SANYA, December 3 -- China's first aircraft carrier, the Liaoning ship, sailed out from a military port in Qingdao of east China's Shandong province to the South China Sea on the morning of November 26, accompanied by the guided missile destroyers "Shenyang" and "Shijiazhuang", the guided missile frigates "Yantai" and "Weifang" of the Navy of the Chinese People's Liberation Army (PLAN). The Liaoning ship and its accompanying warships sailed through the Taiwan Strait into the South China Sea on November 28, and made its first berth at a military port in Sanya, Hainan province on the morning of November 29.

1. "Members" of Liaoning ship taskforce

The Liaoning ship taskforce is accompanied by 2 Type-051C guided missile destroyers, "Shenyang" and "Shijiazhuang", and 2 Type-054A guided missile frigates, "Yantai" and "Weifang". They all come from the First Flotilla of Destroyers under the North China Sea Fleet of the PLAN and are all new-type warships which entered into service after 2006.

According to reports, the Type-051C guided missile destroyer has a displacement of 7,100 tons with the highest speed of 48 kilometers per hour and a crew of 290 people.

The destroyer is equipped with the vertical launching system and carries 48 Russia-made S-300 air-defense guided missiles, 8 C-803 anti-ship guided missiles, 1 single-barrel 100-mm primary gun, 2 30-mm rapid-firing guns, torpedo launchers and so on.

The lesser-tonnage Type-054A frigate has a displacement of 4,300 tons with the highest speed of 49 kilometers per hour and a crew of 165 people. The equipment on board includes: 1 76-mm primary gun, 2 30-mm rapid-firing guns and 8 C-803 anti-ship guided missiles.

With stress on anti-submarine warfare, the frigate is equipped with the anti-submarine torpedo (ASW) launching system, anti-submarine rockets, and the 32-unit vertical launching systems for air-defense and anti-submarine guided missiles.

It also has a ship-borne helicopter to carry out anti-submarine missions. The radar, sonar and electronic systems on the ship are all home made.