Navy upgrades missile destroyer

Expert: Changes to vessel's weapons systems improved combat capability

The People's Liberation Army Navy has upgraded the CNS Shenzhen guided missile destroyer, once the most powerful domestically made warship in the Navy, amid a massive modernization of the country's naval arsenal.

The only Type 051B Luhai-class ship, the 6,000-metric ton Shenzhen entered service with the South Sea Fleet in 1999 and was then the largest and most advanced domestically made warship of the Navy for about five years until the first Type 052B destroyer, CNS Guangzhou, was commissioned in 2004.