Type 901: First Supplier of Chinese Aircraft Carriers Admitted to Active Service
SEA
http://www.eastpendulum.com/type-901-1er-ravitailleur-de-porte-avions-chinois-admis-au-service-actif
BY
HENRI KENHMANN
2 SEPTEMBER 2017
Now, Chinese aircraft carriers can be refueled at sea with the first tanker tanker
Type 901 , admitted to active service this Friday, September 1 in Guangzhou.
Designed by Institut 708, one of the design offices of the CSSC group specialized in the design of auxiliary ships, this "general refueling vessel" in the classification of the Chinese navy moves 27,000 tons to light and nearly 50,000 tons full charge, making it the largest tanker ever built for the Chinese Navy.
The building is a priori assigned to the Northern Fleet but the presence of the Commander of the South Theater Command Navy at the ceremony suggests that this first Type 901 could also serve the warships of the South Chinese fleet .
At the GSI Shipyard in Guangzhou, the first Class 901 vessel was admitted to active service.
Assuming until now that the Type 901 is designed to refuel a carrier group around its aircraft carrier, there is no longer any doubt today about this capability since
the official statement of the Chinese army clearly mentions this point, in addition to being able to accompany the fleets on "high seas" missions.
To do this, the Type 901 is equipped with four port side and three starboard transshipment stations, plus a boom station for refueling liquid from the rear of the vessel.
This asymmetrical configuration is justified by the fact that the aircraft carrier is refueled by the starboard side, where it receives its liquid refueling and solid freight.
On the other hand, there are only two heavy load transfer stations on the Type 901, three times less than the US Navy
Supply class , while these two tankers are approximately the same size and same dimension.
This could be explained by the fact that the three Chinese aircraft carriers - one in service, one under arrangement and one in preparation - are smaller than those of the Navy. As a result, solid load requirements such as ammunition would also be less important.
The 965 Hulunhu refueled a LPD Type 071 of 20,000 t in a fiscal year end of May, well before being admitted to active service.
Supply by the boom.
As we pointed out last year in the "
Type 901: tanker-tanker for aircraft carriers " case, the particularity of the Type 901 compared to the tanker tankers of the old generation in service in the Chinese navy, such as
Type 903 ,
Type 905and
Type 908 , resides in its sophisticated logistics support system, enabling it to calculate in real time, via the trans-armed data links, the consumption and also the stock of all kinds of ships under his assignment. The system then automatically proposes optimized fueling plans depending on the missions to be carried out and the conditions at sea.
The photographs taken during the ceremony of admission to the active service of 965
Hulunhu confirm, in reverse, the deterioration of armaments compared to the initial configuration, a scenario that we have also mentioned several times.
In fact, when the project was launched in the second half of 2011, it was planned to equip vessels with the CIWS
H / PJ-11 at a rate of 10,000 strokes per minute and the CIWS
HQ-10 missile , both capable to intercept flying assaulting missiles at a Mach 4 speed.
Now, this first Type 901 is equipped with
H / PJ-13 , another Chinese CIWS "Low End" of the old generation, and the HQ-10 seems to be simply absent, although there is always the location.
The two CIWS H / PJ-13s installed in front of the Hulunhu superstructure (Photo: CNR 国防 时空)
The first Type 901, 965 Hulunhu (Photo: CNR 国防 时空)
