Type 074 Class (Yuhai Class) Chinese Landing Ship Medium (LSM)

The Type 074 landing ship (NATO reporting name: Yuhai-class) is a class of landing ship medium (LSM) of the People's Liberation Army Navy. They were built at Wuhu Shipyard of Wuhu, Anhui from 1995 to 2000. Although entering service in the mid-1990s, the origin of type 074 dates to almost three decades earlier in the mid-1960s, and Type 074 is the result of experience learned from around half a dozen models earlier. The preceding Type 079 landing ship suffers from inherit design flaws so that in order to achieve ease of production, it could be mass-produced, the hull shape was a very simply flat bottom design, and this is not good for sailing in poor weathers. As a result, PLAN issued a request of upgrade of the Type 079 in the 1990s. However, as study progressed, it was discovered that in order to reach the requirement, major redesign is needed, and the cost would be prohibitive. The only alternative was to enlarge the successful design of the older Type 271 landing ships, hence Type 074 was borne as a cross between the Type 079 and the Type 271, with the upgraded equipment of the former installed on an enlarged hull of the latter.