PLAN Fleet supply vessels

Blitzo said:

Even then, I think the tweet is a bit odd as it seems to suggest that hospital ships (or rather medical ships) need to be a certain size to qualify as such, and that if they're smaller then they would somehow be more.... Multirole and less focused on the primary medical mission?
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I am not suggesting that "hospital ship" requires a certain size or dedication to medical capabilities. My point is rather that the term itself is just a catch all for a wide variety of medical support capability and as such not a lot better than eg "cargo ship".

For the same reason I regularly qualify as to what the US ships are really designed to do vs eg Peace Ark. But Twitter type limits and all.

PS: "Medical support ship" I guess in that regard is a far better term.

para80 said:

I am not suggesting that "hospital ship" requires a certain size or dedication to medical capabilities. My point is rather that the term itself is just a catch all for a wide variety of medical support capability and as such not a lot better than eg "cargo ship".

For the same reason I regularly qualify as to what the US ships are really designed to do vs eg Peace Ark. But Twitter type limits and all.

PS: "Medical support ship" I guess in that regard is a far better term.

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I can kind of understand the term hospital ship might be vague in some circumstances, but in this specific case I don't see how the Type 919s can be seen as something different to Peace Ark in role.
They're essentially just smaller Peace Ark ships by role and mission outfit, and I don't think using the term "hospital ship" to describe them is inaccurate.

At the very least, I don't see why the Type 919s would be viewed as having a logistics or supply mission, given for a 4000t ship having 100 medical beds, three theaters, a CT scanner and 3 subspecs would use up all of the room pretty fast.

The munitions magazine of a Type 903 replenishment ship. A roof-mounted mobile crane takes the munitions off the storage racks and put them onto carts to be taken above deck for transfer to another ship.

Close-up images of a Type 903 replenishment ship.

Possibly the ship crest for Type 901 Hulunhu. I'm not sure why the hull number (965) isn't indicated on the crest.

by78 said:

Possibly the ship crest for Type 901 Hulunhu. I'm not sure why the hull number (965) isn't indicated on the crest.

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965 was renumbered as 901 (somewhat confusingly IMO), and 967 has also been renumbered as 905.

para80 said:

965 was renumbered as 901 (somewhat confusingly IMO), and 967 has also been renumbered as 905.View attachment 117839

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Oh, I didn't know that. Thank you!

Does that mean they'll use 965 and 967 for new supply ships?

luosifen said:

Does that mean they'll use 965 and 967 for new supply ships?

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I'm not sure but its worth noting the renumbering affected both Type 901 and Type 903 AORs, and only hulls carrying high 9xx hull numbers, moving them to lower 9xx designations. For that reason there is also a Type 903 AOR now actually carrying hull number 903, formerly 968 (who says PLA hasnt got a sense of humor).

My current notion is this is a rearrangement aimed at keeping higher 9xx numbers for amphibious hulls (both the Type 071 and 072A use those).