First Clear Look at China’s Technology Demonstrator For a Future Stealth Ship

New images have provided a more detailed look at a mysterious stealth frigate currently being tested in China, which is thought to be a technology demonstrator for the country’s next generation of surface warships. China is currently producing destroyers at a rate comparable to the capacities of the next several producers combined, and has in some years launched ten destroyers in a single year. To place this figure in perspective, only six countries in the world field more than ten destroyers in their entire fleets, with the U.S. Navy fielding 75, Japan 36, and South Korea 13. With the Type 052D and Type 055 destroyers having been in production for over a decade, the stealth capabilities, and possibly other design features, being tested on the unnamed new light frigate, are expected to influence the designs of future ships that succeed them. Referred to in local media as a “comprehensive test platform,” the stealth frigate was first confirmed to have headed out to see in mid-May, six months after the first images of the ship emerged in November 2023. 

Among the new ship’s notable stealth features are an integrated mast structure on the bridge, radar-reflecting fixtures on its superstructure, smooth planar and faceted inward-canted surfaces above the ship’s waist, and a lack of major protruding aerials. The ship is approximately 97 meters long, and carries an unusual single aperture launcher that is speculated to contain an electro optical device or directed energy weapon. Although reducing radar cross section is considered less critical for surface ships than it is for combat aircraft, it nevertheless provides a number of important advantages. The United States notably sought to develop a stealth destroyer in the 1990s, the Zumwalt Class destroyer, although the program was considered a resounding failure with ships costing over $9 billion each, having their main armaments removed, and suffering from notoriously poor reliability. With the U.S. having continued to rely heavily on the Arleigh Burke Class destroyer designed during the Cold War, and made slow progress towards developing a next generation destroyer class, this has presented China’s defence sector with the opportunity to be the first to successfully pursue such a program.