down & was then fixed in situ after a few days. Adelaide is still on site providing support to the outer islands with its helicopters & landing craft.
Great, China can bring a Type 075 as well next time, will be excellent practice and great for making friends. Hopefully ASEAN can get involved too.
 

ACuriousPLAFan

Colonel
Registered Member
Considering that the US Navy will have 26 San Antonio-class LPDs in total by the 2030s, and with the issues regarding the reunification of Taiwan and the South China Sea dispute that China faces, such challenges certainly demand a much stronger and more powerful amphibious assault capabilities from the PLAN.

Currently, 8 Type 071 LPDs are already in active service, with 2 more currently under construction.

Are there any indications on how many Type 071 LPDs would be built? And how many Type 071 LPDs do you think would be needed in order to suffice the requirements of the PLAN in face of present and future challenges?
 

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AndrewS

Brigadier
Registered Member
Considering that the US Navy will have 26 San Antonio-class LPDs in total by the 2030s, and with the issues regarding the reunification of Taiwan and the South China Sea dispute that China faces, such challenges certainly demand a much stronger and more powerful amphibious assault capabilities from the PLAN.

Currently, 8 Type 071 LPDs are already in active service, with 2 more currently under construction.

Are there any indications on how many Type 071 LPDs would be built? And how many Type 071 LPDs do you think would be needed in order to suffice the requirements of the PLAN in face of present and future challenges?

For a Taiwan scenario, a Type-071 is too big.

Type-072 LSTs would be more suitable.
 

Blitzo

Lieutenant General
Staff member
Super Moderator
Registered Member
Considering that the US Navy will have 26 San Antonio-class LPDs in total by the 2030s, and with the issues regarding the reunification of Taiwan and the South China Sea dispute that China faces, such challenges certainly demand a much stronger and more powerful amphibious assault capabilities from the PLAN.

Currently, 8 Type 071 LPDs are already in active service, with 2 more currently under construction.

Are there any indications on how many Type 071 LPDs would be built? And how many Type 071 LPDs do you think would be needed in order to suffice the requirements of the PLAN in face of present and future challenges?

The size and nature of the future amphibious assault fleet basically has to consider two missions:
1. General regional/global amphibious assault/power projection capability
2. Taiwan specific amphibious assault capability


As others have mentioned, LPDs and LHDs are a little bit for the Taiwan specific amphibious assault role -- however smaller ships such as LSTs are also unable to conduct the general regional/global amphibious assault/power projection role due to their size.

So essentially, in terms of amphibious assault ships over 2000t in displacement, a useful division can be considered:
-Large amphibious assault ships (071, 075, 076), which are ships that can do missions 1. and 2., albeit a bit unwieldy for mission 2. if deployed alone.
-Medium amphibious assault ships (basically all of the PLAN's current LST fleet), which are ships that can do mission 2. but are unable to do mission 1.


We have no indications for how many 071s the PLAN will ultimately build, but personally I think 16 is a nice, round number.
That in turn can be complemented by 8 075 family LHDs.
And those 16 071s and 8 075s in turn can be further complemented by the expected 076 assault LHD/carrier which is projected to include a CATOBAR UCAV capability as well as retain an amphibious well deck. I think buying 8 of the 076s eventually, would form a well balanced standardized amphibious assault unit, a ESG or ARG equivalent.

I.e.: a single ESG/ARG would have:
2x 071s
1x 075
1x 076
2-3 DDGs/FFGs

That would result in 8 such ESG/ARGs, and they would of course be optimized for global/regional power projection missions in such an organization.
2x 071s, 1x 075 and 1x 076 could probably carry most of a standard PLA amphibious or marine brigade between them.

If a Taiwan contingency occurs, then that ESG/ARG would be augmented by LSTs -- anywhere between 4 to 8 additional LSTs as part of their formation, which could enable the "augmented Taiwan ESG/ARG" to probably carry a reinforced brigade.

With 32 odd LSTs in service today, they could distribute 4 LSTs per ESG/ARG without much issue -- though for the purposes of redundancy/attrition and to enable greater reinforcement, I think it would not be unreasonable to double and recapitalize the overall LST fleet to 60+ ships to enable 8 LSTs attached to each ESG/ARG as needed.

This also doesn't include the PLA's large fleet of a few hundred smaller landing craft like the Type 271III LCTs, which are 500t in displacement, able to carry the equivalent payload of three main battle tanks, and which have the range and seakeeping to easily do a cross strait mission and then some, which I expect to also augment any amphibious assault in a Taiwan contingency. Mass production of a modernized version of such a ship could prove very decisive.

(I leave the large Zubr LCACs out of it because they are simply too rare and have yet to be demonstable to be able to be mass produced by the Chinese shipbuilding industry -- the sophistication and costs of the type at this stage simply seems to be too great for mass procurement and their relatively small payload of only three MBTs is no larger than that of a Type 271III LCT)


In short, a early/mid 2030s amphibious assault fleet that I think would be viable and able to fulfill both missions 1. and 2., constitutes:
16x 071 LPDs
8x 075 LHDs
8x (or aiming to build 8) 076 assault carriers/LHDs
60+ modern 4000-5000t LSTs
300+ modern 500t LCTs
 
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