China Defense Blog

Wednesday, July 08, 2015

Photos of the day: Another day at the beach: 127th Amphibous Mechanized Infantry Regiment, 124th Amphibious Mechanized Infantry Division, Guangzhou Military Region.

Those PR photos might be dramatic but small scale drill such as this is rather common, no longer considered newsworthy. That is the way it should be.

Monday, July 06, 2015

PLAAF orbat of the day: PLAAF 457th hospital airborne medical unit.

457th hospital airborne medical unit is organic to the National Defense Mobilization Commission, State Council of the People's Republic of China, the highest echo of the Chinese government. While this one-of-a-kind is geared for S&R MOOTW operations, it can insert itself into any battlefield on a short notice.

Photos of the day: Type66 152 mm towed howitze in direct fire.

Pressing towed howitzer into direct fire role is seldom seen in today's "smart munition" world, but for the PLA, it is a role all gunners must be trained for.

Saturday, July 04, 2015

Photos of the day: On board PLAN's Mobile Landing Platform (MLP) 868

Since PLAN's Yuzhao class LPD is not large enough to house Zubr LCAC, it makes sense for the PLAN to utilize the MLP to launch those "European bison".

Sunday, May 24, 2015

Coming soon, a Chinese Mobile Landing Platform (MLP).

This Chinese Mobile Landing Platform (MLP) H1138 is smaller than its USN counterpart; weighting in about 50,000 tons, USNS Montford Point in comparison weighting in about 34,500 tons. This small size could suggest a limited role to only supporting float-on/float-off amphibious operations and not for long range force deployment and resupply. USN’s MLP, on the other hand, is designed with those mission profiles in mind: it’s MLP1 and MLP2 provision 25,000 square feet of vehicle and equipment stowage space and 380,000 gallons of fuel storage in addition to the support of 3 LCAC lanes.

Frankly speaking, until the PLAN processes additional LCACs, it is difficult to see the need for a bigger MLP.