As we all know, because of the urgent need for crossing the sea to combat, amphibious combat power has always been one of the key subjects in the development of our country's navy. With the launch of all eight Type 071 amphibious dock landing ships, coupled with the launch of the third 
75 amphibious assault ship, the "Anhui Ship", the Chinese Navy's amphibious combat power has also entered a new stage of comprehensive update and rapid development. Against this background, even the United States, which once despised us, had to sigh: the US military underestimated the development of China's amphibious combat power.
Anhui ship
Speaking of the development of the People's Liberation Army's amphibious combat capabilities, it has to be traced back to 1949. With the victory of the Crossing the River Battle, Shanghai, Ningbo , Qingdao and other major coastal cities were liberated one after another. Comrade Mao Zedong ordered Su Yu, deputy commander of the Third Field Army , and Zhang Zhen, chief of staff, to start studying the issue of liberating Taiwan Island. According to Su Yu and then naval commander Xiao Jinguang, once the battle to attack Taiwan begins, the PLA will carry out the cross-sea landing operation in two batches.
General Su Yu
For this reason, the Third Field Army specially calculated the area and tonnage of the required ships such as combat personnel, weapons and equipment, vehicles, horses, etc. during the landing operation. The conclusion was: to ensure that within 4-5 hours of the first wave of landing operation, 150,000 people were sent to the other side, our army needed at least 175 thousand-ton Chinese-type landing crafts, 85 800-ton American-type landing crafts, and 120 mutton-type landing crafts with a displacement of about 500 tons. In addition, about 2,640 civilian wooden boats or fishing boats are needed during the offshore landing operation, with the tonnage of the vessels involved reaching about 1.25 million tons.
In the early days of the founding of the People's Republic of China, my country's shipbuilding industry was poor and out of place. The People's Liberation Army had to collect large quantities of civilian wooden sailboats, and also ordered landing ships or old transport ships from the Soviet Union and Hong Kong. Even so, "patching together" was like this, by March 1950, the landing and transport ships collected and purchased by our army were only 56% of the demand. Due to insufficient ships, it was impossible to transport enough troops to the beach, and the defeat of the Kinmen and Dingbu Island battles, which were launched based on the "attack on the island and finally seize Taiwan" combat policy, has also given up the date of crossing the sea operations again and again. Finally, with the outbreak of Korean War , the US military's Seventh Fleet settled in Taiwan Strait , and the idea of liberating Taiwan in the first few months could only end up being a bubble.
June 27, 1950 The 7th Fleet of the US Army entered the Taiwan Strait
Obviously, if our army had enough landing ships and ships at that time, the Third Field Army could have landed in Taiwan before the US military interfered. In this way, our country can achieve unity. Of course, history has no assumption, but this lesson also made our army realize the importance of developing amphibious combat capabilities for the first time.
1953, under the instructions of the Central Military Commission, East China Military Region officially dispatched an infantry regiment and two infantry battalions of the army to form the 1st Marine Regiment, so the first landing combat unit of our army was officially established. At the beginning of its establishment, the landing and carrying ships equipped by this army were only a few seized small Kuomintang landing ships and civilian fishing boats. Even so, our amphibious combat troops still achieved excellent results in the Yijiangshan Island landing war that started in January 1955. It was also in this year that our shipyards began to design our army's first 100-ton type 066 amphibious landing craft in accordance with the Soviet landing ship . On this basis, my country's 708 Research Institute designed a 067 small landing craft that can carry one heavy tank or two armored vehicles , or an infantry unit in 1962.
067 small landing ship has a full load displacement of about 128 tons. Due to its good performance in wind and wave resistance, my country has built more than 200 such landing ships . On this basis, small landing craft with slightly larger displacements were derived. However, due to tonnage restrictions, these small landing craft can only meet the limited offshore amphibious combat needs.
Entered the 1970s and 1980s. With the improvement of the People's Liberation Army's mechanized combat capabilities and the development of my country's shipbuilding industry, our army began to develop medium-sized and large-scale landing ships with displacement of 1,000 tons. Among them, the full load displacement of the Type 072 large tank landing ship is about 3,380 tons, and the maximum speed is 18 knots, which basically meets the combat needs of transporting a medium-sized tank company and an infantry battalion. This is also the first domestic large ocean-going landing ship equipped by our army. The carrying capacity of the improved models such as 072Ⅱ and 072Ⅲ developed on this basis has been improved on the basis of the former. However, due to the complex construction process and the high construction cost, the number of large-scale tank landing ships of our army built by the 1980s was not large.
0 When the Taiwan Strait crisis occurred in 1996, although the number of large, medium and small landing ships equipped by our army reached hundreds of ships, these were mainly small landing ships such as 079 and 067 with displacement of hundreds of tons. The transport capacity of these small landing craft is extremely limited. According to the situation at that time, even if all landing ships of our army are dispatched, they can only meet the needs of transporting one armored battalion and one combat division at one time. It is also true that during the news of our army conducting many large-scale joint landing exercises at that time, we often see the scene of thousands of civilian ships "advances of thousands of ships" in the southeast coastal areas.
Under the urgent pressure of military demand, our Navy once again mentioned the development of amphibious ship to a crucial position. In the past twenty years, our army not only accelerated the construction speed of the 072 series tank landing ships, but also deeply realized that the amphibious combat method developed by our army was outdated by the mainstream "super ground assault landing" combat mode at that time. At that time, the landing ships equipped by our army did not have the ability to carry helicopters, so that all our landing ships still used direct rushing to the beach to transport heavy equipment and combat personnel to the shore. When the anti-landing capacity of the other strait is not weak, if our army adopts this landing combat method to rush to land, then during the entire process of force delivery, our landing fleet will be completely exposed to the attack of the anti-landing firepower of the other strait.
It is precisely because of this profound understanding that after entering the 21st century, my country began to develop a Type 071 amphibious dock landing ship with a full load displacement of more than 20,000 tons, which can carry 4-6 transport helicopters at a time, and transport 50 armored vehicles and 500 combat personnel. Co-developed with it is the 26 air cushion landing craft that can carry a 99A main battle tank and 50 marines, and a Type 071 amphibious dock landing ship that can carry 4 Type 726 landing craft. This means that the first time our Navy has three-dimensional landing combat capabilities.
Now, with the construction and service of three Type 075 amphibious assault ships with a full load displacement of 40,000 tons, the Chinese Navy's amphibious combat capabilities have even reached the forefront of the world. This type of amphibious assault ship can carry a total of 30 helicopters of various types and transport 35 amphibious assault vehicles and 1,200 combat personnel. Compared with any amphibious ship of our army before, the 075 amphibious assault ship can be said to have played a cross-eracial significance to the improvement of our army's amphibious combat capabilities.
Nowadays, according to a research report released by the US think tank "Rock War", the number of amphibious ships equipped by my country's navy has exceeded 330, with a total tonnage of 450,000 tons. It can transport all heavy equipment, materials and 21,000 combat personnel of a heavy brigade to the other side at one time, and such carrying capacity has far exceeded the United States' expectations.
In addition, the US think tank also mentioned that China also owns a large number of civilian Ro-ro-carrier and luxury giant ships. Taking the China Fuxing large-scale passenger robo-ship with a displacement of more than 45,000 tons as an example, this type of robo-ship can carry more than 350 vehicles of various types and more than 2,000 combat soldiers after being modified. my country currently has dozens of such a large roulette ship with 10,000 tons. In addition, with various large cargo ships with modification potential, the US think tank estimates that the PLA amphibious combat troops currently have a total of 2.4 million tons of potential transportation capacity.
Obviously, once a conflict breaks out in the Taiwan Strait, the People's Liberation Army can deliver 7 complete army groups (about 300,000) of soldiers and equipment to the other side within 10 days. It is precisely because of this that the US think tanks lamented that the US military underestimated the PLA's amphibious combat capabilities.
Summary: has been building amphibious combat capabilities from small wooden sailing ships to large modern amphibious assault ships, from "patching together" to the huge combat potential it has now. The People's Liberation Army's amphibious combat capability has been building for almost 70 years. Nowadays, supported by the People's Liberation Army's huge amphibious combat power and modern naval and air force power, our country has the strength and confidence to deal with all sudden changes in the southeast direction.
