At a ceremony in the southern city of Kaohsiung on Tuesday, Taiwanese President Tsai Ing-wen launched the country’s first of a new class of landing platform dock (LPD) warship Yu Shan. Yu Shan LDP can launch helicopters as well as amphibious landing craft and marines.
Built by the state-owned shipbuilder CSBC Corporation, Yu Shan is 153 meters long, 23 meters wide, and has a displacement of 10,600 tons. Yu Shan has a range of up to 11,265 kilometers, a top speed of 21 knots and can transport up to 670 marines along with their landing craft, AAV7 tracked amphibious vehicles, and helicopters like Sikorsky Seahawk and Black Hawk in its twin hangar. Yu Shan has two anti-ship missile launchers capable of carrying eight indigenous Hsiung Feng II anti-ship missiles or 16 Hai Chien surface-to-air missiles.
Named after Taiwan’s tallest mountain, Yu Shan is slated to replace the older but larger warship Hsu Hai, an Anchorage-class LPD purchased from the United States. Taiwan began building Yu Shan in 2019 at a cost of $162 million. Taipei reportedly plans to build four such vessels.
Hu Shan LDP is expected to be in Service in 2022 after the trials.
Hu Shan LDP is nearly half the size of the US Navy’s San Antonio-class LPDs and the People’s Liberation Army Navy’s Type 071 LDPs which are roughly 25,000 tons but is closer to Japanese Hyūga class and Ōsumi class.