Posted on 08/08/2009 8:27:15 AM PDT by sukhoi-30mki
Ukraine military hovercraft to equip Chinese navy
Posted : Fri, 07 Aug 2009 14:17:37 GMT
Kiev - China's navy is to purchase four Ukrainian military hovercraft in a 315-million-dollar deal potentially shifting the South China Sea naval balance, the Interfax news agency reported. A shipbuilding firm in Ukraine's Black Sea port Feodosia will construct two Zubr (translation - Bison) class craft, and a second pair of vessels will be built in China under the supervision of Ukrainian technicians.
A Ukrainian government publication listing state contracts confirmed the order without giving its value. Officials at the Morye shipyard in Feodosia declined comment.
The Zubr hovercraft is designed to carry three tanks, 10 armoured personnel carriers, or as many as 500 troops at speeds exceeding 63 knots.
The vessel can due to its larger size operate in rougher seas than smaller hovercraft.
The Russian, Ukrainian, and Greek navies currently operate the Zubr, with a total ten hovercraft produced since 1988.
China's navy currently lacks heavy capacity hovercraft of the Zubr type. The most modern Chinese naval hovercraft in operation, the Jingsah II, has a maximum capacity of 70 troops.
The Zubr hovercraft's capacity to deliver substantial combat forces by water at speeds doubling conventional landing ships would, once in Chinese inventory, complicate defence planning for South China Sea nations particularly Taiwan, according to the report.
Feodosia's Morye shipyard as co-developer of the Zubr hovercraft with St. Peterburg's Almaz naval design bureau technically is banned from selling Zubr's military technologies to a third party, without Almaz management agreement.
China in 2006 was in talks with Almaz on the purchase of six Zubr hovercraft without result.
Management at Ukraine's Morye shipyard, actual production of site of all Zubr-class hovercraft, began talks with Chinese naval representatives in 2008, a naval source told Interfax.
Man that sucker has got a signature!
Yep.
They’ve only built 10 since ‘88?
They are just pursuing that dream. Always.
But how much does an Exocet missile cost these days? As I recall those things blow craft up in the water real good.
A little radar and a few of those go a long way.
China in 2006 was in talks with Almaz on the purchase of six Zubr hovercraft without result.
This has been talked about for years...but nothing has come of it.
Now with the PLAN developed their own LCAC-like craft for their own San Antonio-like LPD, I doubt anything will come of it.
And now that they have the genuine article, they will reverse engineer the beast and have slave labor built 10,000 of them.
Look at the picture. The hovermachine carries a Dalek on each beam.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.