China launches new warship with drone warfare capabilities

The Chinese navy has launched an amphibious assault ship that integrates battleships and unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) and doubles as a drone carrier, a Chinese navy official said. China’s newly launched Type 076 amphibious assault ship will play a key role in improving its unmanned combat capabilities, the Navy commander said in his first official acknowledgment of the ship’s widely speculated role as an unmanned aircraft carrier. said.

The Hong Kong-based South China Morning Post reported that People’s Liberation Army (PLA) Navy Commander Chi Jianjun said in an interview aired by state broadcaster CCTV on Sunday that unmanned systems and unmanned aircraft systems Efforts to incorporate this into military training are already underway across the fleet, he said. Monday.

Qi is the captain of the People’s Liberation Army’s large destroyer, the domestically built Type 055 stealth guided missile destroyer Nanchang.

The warship celebrated its fifth anniversary on Sunday.

In comments highlighting the growing role of drones and attack robots on the battlefield, Qi said: “It’s not just our destroyers; it’s aircraft carriers, the newly launched Type 076, the early Type 075 (amphibious assault ships), and other ships are and will be.” This is an undeniable trend. ”

China currently operates two aircraft carriers. One is the Liaoning, a refurbished Soviet-era warship that was commissioned in 2012, and the other is the second domestic aircraft carrier, the Shandong, which was commissioned in 2019. There are 80,000 evacuees and it is currently being tested.