Thread by @tshugart3

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Ferries on the move: 7 PLA-associated ferries have departed their normal Yellow Sea routes & appear to be headed south to Fujian Province opposite Taiwan.
Seems pretty likely to me that these vessels are or will be taking part in a PLA exercise or operation, nature TBD.

Details: an anonymous tipster alerted me today that 6 Bo Hai Ferry Group roll-on/roll-off ferries departed the Yellow Sea & were headed south. I've confirmed that to be the case, and also found a 7th Bohai Ferry ro-ro cargo vessel already at anchor in Xiamen, opposite Taiwan.

You can see here the latest location reports for these vessels (some a few hours old). The red circles indicate unidentified (satellite-AIS) passenger vessels locations that I'd bet represent their current locations.

All 7 ferries are owned by the Bo Hai Ferry Group, which is organized as the Eighth Transport Group of the PRC Maritime Militia and whose ferries have on several occasions taken part in PLA amphibious assault and transport exercises. globaltimes.cn/page/202110/12…

As Michael Dahm discussed in his late-2021 report "Chinese Ferry Tales", we've seen as many as 6 ro-ro ferries take part in PLA exercises before—though they usually start such exercises with 2 or 3—so this looks to perhaps be at a new level. digital-commons.usnwc.edu/cmsi-maritime-…

A natural question here would be: is that a lot? How much could a half-dozen or so civilian ferries carry? In this thread from a few weeks ago, I attempted to use some rough calculations (and assumptions) to try to figure out that sort of question.

https://twitter.com/tshugart3/status/1553123026270576642

By my calculations, these 7 ro-ro's constitute roughly half of the Bo Hai Ferry Group's vessels by numbers & tonnage. Using calculations like those referenced above, I'd estimate these ships aggregate roughly 1.7M sq ft of transport capacity, perhaps enough for 3-4 PLA brigades.

So, what is this about?
First up, it doesn't look for now like preps for a Taiwan invasion - China's other ro-ro's seem to be on their normal routes, with no other obvious warning signs.
Based on previous PLA summer exercises, the timing is about right for one to kick off.

But we can't discount the possibility that an exercise could be rehearsal for or cover for a surprise kinetic operation. As I've said before, IMO the most likely would be a seizure of Pratas Island, though again we have no signs of that being imminent.

https://twitter.com/tshugart3/status/1301635333457457152

So, as usual we'll have to watch and see. Most likely, in a few weeks we'll read about an exercise in @globaltimesnews, with threats to Taiwan of fire and invasion should the Taiwanese government say the wrong thing, or should they or the the U.S. cross the wrong line.
TBD.

Update: one of the ro-ros, BO HAI HENG TONG, has left the anchorage and looks to be moored at Xiang'an. The wharf area looks like a commercial/industrial port with no specialized ferry landing. I'm guessing they're conducting onload/offload operations.

As for the other 6 ferries, 3 now appear to have stopped at the Jiangyin anchorage and the other 3 behind are still headed south.
Ferries engaged in commercial operations generally like to keep on the move (thus making money)—so this doesn't look like commercial operations to me.

Update: it looks like 2 of the three ferries (BO HAI YU ZHU and BO HAI JING ZHU) have now moored with their stern ramps to the wharf at the Jiangyin Port and are presumably conducted loading operations. BO HAI ZUAN ZHU looks like it's making its approach to the wharf now as well.

The port appears to also be an industrial/commercial port, with no sign of a ferry landing. It does have a railhead nearby, which would be useful for bringing in heavy vehicles by train to then transload onto ferries.

Here's a nice Sentinel shot of three of the ferries conducting loading operations at the Jiangyin wharf (h/t @rhynowu). Based on @MarineTraffic data, it looks like they were in port for about 9 hours total.

@rhynowu @MarineTraffic And here's a shot of BO HAI HENG TONG, which is now stationary off a beach near Gulei, SW of Xiamen. You can see a line of what might be wakes extending from the stern of the ship towards the shore, perhaps amphibious vehicles transiting to the beach as part of an exercise?

@rhynowu @MarineTraffic Update: looks like another vessel has joined the party - DA FENG GANG LI MING HAO, a 33K-ton vehicle carrier owned by Weihai Sheng An Shipping, seems to be operating in company with BO HAI HENG TONG and BO HAI CUI ZHU, all 3 transiting from Gulei to Shanwei (according to AIS).

It now looks like BO HAI CUI ZHU came all the way down from the yellow sea and stopped off of Gulei a bit later than BO HAI HENG TONG's nearby operations. Given that it was off a beach, I'm guessing it was also conducting landing operations as well.

On the topic of AIS information, several of the ferries involved have been transmitting their destination as Yantai (back home on the Yellow Sea), which is clearly false as they've been transiting the opposite direction for the duration of this operation.

Update: BO HAI CUI ZHU and BO HAI HENG TONG are now at the eastern edge of Honghai Bay, presumably in preparation for landing exercises. DA FENG GANG LI MING HAO has swung out to the west in Honghai Bay and is till underway with a Shanwei still listed as its destination.

Honghai Bay was the site of PLA amphibious assault exercises in 2020, so no big surprise here...globaltimes.cn/page/202011/12…

Back up the coast to the east, the other 5 ro-ro ferries appear to have stopped at Dacheng Bay, presumably for more exercises.

This is, again, a location where we've seen amphibious assault training, and in 2021 these exercises also involved civilian shipping.cimsec.org/civilian-shipp…

Update: BO HAI CUI ZHU and JING ZHU appear to have finished their operations at Honghai Bay and now show Xiamen as their destination. Same for BO HAI HENG TONG, except its stated next stop is Longkou, back home on the Yellow Sea.

Back to the northeast, the other 4 Bo Hai ferries appears to have finished operations at Dacheng Bay and headed back toward Xiamen; one of them appears to be headed home to Wei Hai on the Yellow Sea.

Well, it looks like the rest of the ro-ro ferries & vehicle carrier are all headed back to their normal Yellow Sea operating areas. So I think that's probably a wrap for what looks to have been a roughly week-long exercise. Interested to see if we hear something from PRC media...