Type 022 missile boat
Drawing of the type of ship 2208
Missiles, optional:
- 2 × 4 C -803 anti-ship missiles
- Ground - to-ground missiles
The Houbei class is the latest class of missile fast patrol boats of the Chinese People's Navy and belongs to the military used catamarans. As a successor to the Type -021 class, it is also referred to as Type -022.
- 4.1 Notes and references
Construction
Catamarans Houbei the class based on the judgment of observers on a concept of the Australian company AMD Marine Consulting. This had allowed until 2000 to build a Chinese partner shipyard in Guangzhou some civilian catamarans.
After only four boats Houbei class were built, experts first believed in a series of experiments, however, soon began it more shipyards their production to type 022 boats switch so that currently up to 83 ships of the class could be completed.
The design of the ships appears to have been developed in consideration of stealth technology, so that the radar cross section is probably smaller than previous classes. Furthermore, the ships are highly automated, so that compared to vessels with similar tasks, the number of required crew members could be reduced to only twelve men.
The construction is based on prefabricated parts made of aluminum compounds that were welded using modern methods.
The unit costs are expected to amount to only about 15 million U.S. dollars.
Arming
The main armament of the ships consists of anti-ship missiles that can be launched from two start boxes at the rear. Number and type of missiles, however, are unknown. The spacious design of the boxes allows experts believe the use of up to eight C -803 ( YJ -83) or a large number of unguided artillery rockets, such as the WS-1, against land targets.
The defensive armament consists of a short-range defense system with a fully automatic Chinese variant of the Russian 30 -mm Gatling gun KBP AO -18 (similar to the older AK- 630) with a range of up to 4 km, and probably a system of up to eight Täuschkörperwerfern.
Application profile
The Houbei class seems to be particularly suitable neither for tasks of patrol boats for reconnaissance missions. The lack of landing facilities for helicopters and the difficulty of launching a boat for a possible boarding team restrict the application possibilities of the class strong. Their high speed, heavy missile armament and the apparently advanced communication systems are suitable according to experts, only for raid -like attacks at sea or possibly even on land targets, which were previously discovered by other forces.
Access denial strategy
The ship class is now being seen by experts as part of China's " denial of access " strategy, with which the country wants to hedge against foreign intervention, mainly in the South China Sea. Due to many bases distributed numerically strong and rapid deployment forces of the Navy and Air Force can quickly react to an opponent's deployment and even strong naval forces should be able to be so overwhelmed by coordinated attacks from multiple directions.