The Chinese Navy has added a major chunk of arsenal to its fleet with the commissioning of Asia's largest Missile Cruiser. The Type 055 destroyer Nanchang is also the world's second-largest Missile Cruiser with Russia's Kirov-class battlecruiser widely considered as the world's biggest battleship.
The Nanchang got commissioned in the People's Liberation Army Navy (PLAN) on Sunday with a ceremony in Shandong's port city Qingdao, Xinhua News Agency reported.
The ship had completed its final testing in 2019 and is now fully operational.
“Nanchang made an appearance at the parade as part of the celebration, but much of its equipment – including radars, communications and weapons systems and other works – had not actually been finished,” a PLA insider told the South China Morning Post about the warship’s participation in April 2019 celebrations commemorating the 70th anniversary of the PLAN’s founding.
The insider also told SCMP that the timing was carefully chosen to fall after the Taiwanese elections, so as to not seem like influencing the elections. It is believed that the date was also the preference of the Military.
NATO calls the Type 055 guided missile destroyers the “Renhai-class” and considers them to be cruisers, not destroyers, since they can perform command functions. Leaving the terminology aside, the warship is highly advanced and very big.
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