Today let's talk about unmanned boats, this aspect has not been talked about for a long time, I remember that in 2022, the competition for the equipment type of unmanned boats is still very fierce, and China and the United States have come up with a lot of plans, the United States has engaged in the "Sailor", "Nomad", and the "Sea Demon King" series of large, medium and small more than a dozen platforms. Of course, our goal is definitely not only to engage in a small speedboat to tie some TNT to a kamikaze attack like Ukraine, but to have advanced vertical hair phased control, equipped with advanced weapons and independent combat capabilities, and this "Thunder A2000" is designed in this direction.
In fact, at the Zhuhai Air Show in 2022, the 716 Research Institute unveiled an unmanned combat ship, but this is different from the "Thunder A2000" mentioned this time, which is the latest plan brought by Poly Group when it participated in the Qatar Defense Exhibition. According to the pictures, this unmanned armed boat has a length of 45 meters, a width of 10 meters, and a full load displacement of about 280-550 tons depending on the configuration. It is a three-body waterjet boat with a maximum speed of 35 knots. The ship island adopts a small phased array radar design, with a total of 4 small shields on the prismatic mast, as well as satellite communication Tianxian and sea navigation radar, and the height is also the configuration of a destroyer in terms of quantity.
In terms of weapon system, the bow is a 30 mm rapid-fire gun, and the lower part is designed with a round hole, which seems to be able to be retracted into the hull during high-speed sailing, without affecting the integrity of the hull stealth. There are two vertical hair units at the rear of the ship, and some military fans may think that two sets are not too little.
In fact, there are not many, one vertical hair is 4 units, and two sets are 8 units, of which 6 units are ground/sea attack weapons with a range of 290 km. And the other 2 units are the midge-2000 with four bombs in one pit, with a range of up to 70 kilometers and a total of 8 anti-aircraft missiles. This configuration of 6 attacks + 8 air defense, for a 500-ton unmanned boat, not to mention the abundant firepower, it is completely sufficient, and the rabbit's phobia of insufficient firepower is not just to talk about.
Do you think this is the end?In fact, in the tail of the thunder A2000 in the hangar part of the traditional ship, there is also a UAV hangar, which can be equipped with vertical take-off and landing UAVs, looking at the appearance of the picture, it seems to be the Chengdu vertical and horizontal Dapeng CW-40 type, which is characterized by a triangular tail at the tail, this UAV has taken off and landed on ships such as 054A, and it is a very mature carrier-based UAV.
Basically, this Thunder A2000 is an integration of all the technologies that can be found on modern large ships, whether it is vertical hair, Aegis phased array or drone, stealth trimaran, it can be said that it has everything. In the case of the 055 Daqi 052D wide range of dumplings, we can come up with this advanced solution in the field of unmanned combat, which also shows that we have a unique advantage in this field. Although the United States has also launched a lot of unmanned boats, most of them are used for anti-submarine and auxiliary properties, and there are still very few such armed unmanned boats that can really have complete weapon systems and independent combat capabilities.
First of all, it can replace the current manned combat boats in China, such as the 022 missile boat, which can be mixed with unmanned boats, so that a few 022 can achieve the purpose of wolf pack operations that can only be achieved by more than 10 ships before, reducing the waste of manpower, after all, experienced combat personnel are the most valuable for the navy.
The second is that it can be deployed on islands and reefs such as the South China Sea, and unmanned boats do not need personnel, which can greatly reduce supplies, and at the same time, there is no need to consider the problem of personnel rest. It is suitable for places where the supply distance is long and it is difficult to change personnel, and a high-intensity patrol posture can be formed around the islands and reefs. In particular, at present, the Philippines is using a large number of small boats to constantly harass many surrounding islands in an attempt to disperse and fatigue our coast guard forces, and this unmanned boat can greatly alleviate this problem. Moreover, we already have a complete long-range radar system on several reclaimed islands and reefs, and by working together, we can effectively safeguard maritime rights with minimal investment.
In fact, this kind of unmanned combat boat can be regarded as a distributed weapon system that can be attacked and defended, but compared with offense, it is better used for area denial defense, which is in line with our current strategic situation and can better protect vested interests. It is also expected that this Thunder A2000 can be quickly mass-produced, once it has a certain number of advantages, then it will form an advantage in the South China Sea islands and reefs to suppress the generation difference between unmanned ships and manned ships.