The ship was first shown to the public at the EDEX exhibition in Cairo last year (a model of the ship was previously exhibited at NAVDEX in Abu Dhabi). In October 2022, the ship was spotted in the water by naval expert Tom Shugart at the Guangzhou Shipyard International (GSI) shipyard. The ship is built according to the trimaran design, which is quite rare in military shipbuilding.
What is the Chinese “Kasatka”? According to the American naval expert H. I. Sutton (the Chinese, as usual, are not too verbose in disclosing the performance characteristics of their promising military equipment), the ship has a displacement of 420 tons, a length of 58 meters, an overall width of 23 meters (the use of a trimaran scheme allows you to make a high-speed ship with such a length-to-width ratio), a draft of 2 meters (sometimes a draft of 4 meters is said), a maximum speed of 40 knots (according to some sources – 42 knots), a cruising range of 4,000 nautical miles. About the power plant, one can only say that, most likely, it is dual-mode, diesel-electric.
The situation with armament is even more complicated. Vertical launch system (VLS) cells have been spotted on the ship’s bow superstructure — from 4 to 12 pieces. In addition, there are two light torpedo tubes and one remotely controlled artillery mount at the stern, an option with HQ-10 anti-aircraft missile cells is possible. In addition to the armament, there is a helipad at the stern for both UAVs and passenger helicopters: the crew will arrive on them on the JARI-USV-A “Orca”. The ship, of course, is unmanned, but a small bridge is provided on it — most likely, the existing regulatory framework does not allow ships to enter the harbor without a person on the bridge, and in places of busy shipping it is worthwhile to insure yourself, and, of course, no one has cancelled equipment breakdowns.
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