Mirage Hunter (

Chinese Chinese can refer to: * Something related to China * Chinese people, people of Chinese nationality, citizenship, and/or ethnicity **''Zhonghua minzu'', the supra-ethnic concept of the Chinese nation ** List of ethnic groups in China, people of va ...

: 幻影猎手,

Hanyu Pinyin Hanyu Pinyin (), often shortened to just pinyin, is the official romanization system for Standard Mandarin Chinese in China, and to some extent, in Singapore and Malaysia. It is often used to teach Mandarin, normally written in Chinese for ...

: Huan-Ying Lie-Shou)

technical research ship Technical research ships were used by the United States Navy during the 1960s to gather intelligence by monitoring, recording and analyzing wireless electronic communications of nations in various parts of the world. At the time these ships were a ...

(AGTR) is a very little known naval auxiliary ship currently of the

People's Liberation Army Navy The People's Liberation Army Navy (PLAN; ), also known as the People's Navy, Chinese Navy, or PLA Navy, is the maritime service branch of the People's Liberation Army. The PLAN traces its lineage to naval units fighting during the Chinese ...

(PLAN). First revealed in January 2012 with standard Chinese naval camouflage, only a single unit has been built as of mid-2010s. Externally, Mirage Hunter looks identical to Sea Shadow (IX-529), albeit on a much scaled-down size, and both ships adopt the same small-waterplane-area twin hull design. Mirage Hunter is built by a shipyard in Wuhan, where the 701st Institute of China Shipbuilding Industry Corporation (CSIC) headquartered. 701st Institute is the primary Chinese research establishment conducting research on stealth features for ships and boats, and it is therefore postulated that Mirage Hunter AGTR is used by Chinese to research on the hull form of naval stealth technology and countermeasures.

References

{{Ship classes of the Chinese Navy, state=uncollapsed Auxiliary ships of the People's Liberation Army Navy