Plan 870 landing ship
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Plan 870 is the design designation for a type of heavy landing ship designed in Menghe. It represents a major improvement over the preceding Plan 858 landing ship, with more than double the vehicle capacity and greatly improved defensive armament.
Development
The Plan 870 design was drawn up during the early 2000s, but development work stopped in 2001 when Menghe and Dayashina signed an agreement resolving the dispute over the Renkaku Islands. Menghean landing ship construction remained frozen until 2005, when renewed tensions with Innominada led to a major expansion of the Menghean Navy's Marine Infantry arm.
Under the MoND's War Plan Blue for conflict with Innominada, the reorganized and expanded Second Marine Infantry Brigade would be tasked with conducting amphibious landings along Innominada's east coast in order to draw forces away from the front line. This mission would require the long-range deployment of mechanized forces and their supplies, a major change in priorities from the short-range, small-island landings on which the Marine Infantry had previously focused.
Design
Layout
Armament
Powerplant
Aircraft facilities
Carrying configurations
The Plan 870 landing ship can be easily modified at a naval base to carry out a wide variety of missions, depending on the stage of the conflict and the requirements of the operation. This flexibility allows procurement of a single hull to meet multiple needs, though in other configurations the Plan 870 is less effective than a dedicated ship of that type.
Mechanized landing ship
The mechanized landing ship configuration, pictured at the top of the page, is the standard configuration of the Plan 870 design. In this configuration, four landing craft are carried on the upper deck, and two helicopters (sometimes three) are carried in the hangar. The central area of the forward deck is used to store additional vehicles.
Because all armored vehicles in a mechanized Marine Assault Battalion are amphibious, they can drive off the bow ramp while the landing ship is loitering off shore and complete the rest of the journey to land under their own power, without requiring the landing ship to beach itself. Non-amphibious supply trucks, if part of the unit, are carried to shore on the smaller landing craft, which can also carry infantry units. This approach allows greater flexibility in the choice of landing area.
Tank landing ship
When a Plan 870 ship is tasked with landing Main Battle Tanks, it must beach directly on the shore, as the 45-ton JCh-5 and 50-ton JCh-6 are non-amphibious and too heavy for the light deck-based landing craft. This restricts the available landing areas to locations with a sufficiently sloped beach. To improve flexibility, the landing craft are removed, and replaced with two large pontoon floats, each held in place by two cranes. These can be lowered into the water alongside the ship and moved into position by the RHIBs further forward, providing a pontoon bridge between the ship and the shore.