MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

Chinese Navy launches 10,000-tonne destroyer

The new Type 055 ship is comparable in size to the latest destroyers fielded in Asian waters by the United States, Japan and South Korea

China's Navy Wednesday launched a new 10,000-tonne domestically designed and produced destroyer. The vessel, of the Type 055 class, is the first of a new generation of destroyers equipped with new air defense, anti-missile, anti-ship and anti-submarine weapons, and it is regarded as a challenge to naval rivals in Asia. The ship entered the water following a ceremony at Shanghai's Jiangnan Shipyard.

 “It is the symbol of the navy to achieve strategic transformation development,” the People's Liberation Army Navy website said with reference to the ship which can carry up to 100 long-range missiles.

The new ship is comparable in size to the latest destroyers fielded in Asian waters by the United States, Japan and South Korea, according to naval analysts. It has also raised concerns within the Indian Navy, given that the Chinese destroyer is superior to any ship yet completed by them. “The colossal Type 055 is considerably larger and more powerful than India's latest ... destroyers which have still not been commissioned,” a report on NDTV said. The new Indian destroyers will be at least 2,000 tons lighter than the Chinese ship and will carry fewer than half the missiles of the Chinese unit.

The Type 055 guided-missile destroyer carries medium-long-range and medium-short range air-defense missiles, which can significantly improve its overall air defense capability. It also has a strong anti-submarine capability, so it is much more able to protect aircraft carrier battle group than the Type-052D destroyers currently in service which carry only 64 missiles.

The new warship will have more than 100 vertical launch tubes for missiles with the ability to strike targets 1,000 to 2,000 kilometers away, it was reported. The Type 055 also features stealth characteristics, including a small radar cross section and low noise, infrared and electromagnetic radiation.
The Type 055 appears akin to the US Navy's Arleigh Burke-class destroyers, which debuted in the 1980s and carry 96 missiles each, military analyst Kyle Mizokami wrote last year in Popular Mechanics.

The ship will undergo “equipment debugging” as it prepares to join the fleet, Chinese government sources said, without releasing a target date.