Could this be the first photos of Type 056 light corvette under construction?

We will know soon enough.

MSA 74 to the left, Type 054A number 15 (17th overall) at the right,  Type056 in the middle?

  Guangzhou's Huangpu Shipyard

Photos taken from Shanghai 

Thursday, December 02, 2010

Type 056 Light Corvette.

A model of the new Type 056 Light Corvette was presented to Hong Kong University by the deputy commander of the PLA Hong Kong Garrison, Major General Wang Junli (here) on November 4th 2010. Since then, it was speculated that this 1500 ton corvette could be the possible replacement of the Jianghu class workhorse. This could be credible since the two leading Chinese naval affairs magazines covered the Type056 in their current issues.

Chinese shipyards are capable of building such a corvette -- it bears a resemblance to the Thai Navy's Pattani-class OPV which China exported in 2006. The Type 056 would up-gun the Thai OPV with four YJ-3/C803 ASM and a FL-3000N RAM launcher aft.

In the meanwhile, old Jianghu soldiers on.

Thail Navy's Pattani-class OPV, build in Shanghai in 2006