What is the future comprehensive supply ship
Not long ago, the Hongzehu ship, known as the "China's first supply ship", officially retired from service and was handed over to the Memorial Hall of the Birthplace of the People's Navy in Baima Temple, Taizhou, Jiangsu, for permanent parking and collection. Since being listed in service in 1980, the ship has trajectories covering five continents and three oceans and has a total range of more than 330,000 nautical miles.
The comprehensive supply ship is a ship that accompanies aircraft carriers, destroyers and other combat ships in the maritime maneuver, and supplements it with fuel, spare parts, supplies and various types of ammunition and other consumables. Modern ship formations can't sail without the supply of supply ships. With this kind of support, the combat radius of the main battleship and the effective combat time in the mission area will be doubled and extended. Therefore, some people said, "Where the oil pipeline of the Chinese navy supply ship extends, the victory of the People's Navy can continue to where."
The most outstanding operation of the Hongze Lake ship was the first round of Chinese naval voyage with the 052 missile destroyer Qingdao ship. Under the support of the ship's supply, our fleet formed 15 records including "the first pass through the Panama Canal". However, the Type 905 supply ship to which the Hongze Lake ship belongs belongs to the first generation supply ship in my country. It mainly supplies oil and water, does not have the ability to supply weapons and ammunition, and has insufficient ability to adapt to complex sea conditions.
With the mass service of new destroyers and frigates, the problem of insufficient supply ships of our army began to emerge. At the beginning of this century, my country designed and built a second-generation supply ship in accordance with Western standards-the 903 supply ship. This type of ship is equivalent to the level of the 1990s abroad in terms of replenishment facilities and automation levels. The replenishment variety covers all the consumables of my destroyers in active service, adding ammunition replenishment functions and helicopter fuel refueling functions. Replenishment can be carried out in horizontal, vertical, vertical, and gang-back modes, and can be accompanied by warship formations under complex sea conditions. The service of this type of ship has provided the Chinese navy with the ability to supply at night and provide a more stable ocean-going combat capability.
Large ocean-going supply ships are an essential part of the aircraft carrier formation. After being listed, Chinese aircraft carriers urgently need fast integrated supply ships with faster speed, more fuel, and direct support for aircraft carrier formations. Against this background of demand, the first ship of the Type 901 comprehensive supply ship, Hulun Lake, joined the naval sequence in 2017, which laid a solid equipment foundation for naval ships to go to the ocean, indicating that our army’s ocean support capability has reached a new level. The "short board" of the Chinese aircraft carrier formation in Qi and the improvement of the naval equipment system structure are of great significance. Its service helps the Chinese navy to form an all-weather and three-dimensional oceanic comprehensive support capability.
To enhance the naval combat capability of the sea, a comprehensive supply ship is an indispensable support ship. Many experts believe that the future comprehensive supply ship will make more use of high-tech achievements and a variety of practical technologies, and develop in the direction of large-scale, rapid, and stealth.
The comprehensive supply ship must form a maritime formation with large ships such as aircraft carriers, cruisers, destroyers and nuclear submarines, and play an important role in the marine logistics support department. It must be able to provide greater material storage and application space. Change. Based on future naval warfare needs, the US Navy has launched a super-supply ship design plan that exceeds the tonnage of many aircraft carriers to meet the daily consumption of thousands of aircraft carrier formations.
In order to better meet the actual combat requirements and ensure that the integrated supply ship can be supplied quickly at a speed comparable to that of the main battleship, the future integrated supply ship can reach a maximum speed of 30 knots, which will exceed the existing integrated supply ship speed. To meet this requirement, some countries have introduced the concept of a nuclear-powered integrated supply ship. The nuclear-powered comprehensive supply ship itself does not need to carry a large amount of fuel, and it can accompany the aircraft carrier throughout the journey, truly on-call.
In order to improve the protection performance of the supply ship, the supply ship will begin to consider the stealth problem in the future. The superstructure of the future super-replenishment ship designed by the United States adopts a trapezoidal cross-section angled bulkhead from the front to the back. The lifting beams and other related facilities are placed in the bulkhead. After the chimney is packaged as a whole, it becomes a part of the superstructure. Lowering to reduce the reflection area of the lateral radar, the cockpit section, helicopter platform, hangar, etc. are also designed according to stealth requirements. The supply gantry on the ship is made into a bevel shape, and some equipment is placed in the gantry to realize the modular arrangement of the gantry and equipment. On this basis, demagnetization operations and other methods will also be adopted to reduce the characteristics of the ship's physical field, and the launcher will also use a stealth missile vertical launch system.
In the plan of the super-replenishment ship designed by the US military, it is planned to implement standard shelters and containers to achieve the universalization of storage, transportation and turnover, so as to quickly extract and move supplies. The super-replenishment ship has 6 functional cabins in the middle of the hull, which can accommodate oil, fresh water, food, medicine, spare parts, ammunition, etc. Each functional cabin can pass through the large hatches on both sides, and at the same time implement the supply for the naval ships in navigation . The function cabin is versatile and interchangeable, and can realize the free combination of each function cabin, which greatly facilitates storage, transportation, replacement and replenishment.
In the future, the comprehensive supply ship will also use a computer network to manage transmission devices and supplies, and extensively use advanced automation technology and information technology as well as communications, navigation, and global positioning systems. It is equipped with a rapid replenishment system and mechanized handling equipment such as forklifts, belt conveyors, and elevators that travel on rails to increase the degree of automation of replenishment devices. It will use a new type of automated connection system, and the replenishment equipment can be automatically docked through elevated cables under various sea conditions, achieving mechanized automatic operation and fast automatic transmission of materials in the ship. The replenishment time has been enhanced, and the safety and reliability of offshore replenishment have been enhanced.
(Author: Air Force Engineering University, National Defense University)
Dong Xiaolin Li Wei Source: China Youth Daily