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Chinese Navy (PLAN) Commissions 1st Type 052D DestroyerDDG-172, Kunming March 21, 2014 The Chinese Navy commissioned the first of class, Type 052D, destroyer, DDG-172, Kunming, on March 21, 2014. This is a new class of destroyer that is a significant upgrade over the Type 052C, Lanzhou Class, destroyers that the Chinese have finished building six of. The Lanzho Class was Chinas first true multi-rile, wide area defense destroyer employing a sophisticated battle management system, Phased Array Radars, and Vertical Launch missile systems. That earlier class had 48 cells for surface to air missile to defend a large group ships...

Chinese Navy (PLAN) 2014 Growth and Modernization Update (The Rising Sea Dragon in Asia 2014 Update) 2013 was another very busy and very significant year for the People's Liberation Army Navy (PLAN), or simply the Navy of the People's Republic of China. Again it cannot emphasized enough how important the building program, the training activities, and the deployments that have all gone on in this last year are to the to the future of the PLAN and its ability to project power, defend and assert its influence, and, as a blue water fleet, to carry that influence across the seven...