Construction of the first four Type 055 destroyers for the China's People's Liberation Army Navy (PLAN) is making rapid progress based on the commercial satellite images taken on April 11.

According to IHS Jane, at the Jiangnan Changxingdao shipyard, where the construction of the lead ship of the class commenced in late 2014, the Hull 1 appears to have all its modules in place, and most of the modules for Hull 2 are also in position.

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The hull modules were then on the side of a graving dock at the Dalian Shipbuilding Industry Company yard late last year. By March 7, keel blocks were already being placed in the dock to support the construction of two hulls side by side.

Images taken on April 11 show that the modules for the two Type 055 hulls had already been lifted from the dockside onto the keel blocks, marking that assembly is imminent.

As seen in the photos, the module for the Type 055 destroyer will feature the forward vertical launch system (VLS) cells, with a second grid of cells to be installed in the forward part of the hangar. The vessel's forward grid appears to be divided into 16 sections and will have 64 cells.

Based on the images obtained, the Type 055 will have a length of 180 meters and width of 19 meters, notably bigger than the Luyang III-class (Type 052D) destroyers that is 175 meters long and 17 meters wide. This means that the Type 055 measures between Republic of Korea Navy's Sejong Daewang (KDX-3) class and the Russian Federation Navy's Slava class.

TagsType 055 destroyer, China's People's Liberation Army, Chinese navy