After China's Flat-Top Aircraft Carrier 'Fujian,' Its New Mystery Stealth Corvette-Like Ship Goes Out To Sea For Trials

China’s new mystery corvette-like ship has headed out to sea for trials.

This unknown ship has a sharp resemblance to Sweden’s Visby-class anti-submarine corvette.

The tumblehome-like design makes the ship difficult to detect by radar and has smooth surfaces with a premium on stealthy design, such as having an integrated mast and a main gun hidden inside a cupola, just like the Swedish Visby-class corvette.

This comes after last week, China's third aircraft carrier, the Fujian, completed its maiden sea trials.

Fujian, which is an 80,000-tonne aircraft carrier, uses a Catapult Assisted Take-Off But Arrested Recovery (CATOBAR) system which is capable of launching and recovering heavier aircrafts from its deck making it ideal for force projection.

What role the stealthy ship will have in the service of the People’s Liberation Army Navy (PLAN) is not exactly clear. But it is expected that this ship will be very effective in littoral waters closer to the coast.

In littoral waters, due to the background clutter and the presence of small fishing vessels close to the coast, the vessel could easily hide using its small radar signature. Due to its stealthy design, the vessel will appear to be a small fishing vessel on radar compared to its original much larger size, evading detection.

The ship was spotted under construction last August at China's Dalian Liaoning South Shipyard.

Although no concrete details of the ship have been made public, however, judging from the spy shots of the vessel under construction in the Dalian shipyard that went viral on the Chinese social media platform Weibo last year, the ship is estimated to be less than 100 metres long, and weighing somewhere between 1,500 to 2,500 tonnes.