Chinese military - The Chinese Navy's first Type 055 (Renhai) destroyer, officially entered into service on 12 January 2020.
The long-awaited inauguration ceremony took place at the Xiaokouzi Navy Base south of Qingdao.
The importance of this event was marked by the presence of China's KSAL Admiral Shen Jinlong.
Named Nanchang with hull number 101, this destroyer was built at Changxingdao shipyard near Shanghai.
This ship has a weight of more than 12,000 tons at full load, length of 180 m and has a width of 20 m.
With this dimension, making Nanchang slightly larger than the Ticonderoga class cruiser with a weight of 10,000 tons, length 173 m and has a width of 17 m.
The main weapon of the Type 055 class is centered around a vertical launch system (VLS), which consists of 64 cells in front of the bridge and 48 cells in front of the hangar.
The VLS adopts the same universal silo for missiles as used in Type 052D destroyers, and can launch HHQ-9 land-to-air missiles, YJ-18 anti-ship missiles, Yu-8 torpedoes that carry submarine anti-ship missiles and CJ 10 ground attack cruise missiles.
Nanchang was launched on June 28, 2017, and began sea trials at the end of 2018.
On April 23, 2019, the ship took part in a fleet review marking the 70th anniversary of the founding of the Chinese Navy.
After that the ship underwent further sea trials and returned to Changxingdao for minor repairs and modifications.
The long sea trial period is most likely due to the significant number of new systems installed on the ship.
