China has started sea trials for its first Type 076 amphibious assault ship, Sichuan (Hull 51), after the vessel departed Hudong Zhonghua Shipyard on the morning of 14 November to begin navigation testing, according to the Chinese Ministry of National Defense.
In its statement, the ministry said that “at about 9 a.m. on November 14, 2025, China’s first new generation amphibious assault ship, the Sichuan (Hull 51), set sail… to carry out its first navigation test mission.”
It added that “this sea trial will mainly test and verify the reliability and stability of the power, electrical and other systems of the amphibious assault ship Sichuan.”
The ministry also stated that construction has progressed on schedule since the ship’s launch in December 2024, noting that “it has successfully completed mooring tests and equipment installation and debugging, and has met the technical conditions for sea trials.”
According to the organisation, Sichuan has a “full load displacement of over 40,000 tonnes” and features a dual island superstructure with a full length flight deck. The release highlighted that the ship incorporates “electromagnetic catapult and arrestor technologies, enabling it to carry fixed wing aircraft, helicopters, and amphibious equipment.”
Open source assessments describe the Type 076 as larger than the Type 075 class and configured to operate helicopters, unmanned combat aircraft and landing craft.
Wait til they cotton on to our amazing strategy of banning the majority from applying for military service, and scrapping ships and planes without replacement. Then the world will really sit up and take notice!
I much prefer the Chinese strategy of having a shed load of money. We can be pretty sure they have a shed load of money because we’re some of the ones giving it to them.
Hard to understand what we think we are doing defence wise ATM.
We may have made fun of Germany but they are now massively outspending us in a very focussed area.
We on the other hand are continuing to spend over a huge spectrum of activity and capability, on a joke budget, with it so thinly spread that we cannot afford the basics.
to be fair. Germany’s approach is a jobs program. esp now that China doesn’t buy as many of their cars, etc…
after Ukraine invasion they spent €100 billion of extra cash, and what did they really get for it?
in reality they have a lot of stuff that lives in the hangars or docks. great for collectors, but useless if not maintained properly or have enough ppl to operate them
i know they expressed grand ambitions of biggest army, blah blah. but saying it and doing it are different things. in fact they wanted to double their size of infantry by 2030, clearly recruitment is not working which is why they are actively discussing conscription
so jury is still out in terms of real military capability
It may be a jobs program but it does give hot manufacturing lines in Europe for many things that would have come from US previously.
Having stockpiles is better than having no stockpiles…..
I’d be delighted if UK has a stockpile of tanks, 155mm platforms, 155mm shells, Typhoon, frigates, submarines…..if if you gave existing UK force levels all the tools for the job with attrition reserve that is a lot of added capability plus having what can be used by reserves called up.
It is a lot quicker training pilots etc than buying and building Typhoon.
I completely agree that having mass and stockpiles are essential but no one in western europe is ready (manpower, assets, production, etc…), plain and simple.
Europe has made significant efforts to produce combined an expected 2 million 155mm shells in 2025. To put that into perspective Ukraine is currently producing 4 million drones a year, which are more accurate so higher hit ratio.
The good thing is that Europe is aware of this alarming situation after years of neglect but there is still most of the work to be done and i hope the efforts don’t fizzle out
Right now the only ones that are ready are currently fighting on the eastern front.
There is a good article on TWZ about this boat, erm ship thingy. Apologies to fisheads and fishead fanboys.
“bite me”.
You forgot that bit ! 😁
🙂 They do it without invite now matey….I just love experts…
Something like these should become our Multi Role Strike Ships. As they will cost more than a RFA standard ship we could build four instead of six to offset costs.
With the RM only interested in raiding and hand held Drones being the Bees Knees judging by various RM promotional videos, why?
Sure, they will need Helicopters, but there’s more chance of a new Ice Age than this government ordering more Merlin for the CHF or more Chinooks beyond the 14 ER ones. So something smaller that can double as a presence Frigate seems more appropriate now?
Any Comany sized Aviation lift from a flat top, HMT will jist say you have the QEs.
I don’t think we’ll get armed LPDs either, we shouldn’t be trying to cram both into a design, but we are because we’re dead broke and won’t get any more escorts.
Hi Daniels, why? Ok a LHD can do several tasks, landing troops, ASW Helicopter carrier, Escort carrier, Drone carrier/Drone Mothership and a heavy humanitarian task ship. Also I am not thinking about using such ships for the RMs but the Army.
Possibly it is time for the UK to rethink its role in NATO. With Poland and Germany rebuilding their armies to a strength that should be able to deal with the Eastern Border possibly the British Army should be designed to operate in Scandinavia and be able to land battalion sized (750 troops + equipment) battlegroups as fighting formations with 10 days supply.
The Royals in my opinion should if we ever do get the T32 should use these vessels. as you know I have often said that the Damen Crossover design concept or the Babcock stretched T31 would be a good starting point. With each able to carry 120 RMs, 16-32 Mk41 VLS cells they could operate alone or as the escort to the LHD.
Hi Ron.
Thanks. On Scandinavia, I too want the Army there, but I envisage 4 Bde taking the arctic role leaving the RM to do their raiding from what few vessels we have left.
And with Sweden and Finland now in NATO, I don’t see the need for a LPH to deliver them, just lots of Point types.
I’d much prefer the RM to have remained 3 Cdo Brigade in that role, but HMG, as usual, compelled the Navy to make “hard choices”
29 RA, A24 RE, who already support the RM and who have Arctic trained elements, can be supports to 4 B.
Don’t know about anyone else but my take away from this is though they don’t mention it I bet the Sichuan has a damn good restaurant onboard.
Now you know I spend all my time warning everyone that the PLAN is heading in a trajectory to to hand the USN it’s arse in about a decade.. this is a very good example of why..
Just look at what this represents..it’s a completely novel ship that has immense potential..The Chinese media are very open about this ship ( they tend to be very secretive about general capabilities and launches..but like to discuss a few national pride type ships) and there are a few good Chinese articles worth a read as it gives some indication of their thinking.. and they see this class of ship as the central piece of flexible offensive quasi carrier groups.. essentially these are designed to be long ranging and attack lanes of supply and communication, by either acting as a sea control drone and aircraft carrier or being able seize key islands or facilities to cut lines of communication and supply.. these ships are essentially designed to go out and attack and disrupt the other sides systems… they have zero need for ships like this in the china sea/Tawain assault, but every need to fight a war with the west or US.
I would say It’s likely that they will aim to build 4 of these, as they had a know plan to build 8 type 75 helicopter landing docks ( 40,000 tons) but stopped at 4 and moved over to the type 76.
Time wise they took about 3 years to build this ship..but have spent a long time for the Chinese messing with its systems ( they have had it knocking around in trials for a few years).
The type 75 was a three year build to commission timeframe with one being launched a year..so from that we could expect a serial production of 4 by the 31/32.. that would essentially means the PLAN match the USN in large amphibious flat tops by the early 2030s.
In contrast….From GB News:The Royal Navy made nearly half a billion pounds in losses over the decommissioning of two once proud warships, HMS Albion and HMS Bulwark.
Data from the Ministry of Defence’s Annual Report and Accounts show that British taxpayers picked up the staggering £428million retirment bill on the pair of vessels. Both were Albion-class Landing Platform Docks and served as flagships before they were removed from service in November 2024. The decision on their decommissioning, part of Labour’s £500million defence cuts, came despite the ships undergoing extensive and expensive refurbishment in Plymouth.Former defence procurement minister Maria Eagle disclosed that £132.7million had been invested in refurbishing the two vessels from 2010 onwards. This is understood not to include HMS Bulwark’s refit programme, scheduled to run from 2022 to 2025, carrying an estimated price tag of £72.1million. The timeline of the works meant that extensive funds were being ploughed into ships that were not intended to return to active service.
Now, the MoD accounts place the ships in the “constructive losses” section of its accounts, noting the daunting £428million loss in asset value.This staggering figure is listed as a book value, meaning how much an individual asset is worth when appearing in a balance sheet.
A book value shows the initial cost of acquiring the asset, which is then adjusted over time depending on depreciation, amortisation, among other factors.
Looking ahead, the future of the ships appears to have been decided with the signing of an agreement with Brazil aboard HMS Mersey at the Defence & Security Equipment International conference in September.
Brazil is understood to be paying just £20million for both ships, despite the MoD spending 10 times this on upkeep to the ships in the last 15 years.
Standard.
I saw the list on Twitter, Graham.
Long long list of “retirements” and project cancellations, mamy including things like Barrack refurbs, where money has been spent and thus lost.
What are Starmer and Healey saying again? War footing?
While spending little or no new money and the cuts continue as HMG have zero long term plan but react in year in need of cost savings.
Otherwise, we’d not be losing money like this.
The only plan HMG seem to have is to react year on year to cut costs.
Yes it’s utterly bonkers really.. I Could actually understand Getting rid of HMS Albion, she is at the point she needs a refit and will be heading of for 7 years of essentially rotting away with no real likleyhood of her ever being reactive before being replaces by an MRSS. But HMS Bulwark has just gone through and expensive refit ( 75million) and is ready to go for another 6-7 years…she could have been the ready ( 3 months notice ) amphibious vessel until MRSS takes over.
The simple fact is the RN has decided that as much as it can it wants to run the two carriers concurrently..mainly I suspected to protect them from treasury cuts. This meant it had no crew for Bulwark and instead of being sensible and crewing her for 3 months notice and to move to opperational readiness when one of the carriers is out of commission on a long refit.. they just cashed in a short term in year saving of a few million pounds that has infact cost us many hundreds of millions of amphibious capability.. when infact just Albion would have been a sensible and reasonable cut.
Personally I also have a bit of an issue with supplying nations in South America that are less than friendly neutrals with strategic enablers.. I strongly believe that in a 10-22 year timeframe the Uk is going to have to protect the BAT and south Atlantic territories from a powerblock that wishes to sever the Uks access to its the British Antarctic territories and south Atlantic territories.. because the Antarctic is the last untapped resource frontier.. with no population and we have solid historic claim as well as the infrastructure to exploit and protect.. and the South America nations want us gone for that reason.
Taiwan better be ready, because not sure US will be there for them.
Politically Trump waivers
Militarily/logistics. very hard for US without actual bases on Taiwan, because China can get there a lot quicker.
If this ever happens, I hope Europe remembers US disgraceful handling of Ukraine
Yes because come any conflict in the mode 2030s it will probably be this ship and its sisters that will be in the eastern and western Indian Ocean trying to cut the communication and supply lines between Europe and East Asian and the Middle East if Europe decided to support any indo pacific conflict. It’s gives a realistic idea of what an Elizabeth CBG or a French lead carrier battlegroup would be contending with in the Indian Ocean.
Which would be a battle group of a type type 55 destroyer, 2 type 52Ds, 2 type 54B frigates a type 94 SSSn a type 76 light carrier/amphib and a type 75 helicopter landing dock… that’s on the assumption china uses all its pure carrier groups in the mid pacific beyond the first island chain…which would make sense as it will want to keep the US carrier battle groups separated and chasing around the second and third island chain..
Surely this is a waste of a ship…
HYpersonics…
Anti ship missiles…
Submarines…
Drone Swarms
AI
Did I miss anything?
All the usual guff spouted whenever a Western Navy brings a new ship into service
Holy moly, haven’t seen you round here in a while.