September.07 (China Defense Mashup Reporting by Johnathan Weng) -- Do you believe that Chinese Navy's Type 022 missile craft use the same waterjets with U.S. Navy's newest USS "Freedom" Littoral combat ships? Yes, it's true. One photo from Chinese Internet has proved that the Kamewa waterjets have been installed on the Type 022 missile craft, which features a wave-piercing catamaran hull design known as Small Waterplane Area Twin Hull (SWATH).

Chinese Navy's Type 022 Missile Craft uses Kamewa Waterjets

Kamewa was a Swedish company which was acquired by the British Vickers group in 1986. Acquiring Vickers in 1999, Rolls-Royce plc now owns the Kamewa portfolio. The Swedish part of the business is called Rolls-Royce AB. Now it is unknown that what the exact type of waterjet is applied in Chinese fast attack craft. The most possibility is the Kamewa FF, a small series of waterjets for applications of 3 to 72 tonnes displacement.

The stealth design of Type 022 fast attack craft

Type 022 FAC has been unleashed to world since April 2004. Type 022 FAC is known to be the first kind of missile craft with wave-piercing catamaran hull design, which is found more stable when traveling at high speeds than the conventional craft. However, the catamaran hull design also has problems. One of them is from the submerged bodies of the hull. Scientists have known that the MUNK moment can cause the motion instability of submerged bodies. So the designer of catamaran will add the stabilized or controlling fins on the submerged bodies. But how to optimize the hydrodynamic of the catamaran is still being research by world. 

From 1960s to 21st century, U.S navy has researched on catamaran hull for over 40 years. But its attitude on catamaran or SWATH is still cautious. The “Sea Shadow” now is currently home-ported at Naval Station San Diego and FSF-1 is built for hydrodynamic experimentation and as a test bed for Hull. Besides, the design for Independence (LCS 2) is based on a proven high-speed trimaran (Benchijigua Express) hull built by Austal.

Meanwhile, Type 022 fast attack craft is also criticized as its real performance in wartime when JH-7A bomber-fighters have become the main force in air strike for anti-ship missions.