Chinese Navy's semi submersible ship Yinmahu conducts 1st nighttime training.

According to information published by Global Times on September 10, 2023, a special strategic semi-submersible ship of the Chinese People's Liberation Army (PLA) Navy recently conducted its first nighttime operation training.
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Chinese semi-submersible transport ship Yinmahu. (Picture source: Baidu)

The semi-submersible ship Yinmahu, attached to a support ship detachment of the PLA Navy, recently mobilized for nearly 1,000 nautical miles to an unfamiliar sea region, consecutively carried out vessel loading and transport training, and for the first time held submerge-load-float training at nighttime.

Yinmahu is the PLA Navy's latest semi-submersible ship. She has a large deck with a length of more than 100 meters and a width of more than 30 meters that can submerge more than six meters underwater while the other parts of the ship remain above the surface.

Semi-submersible ships like Yinmahu serve as large maritime transport platforms that can deliver entire weapon platforms, which means that the ship has special strategic significance.

She can also transport small vessels that do not have enough range but need to operate in the far sea and extra large equipment that cannot be transported through other means.

In a single voyage, she can deliver thousands of tons of equipment and supplies, and she can also conduct rescue operations for damaged vessels at sea.

During the training, Yinmahu simultaneously loaded three smaller boats at sea under strong wind and wave plus low visibility conditions, marking a new breakthrough in the PLA Navy's capabilities in semi-submersible ship operations.

The nighttime training shows that the semi-submersible ship has reached round-the-clock combat capability. In military operations, nighttime ops are vital in gaining tactical or even strategic advantages.

Among many of its applications, one of them is that a semi-submersible ship can transport the Zubr-class large air-cushioned landing craft, which is too large to fit into the PLA Navy's amphibious landing ships, so the transport vessel is also useful in landing missions.