By: Christopher P. Cavas
ABU DHABI, United Arab Emirates – Navies have flirted with exotic hull forms for decades, and the US Navy is producing Independence-class littoral combat ships with a wave-piercing trimaran hull form. Now the Chinese Navy seems to be preparing a trimaran design that could enter production as a frigate for the People’s Liberation Army Navy (PLAN) and for export.
“We are in the development and design phase of the project,” said You Yue, China Shipbuilding Trading Company’s deputy director for business development for Western Asia and Africa. “The plan form is fixed but many details remain,” he said.
The plan form – the trimaran hull – allows the frigate to have a far greater beam than the more conventional monohull configuration. You also noted the ship will feature hull and superstructure shaping to reduce its radar signature.
A model displayed this week at the IDEX show here in Abu Dhabi combined, You said, many features which could be included in the PLAN’s version or in an export variant and did not necessarily depict a ship now under construction. Final decisions on the power plant, armament, sensor and combat system have yet to be made, he cautioned.
Data displayed with the model gave a displacement of about 2,450 tons; dimensions of 142 meters in length, 32 meters in beam and a draft of 6.2 meters. The power plant was given as a “marine electric propulsion system” with a speed of 25 knots and endurance of 5,000 nautical miles at 16 knots and 30 days.
Those figures could change for a production ship, You said, with a speed probably somewhere above 30 knots. He said an all-MTU diesel propulsion plant was being considered, driving three waterjets.
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