Re: Type 071 LPD
The necessity for good point defence on amphibious assets can be illustrated by the Brit's experiences in the Falklands. The same rocky hills around the landing zone that protected the ships from artillery and anti-ship missiles also assisted the Argentine jets.
The RN's lack of effective point air defences was only matched by the Argentine's lack of suitible bombs (or more particularly fuses). Things have moved on, the PLAN/PLA has superior shoulder launched Ms to the RN in the Falklands, but then the ROCAF has flares and countermeasures, and Maverick missiles. At any rate the Falklands shows that in a shooting war where a REAL enemy typically is less risk adverse than in your training scenarios, you can't rely on disembarked ground based air-defences for total coverage and you can't expect effective air defence simply by bolting a few HMG mounts onto the ship's railings or stationing a guy with a shoulder launched SAM next to the bridge.
For this reason a multi-layered air defence is needed, with some form of short range SAM (HQ-7 or LY-10) forming the outer defence, and Type-730s and maybe automated QW-4 launchers providing the last ditch defence. And going by previous PLAN larger amphibious warships, I'd expect to see a 100mm gun for artillery support and/or a SMERCH MRLS as well.
Jeff, I think that all the actual Type-071 is quite different in detail from the CGIs that you posted - I'm going to draw what I mean.
