"China’s Secret Weapon for Taiwan Invasion? Meet the Shuiqiao Bridge Barges" - by CWP alum Andrew Erickson
China’s new bridge-barges are purpose-built for an amphibious invasion of Taiwan. In a contemporary echo of the Allied construction of the Mulberry artificial harbors to support the 1944 D-Day Invasion, they embody the seriousness with which China under Xi is pursuing absorption of Taiwan. So far, at least two sets of three variants have been observed: Shuiqiao-185, Shuiqiao-135, Shuiqiao-110—so named for their hull length (with the bridge stowed), as measured in open-source commercial imagery. These self-propelled landing platform utility (LPU) barges, with their telescoping Bailey bridges, can link together in lines of up to at least three to produce a 2,690-foot (820 m) relocatable pier. This article draws on the leading extant analysis, published by J. Michael Dahm and Thomas Shugart through the Naval War College’s China Maritime Studies Institute (CMSI). It addresses the Shuiqiaos’ genesis, strengths, weaknesses, and utility in the context of potential operational scenarios and public speculation thereto.
Shuiqiao Bridge Barges: What We Know
The Mulberrys of World War II were a joint Anglo-American effort to create a protected mobile pontoon causeway system by which to unload ship-transported vehicles ashore. Mulberry A and B variants were designed and constructed largely by the British. U.S. Navy Seabees subsequently assembled them prior to the Normandy landings, during which they were towed into position off the invasion beachheads.
Today’s Shuiqiao barges, like the PLA-controlled ferries that would feed military vehicles through them, are not designed to be used during the initial assault phase against an opposing force, but rather as an enabler for the follow-on echelons. Like the Mulberrys, because of their vulnerability, they would be best employed only after a beachhead lodgment has been secured, in locations were the PLA Army and/or Marines already had solid, if not complete, control.
Dr. Andrew S. Erickson (艾立信) is Professor of Strategy (tenured full professor) in NWC’s China Maritime Studies Institute. A core founding member, he helped establish CMSI and stand it up officially in 2006 and has played an integral role in its development; from 2021–23 he served as Research Director. CMSI inspired the creation of other research centers, which he has advised and supported; he is a China Aerospace Studies Institute Associate. Since 2008 he has been an Associate in Research at Harvard’s Fairbank Center. Erickson has taught courses at NWC and Yonsei University, advises NWC student research and curricula and supports NWC’s scholarly research relations with Japanese counterparts.
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