@jolyon🇨🇳 China may be building the world’s first "mothership" for giant submarine drones... A strange new vessel is taking shape at a shipyard in Shanghai, and its most likely job is carrying, launching, and recovering uncrewed submarines. And these aren’t those little underwater drones. China has already tested 2 types measuring around 35 and 45 meters long, roughly 6-8x the overall size of the U.S. Navy’s Orca drone submarine. Until now, China has been using floating docks to take them out to sea for testing. This new ship looks like a much more serious setup. It appears to have a huge internal hangar that could hold around 4 of the giant drones, plus a system at the back that can lower them directly into the water. That means China could potentially maintain them onboard, carry them around and launch them for actual missions from the same ship. Exactly what Beijing plans to do with these giant underwater drones is still unclear. But it’s starting to look less like an experiment and more like China is building the infrastructure to actually use them at sea. Source: Naval News / Writer: Daniyal #China

@jolyon🇨🇳 China may be building the world’s first "mothership" for giant submarine drones... A strange new vessel is taking shape at a shipyard in Shanghai, and its most likely job is carrying, launching, and recovering uncrewed submarines. And these aren’t those little underwater drones. China has already tested 2 types measuring around 35 and 45 meters long, roughly 6-8x the overall size of the U.S. Navy’s Orca drone submarine. Until now, China has been using floating docks to take them out to sea for testing. This new ship looks like a much more serious setup. It appears to have a huge internal hangar that could hold around 4 of the giant drones, plus a system at the back that can lower them directly into the water. That means China could potentially maintain them onboard, carry them around and launch them for actual missions from the same ship. Exactly what Beijing plans to do with these giant underwater drones is still unclear. But it’s starting to look less like an experiment and more like China is building the infrastructure to actually use them at sea. Source: Naval News / Writer: Daniyal #China