August 4, 2026:
Scenarios for a Chinese invasion of Taiwan primarily focus on the Taiwan Strait and China’s Fujian province. That makes sense. Crossing the Strait from a point in Fujian to Taiwan’s shoreline is one of the shortest routes, either by sea or by air, from 165 to 220 kilometers in a straight line. American Navy officials pointed out that a Chinese invasion of Taiwan was impossible, at least as long as the American Navy was willing to help Taiwan defend itself. Most Taiwanese support a vigorous defense against any Chinese invasion effort.
Part of the American military support is dozens of Virginia-class SSN submarines that can lay mines off Chinese ports and naval bases. This would be a nightmare for Chinese consumers and the ruling CCP/Chinese Communist Party. CCP power depends on providing steady employment for most Chinese and export markets for Chinese goods. China is the second largest exporting country in the world, right behind America.
Meanwhile, China is building a large amphibious fleet in an effort to threaten Taiwan with a convincing capability to seize this wayward Chinese province. This fleet is more likely to be used in the South China Sea, where China is trying to seize islands and fishing groups within the Philippines EEC/Exclusive Economic Zone.
The growing Chinese amphibious assault force includes new ships such as the 41,000-ton Type 076 LHDs. These are larger than the previous Type 075 LHDs. The 076 is a drone carrier, the first ever. The 076 is also an amphibious assault ship that carries 1,200 combat troops and several dozen trucks and combat vehicles. The troops are put ashore by two dozen helicopters, while two air-cushion vessels bring the vehicles ashore.
The first Chinese LDS was the Type 075. In early 2025, China put into service the fourth of eight 37,000-ton Type 075 LHDs, which can deploy helicopters to deliver troops ashore. Construction of the first LHD began in 2011, and it entered sea trials by August 2020. The first LHD entered service in 2021, and the second and third in 2002. The fourth is due this year.
The Chinese LHD is 237m long and 35m wide. Air defense consists of two 30mm CIWS Close-In Weapons Systems and two HQ-10 SAM Surface-to-Air Missile launchers. There is a crew of 1,100 sailors and capacity to carry up to 1,200 troops, who are put ashore using about 20 transport helicopters and a few landing craft. There is a well dock in the rear for loading Type 726 air-cushioned landing craft as well as conventional landing craft. The vehicle deck carries an undetermined number of trucks, ZBD05 amphibious Infantry Fighting Vehicles and ZTD05 amphibious light tanks. Vehicles can also be driven on or off the LHDs via ramps, like a Roll On-Roll Off or RO-RO vehicle transport.
This ship is designed to carry 30 helicopters of various types. China does not have any heavy-lift helicopters or tilt-wing transports like those that operate off American amphibious ships. China also lacks VTOL (Vertical Takeoff and Landing) warplanes like the F-35B or the earlier Harrier. China is currently using the 13-ton Z-8 naval helicopter transport on amphibious ships. The Z-8 is based on the French Super Frelon. The Z-8 can carry 20 or more troops and also be armed with missiles, rockets, and machine guns. China has a growing number of helicopter gunships, and these have been seen practicing operations from warships. China is also introducing a copy of the American 11-ton SH-60 naval helicopter.
The Type 75 is similar to the eight American 41,000-ton LHD helicopter carriers, which can carry up to 20 F-35B fighters. The design of these American mini carriers was influenced by the earlier eight Wasp-class LHDs. The last of these amphibious assault ships, the Makin Island LHD-8, entered service in 2009 and was followed by two more that underwent drastic modifications, leading to their designation as LHAs because they were slightly larger at 45,000 tons and lacked the internal dock for landing craft. The additional space was devoted to more fuel, weapons storage, and aircraft maintenance. The LPDs tend to carry twelve 21-ton V-22 tilt-rotor aircraft, eight AH-1 helicopter gunships, ten F-35B Vertical Take Off and Landing VTOL stealth fighters, four 33-ton CH-53K, and 4 Navy CH-60 helicopters. In both cases, actual air combat elements, the term for the reinforced combat aircraft deployed on these vessels, may vary depending on the mission. The LHA-6 is being built with these new VTOL aircraft, tiltrotors, and helicopters in mind.
Meanwhile, China was scaling up. As of early 2021, they had six Type 071-class amphibious ships in service. The first one arrived for duty in 2007, and by the time the second one entered service in 2011, the Chinese apparently realized they would need more than the four they originally planned to build. Meanwhile, China is also expanding its marine infantry force from three to seven brigades, each with over 5,000 troops.
The 071s are Landing Ship Dock or LPD-type vessels and were the largest ships in the Chinese Navy until the first aircraft carrier entered service in 2013. But while Chinese aircraft carriers are still a work in progress, the LPDs were quickly found work. This makes Chinese neighbors uncomfortable.
These LPDs are 210m long, 25,000-ton amphibious ships with a flight deck for up to four helicopters and a flooded well in the rear for landing craft. It normally carries four hovercrafts in the well and two smaller landing craft suspended on davits. The ship can carry up to 800 troops and up to 20 armored vehicles. Max speed is 46 kilometers an hour, with a cruising speed of 33 kilometers an hour. At that speed, a Type 071 can stay at sea for up to 60 days. The 071-class ships are similar to the American 25,000-ton San Antonio-class and the French 21,500-ton Mistral-class. The 071s have the smallest crew, at 120, compared to 180 on the Mistral and 396 on the San Antonio.
Type 071 armament consists of a 76mm gun, four 30mm anti-missile autocannon, and four 18-tube decoy/chaff dispensers for anti-missile work. Each 071 is believed to cost about $300 million, less than half what a San Antonio or Mistral cost. The Type 75s appear to have the same four 30mm autocannons plus two HHQ-10 anti-aircraft missile launchers. These have a range of about six kilometers.
It is now clear that China will soon have eight LPDs plus eleven of the larger Type 75s. These ships will be crucial in establishing and supplying small outposts in the South China Sea and elsewhere off the Chinese coast where there are more disputed islands. The recent appearance of 071s in the Indian Ocean indicates Chinese amphibious ambitions have a very long reach indeed. When not serving as the intimidator, the 071s stand ready to help with natural disasters in the region. In both cases, the 071s show countries in the region that China now has a large fleet and can be your friend or the neighbor who quickly and unexpectedly invades you from the sea.
The Chinese Navy has been seen exercising with LHDs, civilian ferries, and RoRo ships. Construction of these ships was subsidized by the government with the understanding that these vessels were not part of the navy reserve fleet of support ships, which includes cargo ships, troop transports, and fuel transports. Another recent development is a barge carrying a 130-meter-long road platform for use in coastal areas that lack beaches but are close to roads. The new Chinese landing barges can approach these areas once Chinese commandos or paratroopers have seized a small portion. The barge gets close enough to the coastline for its road platform to be shoved or carried forward somehow to plop down near a coastal road.
Six years ago, Taiwan undertook an expensive upgrade of its defenses against the threat of Chinese invasion. This included an order for nearly two billion dollars’ worth of American weapons. This purchase includes 135 SLAM-ER Standoff Land Attack Missile - Expanded Response missiles, eleven HIMARS High Mobility Artillery Rocket System guided missile launchers, and six MS-110 reconnaissance pods.
The AGM-84K SLAM-ER entered service in 2000. It is a 675-kg cruise missile with a range of 270 kilometers, a speed of 855 kilometers per hour, and a GPS/shape-recognition guidance system that has proved very accurate. The target can be changed, or the mission aborted remotely by the pilot at any time. SLAM-ER costs nearly a million dollars each and has a 220 kg warhead based on the one used on the Tomahawk cruise missile. SLAM-ER is actually a scaled-up Harpoon anti-ship missile.
HIMARS rocket launcher vehicles fire GPS-guided rockets at targets nearly a hundred kilometers distant. Half of the new HIMARS order uses heavier trucks with added armor. These heavy trucks are typically used as wreckers to retrieve vehicles that get stuck. HIMARS can also fire larger, longer 300-kilometer-range ATACMS rockets, as well as PrSM missiles with a 500-kilometer range.
Perhaps the most useful item ordered is the MS-110 reconnaissance pods. These are digital, high-resolution, multi-spectral camera pods, usually carried by an F-16 fighter jet. These pods look like large, streamlined bombs and use digital cameras to photograph large areas at high resolution and in Multispectral Imaging. This means the high-resolution digital photos are not only in color but also capture data across seven bands of the electromagnetic spectrum. This includes items visible and invisible to the human eye, making it difficult to use camouflage to hide things and electronic signals. This type of camera is superior to film cameras because no film development is required, and digital images can be analyzed more easily with software, rather than relying mostly on human photo interpreters. The infrared/heat sensor of the MS-110 can record everything in the aircraft's flight path, horizon-to-horizon. This means the pod can be carried on an F-16 flying just outside Chinese territorial waters, which extend 22 kilometers from the coast, and photograph Chinese territory more than 300 kilometers inland. The pod records many gigabytes of data to onboard storage devices and can also transmit less detailed data immediately to a ground station. The pilot can also see what the pod sees, using one of the cockpit displays. Although similar to targeting pods, the recon pods are also designed to take high-resolution pictures of large swaths of terrain below, even as the aircraft moves along at 15 kilometers per minute.