This new corvette could be a test platform for new hull designs and other specific subsystems that naval architects might incorporate into future ship designs. Or it could be the lead ship for an entire class. We won’t know unless and until Chinese shipyards start building squared-off ships.
Corvette teeth A look at the lead ship of the new class, the corvette, gives a clear picture of how the Chinese Navy will handle such vessels. Corvettes are the smallest ocean-going warships. They lack the heavy armament and durability of larger frigates, destroyers, and cruisers. But this is not a drawback.
Corvettes have enough firepower and endurance to patrol coastal waters, either alone or in small groups. Corvettes can protect long, vulnerable coastlines that other warships would not have to defend. In this way, corvettes free up larger ships for more dangerous and distant missions, such as sailing thousands of miles from the coast in task forces with other larger ships to engage enemy fleets.
The Chinese Navy already has dozens of corvettes, but they are simple ships. A new class of stealthy corvettes could replace them, bolstering China’s coastal defenses and allowing Chinese commanders to avoid wasting frigates, destroyers, and cruisers on lower-risk coastal missions.
Think of Corvettes as ships for fleet optimization: they give planners options, allowing them to perform the full range of maritime missions, from patrol and police missions to high intensity warfare, without having to allocate too many ships to any particular mission.
Notably, the US Navy is struggling to optimize and is in the process of retiring nearly brand new Littoral Combat Ships (a cross between a corvette and a frigate in size) to spend more on destroyers and frigates. Incredibly, the US fleet still deploys some of its best destroyers on anti-drug patrols in the Caribbean, a mission where corvettes are essential.
If the Chinese Navy decides to build a stealth corvette, that could happen sooner. In naval shipbuilding, it’s a truism that the first ship of a new class takes the longest to build. If China can build the first new corvette of its class in just a year or so, imagine how quickly it could build additional ships of that class.
A single new corvette will not affect the balance of power between the Chinese and U.S. navies, but the speed at which it is being built and its apparently sophisticated design highlights the stark differences between the U.S. and Chinese defense industrial bases — and they could certainly do so.
