Recent images from Chinese social media show a standard commercial cargo vessel refitted with sensors, defensive weapons and containerised launchers.
The conversion looks experimental, yet it suggests a pathway for turning ordinary merchant tonnage into armed auxiliaries.
Instead of cargo, the deck is stacked with containers that act as mounting platforms. Some support radar arrays or other sensor enclosures near the bridge. The layout looks improvised but deliberate, as if intended to give the ship more situational awareness than a simple missile barge. The systems visible are consistent with air search and guidance tasks, although their level of integration is unclear.
A gun-based close-in weapon system is positioned near the bow with decoy launchers nearby. These installations indicate an expectation that the vessel could be targeted and would need some measure of last-ditch protection. Most striking is the field of containerised launch modules arranged across the deck. Each container appears to house multiple tubes, creating a significant battery in aggregate. Comparable warships rely on purpose-built vertical launch systems, so the idea of approximating that capacity with commercial fittings is strategically unsettling. Exactly what munitions these containers could hold is unknown.
The overall configuration implies a role beyond simply ferrying weapons to a shore installation. The addition of sensors points towards a picket or screening function on the edge of a defended area, offering extra coverage or extra launch capacity without committing a major combatant. The broader takeaway here is that China continues to explore how its massive commercial fleet could augment naval power in a crisis.
Look Trump, theres sanctioned oil on that ship!!
Looks impressive, but no ASW(?), so a subs dream.
😆
Thing is if you build those VLS in between a container stack and have the radar on erector hydraulics also in the middle of the stack then it looks like a cargo ship.
If from the top you put blow off panels in place over the VLS how do you know what it is from overflight?
Like China could care once they have 50 or more of them. They apply the same logic as Ivan, everything and everyone is expendable because there are loads more in the box.
And here we are barely arming the RN.
True, though from what I have just read the early US naval cutter inspired frigates are going to be armed little better than the actual cutters, built for but not with any real weaponry. Now where have I heard that before.
In reality this is probably are far more useful development than Trumps golden fleet of battleships. Potentially stealth in plain sight if further developed, which I would have doubted had it not been for the abilities of Russia and indeed others rogue shadow fleet to operate without significant eyes on them, even in the Baltic it seems. But that’s probably not the prime function of this development, potentially it gives a massive uptick in strike and defensive capabilities that can be generated in immense numbers quickly. Unlike a USS Defiant they would not as such be a significant loss either and just distinguishing them as targets could be a nightmare. Of course they are anything but aesthetic so it’s not an idea that the US might consider even on its captured tankers no doubt though to my squinting objective eye it has all the aesthetics of a horizontal Trump Tower… just with red rust rather than gold tackiness.
I suspect Trumps ‘battleship’ design started out as a large destroyer to replace the Ticonderoga class cruisers that are nearing retirement. The two 5” guns were probably added because Trump wanted more guns and to placate him over the railgun (which he’d probably otherwise reject in the same way he hates EMALS). Wonder whether they’ll resume work on their own railgun or simply buy the Japanese one.
I suspect the USN will delay construction until after Trump is prised from the White House.
Sensors are probably going to have less than ideal positioning due to the fact that they weren’t considered in the design, particularly with regards to blind spots due to the superstructure. But if used as an arsenal ship, it could receiving targeting data from a warship. Of course the Chinese government might stipulate that future commercial builds might have to follow specific design rules that make sensor-fits easier.
TWZ calculated around 60 launch tubes which gives it 2/3rds of an Arleigh Burke for a fraction of the cost.
It’s one way to quickly add mass to fleet, given warships take years to build. Wonder how many VLS containers could be loaded onto a Point Class.
I’m sure Felixstowe and Rotterdam will look forward to welcoming the Chinese navy on a regular basis 🤔
This looks “wrong”. Open lifeboats? Weird location of dome housing, presumably, electronics, so that it is blanked by the superstructure. No sign of consideration having been given to survivability. And an elderly bulk carrier, which is what this must have been, has an elderly bulk carrier’s one compartment watertight integrity with no counter-flooding, an elderly bulk carrier’s fire-fighting ability and an elderly bulk carrier’s speed of fourteen knots in a moderate sea state.
This is a joke.
It isn’t a joke when it has crept up, electronically dark with its cargo ship AIS on, on somewhere and loosed off its full VLS load and flattened it.
The fact it has achieved its aim is all that matters and then gets sunk isn’t a factor at all.
If the load-out could be better disguised with the VLS tubes between container stacks then it would be very stealthy and had to distinguish particularly if the radar and comms could be hydraulically erected from within the container stack.
At Donald Trump’s expense, I think. Looking at the plans for Legend frigates and ‘golden’ battle cruisers I’d say the Chinese have got the US rattled.
Does that mean open season on Chinese cargo ships? since now they need to be considered naval warships. you can’t have it both ways.
Previously discussed here on ukdj that loading an arsenal ship with expensive missiles is putting a lot of eggs in one basket. Is this the china message that merchant shipping is to be weaponised during’ peacetime’ ? More obvious threat is drone release from these ships in a western waters / port.