China Modernizes its Destroyers with Missile Systems & Radar Technologies

Video Above: China-Taiwan War

By Kris Osborn – President & Editor-In-Chief, Warrior Maven

China’s Naval modernization continues to command large amounts of worldwide attention, given the country’s rapid progress building its own indigenous fleet of aircraft carriers and new classes of amphibious assault ships, destroyers and fast-attack vessels.

The PLA Navy already makes headlines for being larger than the US Navy, efforts fortified by its often discussed domestic industrial capacity for shipbuilding.

Sovremenny-class Destroyers

At the same time, China’s ambitious modernization campaign not only includes the addition of new platforms but also weapons systems and upgrades to existing platforms. For instance, the Chinese-government backed newspapers are talking about ongoing weapons and technology upgrades to its Soviet-built Sovremenny-class destroyers, one of the last imported platforms by the PLA Navy.

Modernization efforts of its Fuzhou, the second Sovremenny-class destroyer, now has 32-unit vertical launch missile systems for the HHQ-16 air defense missiles, the Chinese-backed Global Times newspapers said.

The paper says the ship is also being armed with eight YJ-12 supersonic anti-ship missiles that replaced the original eight P-270 anti-ship missiles.