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Chinese Navy Using Commercial Car Ferries to Launch Amphibious Landing Craft
U.S. Naval Institute ^ | July 26, 2021 | Courtney Mabeus

Posted on 07/27/2021 10:14:58 AM PDT by Retain Mike

When a Chinese ferry joined the People’s Liberation Army Navy for an amphibious landing exercise in July 2020, observers noticed something different.

It’s not unusual for Chinese merchant vessels to participate in the PLA’s operations and Bang Chui Dao, a 15,560-ton roll-on roll-off ferry, has been used before to support military transportation exercises. But where such ships might have been limited to accessing port terminals before, the ferry’s stern ramp had been converted to enable it to launch and recover a 26-ton ZTD-05, an amphibious armored vehicle used by the Chinese military, according to a brief published by The Jamestown Foundation earlier this month.

“The pictures tell 1,000 words,” said Thomas Shugart, a retired Navy captain and fellow in the defense program at the Center for a New American Security. “And it seems like we know that they, in fairly calm seas, they did develop and test, it appears successfully, a ramp that gave them the capability to turn one of their civilian roll-on, roll-off carriers into a delivery vessel for amphibious assault vehicles.”

(Excerpt) Read more at news.usni.org ...


TOPICS: Military/Veterans
KEYWORDS: amphibious; chinese; navy; taiwan
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I am sure they will fit any number of their ferries with this capability.

They can also load the vehicles for assault operations at sea. Even if the ferries do not have a device to turn them around, they can back them up the ramp. The Marines configured 41 LVT-P5's for mine clearance and installed a huge blade on the front. At Okinawa our LST trained with the drivers as they backed the LVT's from the ocean onto the ship.

1 posted on 07/27/2021 10:14:58 AM PDT by Retain Mike
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To: KC_Lion

Pei-Ping.


2 posted on 07/27/2021 10:17:51 AM PDT by Army Air Corps (Four Fried Chickens and a Coke)
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To: Retain Mike
Bang Chui Dao, a 15,560-ton roll-on roll-off ferry

Purchased with US citizens' money thanks to everyone buying china crap for the past few decades

3 posted on 07/27/2021 10:22:16 AM PDT by Pollard
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To: Retain Mike

Good. Easier to sink!


4 posted on 07/27/2021 10:22:17 AM PDT by The MAGA-Deplorian (Democrats are lawless because Republicans are ball-less!!)
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To: Retain Mike

As I have posted a ridiculous number of times, China would lose a massive number of sea going vessels and aircraft in their attempt on Taiwan. The Taiwanese have untold numbers of anti-ship and anti-air missiles, and the final CCP victory would give “Pyrrhic” a whole new meaning.

The successful attempt would kill so many Chinese men that riots would occur all over China.


5 posted on 07/27/2021 10:23:13 AM PDT by wbarmy (I chose to be a sheepdog once I saw what happens to the sheep.)
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To: wbarmy
"The successful attempt would kill so many Chinese men...
For the ghouls that run China, that might be a feature, not a bug. For 25-54 age cohort, there are 1.07-males for every one female. For the 15-24 age cohort, it's even more lopsided with 1.17-males for every female.

They have a surplus of men. They could likely loose 10M or more men invading Taiwan and there would still be more men than women in the 15-54 cohort. Just sayin'.

6 posted on 07/27/2021 10:32:22 AM PDT by ScubaDiver (Reddit refugee.)
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To: wbarmy

“The successful attempt would kill so many Chinese men that riots would occur all over China.”

A direct result of China’s one child policy. Lose a single male, a family loses the only heir. Fecal matter will hit the fan.


7 posted on 07/27/2021 10:33:58 AM PDT by BBQToadRibs2
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To: Retain Mike

China’s snowflake soldiers practice landing on wide flat sandy beaches. Taiwan’s beaches are muddy marshes. And have pipes to spread fuel to ignite..


8 posted on 07/27/2021 10:37:25 AM PDT by Seruzawa (The political Left is the Garden of Eden of Incompetence - Marx the Smarter (Groucho))
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To: Retain Mike

I wonder how missile hits it can take. Maybe one or two before it’s dead in the water.

Probably pretty fragile, but after first use it’s running as essentially another ship for free. Hard to beat those kinds of economy of scale if you don’t care all that much about losing some units.


9 posted on 07/27/2021 10:38:29 AM PDT by glorgau
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To: glorgau

Also, this looks like a civilian ship. That means they’d probably be trying to slip this in for a first wave “suplize!” attack. After that any civilian ship in the entire region would vamoose because they’d be presumed guilty.


10 posted on 07/27/2021 10:43:14 AM PDT by glorgau
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To: Retain Mike

when you see new antiair defenses around their precious 3 gorges damn, you’ll know the time is near...


11 posted on 07/27/2021 10:44:01 AM PDT by Chode (there is no fall back position, there's no rally point, there is no LZ... we're on our own. P144:1)
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To: glorgau

Looks like John Milius almost had it right. In his movie, ‘Red Dawn,’ the Chinese paratroopers were delivered in transport planes disguised as civilian airlines.


12 posted on 07/27/2021 10:51:07 AM PDT by ScubaDiver (Reddit refugee.)
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To: glorgau
I wonder how missile hits it can take. Maybe one or two before it’s dead in the water.

Missiles? Why waste expensive ordnance on thin skinned ferry boats? Zunis with HE. In the hull anywhere near the waterline and out the bottom. Used to shoot those puppies in the desert [smudge pot targets - zero dark thirty] Very accurate.

13 posted on 07/27/2021 10:54:20 AM PDT by Bedford Forrest (Roger, Contact, Judy, Out. Fox One. Splash one.)
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To: ScubaDiver

They have a surplus of men. They could likely loose 10M or more men invading Taiwan and there would still be more men than women in the 15-54 cohort

Actually the surplus is a cultural thing, as males are expected to provide for their families and when they marry their wife’s family grand parents etc. There is no western type welfare in China.

Kill enough of them in a war and the families will revolt - the CCP knows that and would have to kill even more of its citizens to suppress the revolt, acerbating the entire situation.

Then there is the problem of the ‘left over women’ - women who were not married off in their 20s. They are undesirable - no matter their looks. No man would risk his family’s stern disapproval by taking one as a bride. Women over 30 are not marriageable in China.


14 posted on 07/27/2021 11:06:58 AM PDT by PIF (They came for me and mine ... now its your turn)
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To: PIF

I had never heard of the cultural thing about “left over women” and will look that up. Thank you.


15 posted on 07/27/2021 11:17:15 AM PDT by wbarmy (I chose to be a sheepdog once I saw what happens to the sheep.)
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To: glorgau; wbarmy; The MAGA-Deplorian
When my type of ship, the LST, was originally built the idea was that it would be good for one assault landing and anything after that was gravy. That is the reason the permanent Navy memorial in DC commemorates its nick name of Large Slow Target.

I remember the Chinese had no trouble coming up with 500,000 "volunteers" for Korea.

My best guess though is that developing an amphibious warfare capability serves as a method of political intimidation.

16 posted on 07/27/2021 11:21:11 AM PDT by Retain Mike ( Sat Cong)
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To: Retain Mike

Nothing feels as unnatural as being inside an armored vehicle and rolling down a ramp knowing it ends over 150 feet of water. It just feels wrong...


17 posted on 07/27/2021 11:45:06 AM PDT by DesertRhino (A coup government may not claim the protection of the same constitution it overthrew. )
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To: wbarmy

They will land unopposed. Just watch, they will wait for the right political opportunity, get the right leader installed in Taiwan (as they did in America and Hong Kong) and then land as peacekeepers, or relief after a natural disaster, etc.

They will play this in a way that Taiwan doesn’t resist after President Kamala Harris tells Taiwan they are on their own.


18 posted on 07/27/2021 11:49:14 AM PDT by DesertRhino (A coup government may not claim the protection of the same constitution it overthrew. )
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To: PIF

“Kill enough of them in a war and the families will revolt - the CCP knows that “

No they won’t. This communist Chinese government has murdered 60-100 million people depending on the source. The real number is probably impossible to know.

Nobody revolted.


19 posted on 07/27/2021 11:53:21 AM PDT by DesertRhino (A coup government may not claim the protection of the same constitution it overthrew. )
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To: DesertRhino

I agree, if there is a takeover, it will be peaceful, the deaths would be too much for even China to handle.

Somehow, the Taiwanese leadership will be made an offer they cannot refuse, leave the island, and turn the keys over to Xi.


20 posted on 07/27/2021 11:57:19 AM PDT by wbarmy (I chose to be a sheepdog once I saw what happens to the sheep.)
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