Today's threats to warships from the air, surface and underwater will influence naval warfare theory for years or even decades to come
For air threats, multi-layered defense remains fundamental in naval warfare
where a close-in weapon system serves as a last line of defense
to detect and destroy incoming short-range missiles and enemy aircraft which have penetrated the outer defenses
Nearly all modern classes of warships today are equipped with some type of CIWS
On Chinese warships, it is common to be equipped with a very powerful domestic close-combat system, the Type 730 and its variants
The Type 730 or H/PJ12 is a 30 mm 7-barreled Gatling gun system mounted in an automatic turret and guided by radar and electro-optical tracking systems
The radar and fire control system are entirely domestically produced
The system's primary purpose is defense against anti-ship missiles, and other precision guided weapons
However, it can also be employed against fixed/rotary wing aircraft, ships and other small craft, coastal targets, and floating mines
The Type-730 looks exactly like the Dutch Goalkeeper CIWS
It is likely that China copied the design of the Goalkeeper
then replaced the Western weapons and radars with domestic Chinese versions
Another source confirmed that the Type-730 used many technologies taken from the French Sagem SAMOS system
The complete version was replaced by the domestic OFC-3 EO model
Type-730 is equipped with a TR47C radar, incorporating a total of 169 transceivers of phased array technology
that enables the radar to pick up the splashes of 30 mm rounds
Like the western CIWS, the information is processed on site, via local computers of the radar and the gun mount
thus providing faster reaction time than the Russian design in which the radar and fire control system are separately located
The system can track a sea-skimming target with 0.1 square metre radar cross section at 8 km
extended to 15 km if the radar cross section is increased to 2 square metres
and further extended to 20 km if the radar cross section is increased to 10 square metres
though the targets could not be engaged until much closer due to the limited range of the gun
The 30 mm Gatling gun mount is extremely similar to the General Electric GAU-8/A Avenger
Although there are sources claiming that it is the Chinese version of the Russian Gryazev-Shipunov GSh-6-30 Gatling gun
Type-730 has a maximum rate of fire of 5,800 rounds per minute, an effective range of 3 km
The radar can detect cruise missiles from a range of 8 km
That gives the Type-730 15-20 seconds to lock on and fire on subsonic missiles
This time will be much reduced if confronted with a supersonic missile
So far, the Type 730 has been fitted on China's new destroyers and may replace some Type 76 mounts on older combatants
A more advanced variant of the Type 730, the Type 1130, which first appeared on the Liaoning aircraft carrier
The Type 1130 inherits the 30 mm caliber of the Type 730 and has a total of 11 barrels, with a reported rate of fire of 11,000 rounds per minute
It is currently deployed on Shandong aircraft carrier, Type 055 destroyers, Type 075 landing helicopter dock
later variants of Type 052D destroyers and Type 054A frigates, and Type 051B destroyer