Gabriel Honrada
China appears to be experimenting with missile-armed merchant ships, probing whether commercial hulls packed with concealed firepower can deliver surprise salvos and tilt the naval balance in a Taiwan or US-China clash. This month, multiple media sources reported that China appears to be testing the rapid militarization of commercial cargo ships as part of a broader effort to expand naval firepower at lower cost and with greater ambiguity, according to satellite imagery.
Images circulating online show a Chinese container vessel at a Shanghai shipyard – the Zhongda 79 – a 97-meter container ship equipped with containerized vertical launch missile cells with a 60-round capacity, phased-array radars, close-in weapon systems (CIWS), and electronic countermeasures, suggesting a modular “arsenal ship” concept that could quickly convert civilian hulls into combat platforms. The Zhongda 79 may be an experimental prototype designed to verify containerized weapon systems that can be rapidly installed and removed, in line with China’s military-civil fusion (MCF) strategy.
No comments:
Post a Comment