COLIN CLARK
China has produced what experts say could be a small carrier dedicated to drones at the shipyard of Jiangsu Dayang Marine, a development that, if confirmed, would demonstrate what one PRC military analyst called the Chinese military’s “real ability to be flexible and innovative.”
The ship was revealed this week in a report by Naval News based on analysis by John Michael Dahm, a senior fellow at the Mitchell Institute for Aerospace Studies and a former US Navy intelligence officer. It is a catamaran, hardly a conventional choice for any kind of aircraft carrier, and Dahm conceded in an email to Breaking Defense that until the ship “is complete and operational, we probably won’t know its true purpose.”
But he also said that if it is a drone carrier — as his analysis concludes — the vessel “will allow the PLA Navy Blue Force to launch and recover fixed-wing drones at sea instead of the helicopter drones we’ve seen launched from ships thus far. The ship may contribute to test and evaluation of fixed-wing drone operations. This may support the eventual integration of drones onboard China’s new Type 075 Yushen-class amphibious assault ship.”
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