''Ma'anshan'' (525) is a Type 054 frigate of the

People's Liberation Army Navy The People's Liberation Army Navy, also known as the People's Navy, PLA Navy or simply Chinese Navy, is the naval warfare military branch, branch of the People's Liberation Army, the national military of the People's Republic of China. It i ...

. She was commissioned on 18 February 2005.

Development and design

The Type 054 has a stealthy hull design with sloped surfaces, radar absorbent materials, and a reduced superstructure clutter. The main anti-ship armament were

YJ-83 The YJ-83 (; NATO reporting name: CSS-N-8 Saccade) is a Chinese subsonic anti-ship cruise missile. It is manufactured by the China Aerospace Science and Industry Corporation Third Academy. Development The YJ-83 uses microprocessors and a st ...

sea-skimming anti-ship

cruise missiles A cruise missile is an unmanned self-propelled guided missile that sustains flight through aerodynamic lift for most of its flight path. Cruise missiles are designed to deliver a large payload over long distances with high precision. Modern cru ...

in two four-cell launchers. It retained the

HQ-7 The HQ-7 (; NATO reporting name: CH-SA-4) is a short-range surface-to-air missile (SAM) from the People's Republic of China. It was reverse-engineered by the Changfeng Electromechanical Technology Design Institute from the French R-440 Crotale ...

SAM, an improved version of the French Crotale, from the preceding Type 053H3; the HQ-7 had a ready-to-fire 8-cell launcher, with 16 stored in the automatic reloader. Short range defence was improved with four

AK-630 The AK-630 is a Soviet Union, Soviet and Russian fully automatic naval, rotary cannon, close-in weapon system. The "630" designation refers to the weapon's six gun barrels and their 30 mm caliber. The system is mounted in an enclosed automatic ...

CIWS turrets. A 100 mm main gun, also based on a French design, was mounted.

Construction and career

''Ma'anshan'' was launched on 11 September 2003 at the Hudong-Zhonghua Shipyard in

Shanghai Shanghai, Shanghainese: , Standard Chinese pronunciation: is a direct-administered municipality and the most populous urban area in China. The city is located on the Chinese shoreline on the southern estuary of the Yangtze River, with the ...

. Commissioned on 18 February 2005. On November 28, 2012, ''Ma'anshan'',

Zhoushan Zhoushan is an urbanized archipelago with the administrative status of a prefecture-level city in the eastern Chinese province of Zhejiang. It consists of an archipelago of islands at the southern mouth of Hangzhou Bay off the mainland c ...

Hangzhou Hangzhou, , Standard Mandarin pronunciation: ; formerly romanized as Hangchow is a sub-provincial city in East China and the capital of Zhejiang province. With a population of 13 million, the municipality comprises ten districts, two counti ...

Ningbo Ningbo is a sub-provincial city in northeastern Zhejiang province, People's Republic of China. It comprises six urban districts, two satellite county-level cities, and two rural counties, including several islands in Hangzhou Bay and the Eas ...

and Poyanghu integrated supply ship formed a naval open sea training fleet , Passing through the

Miyako Strait The , also known as the Kerama Gap, is a waterway which lies between Miyako Island and Okinawa Island consisting of a 250km-wide passageway with international waters and airspace. It is the widest strait in the Ryukyu Islands. Political signific ...

in batches and entering the waters of the Western Pacific to carry out routine training. On September 25, 2013, ''Ma'anshan'' and

Changzhou Changzhou is a prefecture-level city in southern Jiangsu, China. It was previously known as Yanling, Lanling, and Jinling. Located on the southern bank of the Yangtze River, Changzhou borders the provincial capital of Nanjing to the west, Zhen ...

conducted an anti-submarine exercise organized by the East China Sea Fleet in the

South China Sea The South China Sea is a marginal sea of the Western Pacific Ocean. It is bounded in the north by South China, in the west by the Indochinese Peninsula, in the east by the islands of Taiwan island, Taiwan and northwestern Philippines (mainly Luz ...

. During the exercise, ''Ma'anshan'' and Changzhou ship-borne helicopters dropped several war mines and successfully destroyed the target. In April 2014, ''Ma'anshan'' and other destroyers of the PLA Navy's East China Sea Fleet conducted formation anti-submarine and anti-missile training. During mid 2019, ''Ma'anshan'' was docked for overhaul.

Gallery

File:PLANS Ma'anshan (FFG-525) 20151213.jpg, ''Ma'anshan'' underway on 13 December 2015.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Ma'anshan 2003 ships Ships built in China Type 054 frigates