A newly released footage has shown that China's first Type 055 guided-missile destroyer the Nanchang successfully hit all the targets in its first live-fire exercise.
The Nanchang entered service with the Chinese People's Liberation Army Navy in January 2020, as the first of domestically developed Type 055 10,000 tonne-class destroyers.
Fourteen months after its commissioning, it undertook its first air defense and anti-missile mission under realistic combat scenarios.
Crew members of the Nanchang said that the mission difficulty was equivalent to a world-class air defense challenge at that time.
The air defense mission's complexity makes it a thorny challenge for all naval forces around the world. We were yet to experience live-fire exercises, so the whole squad, the whole crew were quite stressful said Qiao Peng.
"I was both nervous and excited. I was nervous because I was afraid of spoiling our record, since it was [China's] first Type 055 [guided-missile] destroyer. What if it had a record of missing the target? That would be really embarrassing," said Shi Ronghao.
The young soldiers, averaging just 23 years old, felt a mixture of nervousness and excitement.
"There is no way for us to predict when the target aircraft would come—whether they would attack simultaneously or separately. We also had to track more than a dozen shifting data points within seconds. Time was our greatest enemy; we had to be fast and accurate," said Qiao.
During the task, the Nanchang fired five missiles, and all of them hit their targets, demonstrating the combat capacity of the destroyer.
"Our entire squad bounced from chairs to cheer. Missiles serve as our warship's first line of defense. After this live-fire exercise, our morale will be greatly boosted when operating in the far seas," said Qiao.
Footage shows China's first missile destroyer hitting all targets in first live-fire mission
Footage shows China's first missile destroyer hitting all targets in first live-fire mission
