Sunday, October 26, 2008

The new naval ship for China


The type 920 medical ship was given the number 866 a while back and officially joined the navy on the 23rd. You can find articles about it on Sinodefence and on Global Security.

This is the article that talked about its entry into PLAN.
本报讯 (记者/陶达嫔通讯员/陈佳楠)由我国自行研制的全球首艘专门设计的海上医院船,23日在广州完工交船。
  据悉,这艘海上医院船由广州造船企业、广船国际研发制造。该船的交付使用,将使我国成为世界上少数具有 远海医疗救护能力的国家之一。
  据介绍,这艘排水量超万吨的医院船配有数百张病床和先进的医疗保障系统及消防、救生设施,每个病房舱室 都设有一个护士站,诊疗条件达到三甲医院的水平。
  大型医院船是现代海军的重要标志之一。目前,包括美国等先进国家的海上医疗船均系民船改装而成。23日交付的该船,其排水量之大在同类船舶中堪称“亚洲第一”。据悉,在战时,该船可为作战部队伤病员提供海上早期治疗和部分专科治疗,或为舰艇部队提供卫勤支援等;在平时,则可执行海上医疗救护训练任务,也可以为舰艇编队和驻岛礁等边远地区部队提供医疗服务等。

It said that China's first indigenously designed global medical ship has been handed from Guangzhou shipyard to the navy on the 23rd of this month.

This is designed and built by the Guangzhou Shipyard International Company Limited and makes China one of the very few countries in the world to far long range medical rescue capability. This ship's displacements is in tens of thousands and has hundreds of bed, advanced disinfectant and life saving instruments. Each sick room has a nursing station, it reaches level 3A hospital standard. Large hospital ship is an important sign of modern navy. US and many advanced world's hospital ships are converted from civilian ship. This is the largest ship of its class in Asia. It says that in wartime, ship ship provides early medical treatment for injuries on sea and part of the specified treatment, can also support other ships. In peace time, it can be used for medical training on sea and can provide medical treatment for the fleet and distant islands.

Aside from their commentary, we can probably add humanitarian missions to the list of its duties also. Galrahn actually commented on this ship a while back on its humanitarian values. I think this ship will probably end up in SSF, so it can serve in Taiwan scenario, helping those islands in South China Sea and be part of the growing sea-projection part of SSF.

2 comments:

Unknown said...

you mention humanitarian role. in practice, this is more likely to be actual deployment in the event of regional natural disasters. we only have to think back to events in the region within the last few years. given china's economic and political status in the region such humanitarian intervention is commensurate with its status & does fill a capability gap.

Feng said...

I would say so too, we will see though. I think China at the moment is still a little shy about doing things like that, but hopefully it will get better at that.