re: PLAN Type 071 LPD & its Landing Craft
The only SE Asian country that Chinese Zubrs can attack is Vietnam. And not only just Vietnam, but just the northern half of Vietnam. There may be some strategic utility in a naval assault on Vietnam in combination with a land assault, but the rest of SE Asia is certainly immune to Zubrs. I guess you could also apply the same rationale to N/S Korea. But the Phillipines, Malaysia, Brunei and Indonesia are all out of range.
Replenishment ships do nothing for Zubrs because the problem is not just fuel or food but crew accommodations, which AFAIK the Zubrs don't have for troops or vehicle crews. Actually I don't think even the crews themselves have accommodations.
Indeed, the biggest limiting factor to the operational range of the Zubrs are accommodations for crews and troops. It's no good ferrying troops a thousand miles in Zubrs if they arrive exhausted and half dead from been strapped into bucket seats and shaken like peas in a tin can for days on end.
However, that does not necessarily make Zubrs useless for operations far from China's coast.
Obviously deploying troops straight from mainland bases in Zubrs for South China Sea island operations is a bad idea because of the detrimental effect such a protracted journey would have on the combat readiness of troops once they arrive.
However, the hovercraft design of the Zubr should allow them to easily mount beaches on friendly islands and can be parked temporarily on fields or even on the beach themselves for short periods. This means it would be possible to easily turn any friendly controlled island into temporary bases for Zubrs, which could be deployed empty of troops and only carrying equipment like armoured vehicles and infantry weapons, while the troops themselves are transported to the islands by transport aircraft or troop ships.
Once the Zubrs have been forward deployed and their troop contingent has arrived via more comfortable means and embarked on the Zubrs, the Zubr would be just as an effective beach assault platform as it ever was.
