The Chinese People’s Liberation Army Navy (PLAN) has declared that the Type 052D Luyang III-class destroyer Guiyang (pennant number 119) and the Type 054A Jiangkai II-class frigate Zaozhuang (pennant number 542) were officially declared ready for combat earlier this year by the Chinese People’s Liberation Army Navy (PLAN).
The two surface combatants, both of which entered service with the PLAN’s North Sea Fleet in February 2019, underwent a three-day “all-subject training examination” in the first week of March, after which they were declared combat ready. Chinese state-owned media underlined that it took less than a year from commissioning to achieve full combat readiness status for the two warships.
The Guiyang is the eighth of the Type 052D guided missile destroyers, which are alternatively constructed at a shipyard in Dalian in northeast China or at the Jiangnan shipyard, located on Changxing Island in Shanghai. The first-of-class Kunming was launched in August 2012 and commissioned into the PLAN in March 2014. Each Type 052D displaces 7,000 tons and is 157 meters in length. The destroyers are multipurpose surface combatants and can be deployed for a variety of tasks including anti-air, anti-surface, and anti-submarine warfare operations.
The PLAN is estimated to deploy up to 23 052Ds in the near future.
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