On November 5, 2025, the Fujian ship was officially listed at a military port in Sanya, Hainan. Shortly after being listed, the Fujian ship quickly carried out its first practical training at sea. The Sichuan ship, my country's first electromagnetic catapult amphibious assault ship, which has attracted the same attention as the Fujian ship, has made new progress recently.
The manned carrier-based aircraft partnered up, and the unmanned carrier-based aircraft followed closely behind. Not long ago, the stealth drone "Attack-21" successfully took off and landed on the amphibious assault ship Sichuan for the first time.
In late October, our army's first ship-borne surveillance and attack stealth drone "Attack-21" successfully took off and landed on the Type 076 amphibious assault ship Sichuan for the first time. This is another breakthrough in the development of my country's amphibious assault ships, marking that the People's Navy has the ability to take off and land fixed-wing stealth drones on large maritime combat platforms.
The "Attack-21" stealth drone adopts a tailless flying wing, a wing-body fusion layout, and a built-in bomb bay and fuel space. It will make its first public appearance in the 2025 September 3rd military parade.
The Sichuan ship that carries it, with hull number 51, is the first Type 076 amphibious assault ship independently designed, developed and built by my country. The full load displacement exceeds 40,000 tons. It will be launched and named on December 27, 2024. It innovatively applies a fully automatic landing guidance system, a new integrated power system, electromagnetic ejection and arresting technology, and can carry fixed-wing drones, helicopters, amphibious equipment, etc.
The joint training of aircraft carrier formations and amphibious assault ship formations has been an important training subject for the Chinese Navy in recent years to explore systematic operations and achieve complementary advantages and capabilities. During the recent training of the Liaoning fleet in the Western Pacific, the Type 075 amphibious assault ship Anhui fleet crossed the Miyako Strait to join forces with it, and conducted system integration training in a certain area of the Western Pacific. This fully tempered the actual operational effectiveness of the aircraft carrier formation-linked amphibious assault ship formation in the far sea, and accumulated key experience for future joint three-dimensional landing operations in the far sea.
What are the difficulties in accurately landing drones at sea?
Wei Dongxu, Military Observer of the Central Station: The technical difficulty of landing an aircraft carrier-based aircraft is relatively high, because the aircraft carrier itself is a moving target at sea. The pilot of the aircraft carrier-based aircraft must constantly adjust the flight altitude, flight angle and flight speed of the carrier-based aircraft, and also allow the tail hook of the carrier-based aircraft to hook the arresting cable on the aircraft carrier's flight deck. But like the "Attack-21", there is no pilot on it. It is an unmanned and intelligent combat platform. Therefore, there is a high probability that the "Attack-21" and the Type 076 amphibious assault ship Sichuan will use intelligent and automated auxiliary systems. For example, through signals, the "Attack-21" can autonomously perceive the Sichuan ship's navigation situation to a certain extent, and then perform self-regulation and adaptation. Finally, the entire process of landing the ship will be completed efficiently, quickly and accurately.
