China Builds Large Mothership for Submarine Drones

A Chinese shipyard is building a large mothership specifically designed to deploy submarine drones.

A satellite image of the ship under construction was published by KAROTASU, while Naval News prepared a rendering of the vessel.

The ship is another element in China’s largely unpublicized efforts to develop and deploy large uncrewed underwater vehicles.

The new vessel is being built at the Hudong-Zhonghua shipyard in Shanghai. Naval News analyzed numerous satellite images to assess its likely purpose.

China has already developed large submarine drones. They are known as XXLUUVs (extra-extra-large uncrewed underwater vehicles).

Two types of such vehicles have been spotted during tests in Hainan. At 35 and 45 meters long, they are approximately six to eight times larger in overall dimensions than the U.S. XLUUV Boeing Orca.

The new vessel resembles a dock landing ship with a well dock at the stern. However, the dock is open at the bottom beneath the underwater vehicle, and a large transport cradle can be installed inside.

The cradle can be lowered below the vessel’s hull using 12 vertical jack-up mechanisms. A large hangar is also located forward of the well dock and is likely intended to store submarine drones.

Based on the dimensions of the well dock and the known dimensions of the XXLUUVs, the mothership will likely be able to accommodate up to four such vehicles in the hangar, or a larger number of smaller uncrewed vehicles.

The mothership will likely serve as a mobile floating maintenance base for XXLUUVs, providing maintenance and allowing the vehicles to be kept out of the water when not in use. At the same time, it could serve as a platform for launching and recovering the vehicles during combat operations.

How exactly China plans to employ the XXLUUVs remains to be determined. They appear capable of carrying out missions over long distances, potentially including deployment off the U.S. West Coast.

However, it is clear that China continues to invest heavily in bringing these systems to operational readiness, significantly outpacing any other country in this area.