Pictures appeared
China is building a new mothership for underwater drones
October 19, 2026 – 3:28 p.mReading time: 2 minutes
China is apparently pushing ahead with the expansion of its drone fleet. New images show another special ship that could use unmanned underwater vehicles.
In China A second suspected mothership for unmanned underwater vehicles has emerged. This is reported by the US specialist portal “The War Zone”, citing images from the Chinese Internet and satellite images. The ship was photographed in Guangzhou and closely resembles a larger ship that was previously built at the Hudong-Zhonghua shipyard on Changxing Island Shanghai had been built.
According to the report, the new ship looks like a scaled down version of the first design. Overall, it is about a third smaller, but has key features of the larger ship: including a flight deck, a hangar behind the forward structure, chimneys in a similar position and a structure that is apparently intended for launching and retrieving unmanned underwater vehicles.
According to “The War Zone”, the first ship was built in such a way that it could accommodate and deploy several very large or numerous smaller underwater drones via a stern opening and a so-called well deck. Large pylons are striking, with which vehicles can be lifted out of the water and moved to different levels of the ship.
Construction in Guangzhou
After analyzing older satellite images, “The War Zone” concludes that the second ship was built by Guangzhou Shipyard International. The shipyard belongs to the state-owned Chinese shipbuilding group China State Shipbuilding Corporation. In a satellite image from October 2nd, the ship was already in a covered dockyard area on Longxue Iceland could be seen near Guangzhou.
Militarily, such ships could open up new opportunities for China. Large unmanned underwater vehicles can be used, among other things, to survey the seabed, search for mines, hunt submarines or carry weapons. The fact that two similar ships became known within a short period of time indicates that China will attach a greater role to the use of such systems in the future.
