China Built a Full-Scale, 3D Replica of a U.S. Destroyer in the Desert.
Its Newest Missile Can Now Reach Alaska.
New satellite imagery captured by the commercial firm Vantor and analyzed by AllSource Analysis shows China has built the most detailed target it has ever constructed at a missile-testing range deep in the Taklamakan Desert: a full-scale, three-dimensional replica of a U.S. Navy Arleigh Burke-class guided-missile destroyer. Joseph Wen, a Taipei-based open-source researcher and co-founder of the Taiwan Defense Studies Initiative, identified the structure from a May 11, 2026 satellite photograph. Every mock destroyer and mock carrier China has built at this range since 2021 has been flat and simplified. This one has a hull, a superstructure, and depth.
The site is the Ruoqiang test range in China’s Xinjiang province, and construction on the new replica began around October 2025, according to a satellite-record review by MarineInsight. It is not an isolated stunt. It is the newest addition to a target range the People’s Liberation Army has used for at least five years to build and refine mock American warships for anti-ship missile practice.
Three weeks before the earliest images of the new target appeared, the Pentagon published its annual assessment of China’s military and confirmed, for the first time, that China has fielded the world’s first operational, conventionally armed intercontinental ballistic missile with an anti-ship role — the DF-27, stated range 5,000 to 8,000 kilometers, far enough to reach Alaska, Hawaii, and part of the U.S. West Coast.
- 3Dfirst full three-dimensional mock warship at this rangeEvery prior Arleigh Burke and carrier mock-up since 2021 was flat and simplified — per Newsweek, MarineInsight.
- Oct. 2025when construction on the new replica beganPer a satellite-imagery review of the Ruoqiang site — per MarineInsight.
- 5,000–8,000 kmstated range of China's DF-27Far enough to strike Alaska, Hawaii, and part of the U.S. West Coast — per the Pentagon's Dec. 23, 2025 China Military Power report.
- $377.5Btotal U.S. Navy budget request, FY2027A 23% increase over the prior year — per naval-technology.com.
- 1Arleigh Burke-class destroyer funded in that FY2027 requestDown from 2 in FY26 and 3 in FY25 — per Sen. Susan Collins (R-ME).
- Since 2021China has built mock U.S. carrier and destroyer targets at this rangeFirst documented by USNI News.
The new replica is built to the approximate dimensions of a real Arleigh Burke — roughly 155 meters, or about 505 feet, matching the hull length of the Flight IIA and Flight III destroyers that make up the backbone of the U.S. surface fleet. Unlike the flat, painted-outline targets China has used at this range since 2021, the new structure has a modeled superstructure and hull form. Analysts told MarineInsight the upgrade fits a specific purpose: newer anti-ship weapons increasingly rely on shape-recognition and AI-assisted targeting rather than radar signature alone, and a flat outline cannot train or test that kind of terminal guidance the way a structurally accurate hull can.
Joseph Wen— Taipei-based open-source intelligence researcher and co-founder of the Taiwan Defense Studies Initiative. Identified the new 3D replica from a satellite photograph dated May 11, 2026.
Vantor— the American commercial satellite-imagery company that captured the photograph Wen used.
AllSource Analysis— the geospatial-intelligence firm that has analyzed mock warship targets at this same Ruoqiang range since at least 2021, and reviewed the new imagery.
Ruoqiang test range— a remote missile-testing site in the Taklamakan Desert, southeastern Xinjiang, operated by the People’s Liberation Army.
None of this is new in kind, only in fidelity. USNI News first documented mock American warship targets at this same desert complex in November 2021 — flat outlines shaped like a U.S. aircraft carrier and destroyers, tied to a roughly 20-foot-wide rail system stretching about 12 miles that lets the PLA move a target and simulate a maneuvering ship. That infrastructure exists to test the DF-21D and DF-26, the anti-ship ballistic missiles China has spent more than a decade developing specifically to hold U.S. carriers and destroyers at risk in the Western Pacific.
What is new is that the PLA judged a flat outline no longer good enough. Wen has been tracking this range for years, and when asked about the significance of the newest, most detailed target yet, he did not describe it as a curiosity.
“The message that they are sending is China is always preparing for war.”
Joseph Wen, Taiwan Defense Studies Initiative — via CNN
The desert replica is one data point. The Pentagon’s December 2025 assessment is another, and together they describe the same trend line. The Department of Defense’s 2025 Annual Report to Congress on China’s military, released December 23, concluded that China is the first nation publicly assessed to field an operational, conventionally armed intercontinental ballistic missile: the DF-27. Unlike the shorter-range DF-21D and DF-26 tested at ranges like Ruoqiang, the DF-27’s stated 5,000-to-8,000-kilometer reach covers not just the Western Pacific but Alaska, Hawaii, and part of the continental United States.
The finding: China has fielded the first publicly assessed operational, conventionally armed ICBM — the DF-27 — with an anti-ship variant.
The range: 5,000 to 8,000 kilometers, at the low end of the ICBM band but far beyond the DF-21D and DF-26.
What it can reach: Alaska, Hawaii, and part of the U.S. West Coast, according to the Pentagon’s own report.
What it does not say: The Pentagon report does not state that the DF-27 is being tested against the Ruoqiang destroyer replica specifically. The two facts — a more realistic target and a longer-range missile — are documented separately and are presented here as parallel evidence of the same strategic direction, not as a single confirmed test program.
The Vantor imagery, the October 2025 construction date, and the Ruoqiang location are corroborated across Newsweek, MarineInsight, and Bloomberg. Daily Wire’s July 15, 2026 report goes further, describing roughly 20 mock aircraft at the same desert complex — destroyed F-22 models, F-16 replicas, and F-35 mockups — along with what it describes as a recreation of Yokosuka Naval Base, Japan, the largest forward-deployed American naval installation in the Pacific.
Daily Wire additionally reported roughly 20 mock aircraft split into two groups — four destroyed F-22 models, four F-16 replicas, and six F-35 mockups — plus a recreation of Yokosuka Naval Base. No other outlet reviewed for this story confirms those specific details. They are presented here only as Daily Wire’s reporting, not as independently verified fact.
One thing is consistently confirmed across every outlet: no named Pentagon spokesperson has addressed this specific imagery. Bloomberg reported that neither China’s Defense Ministry nor the U.S. Department of Defense responded to its request for comment. This story does not attribute a quote to either government beyond what each has already put on the record elsewhere.
The Department of the Navy submitted its FY2027 budget request in April 2026 asking for $377.5 billion — a 23% increase, and roughly $65.8 billion of it for shipbuilding. Chief of Naval Operations Adm. Daryl Caudle called it “a definitive order to shift our Navy from a peacetime posture to a warfighting footing.” Buried in that record request, though, is a single Arleigh Burke-class destroyer — down from two in FY2026 and three in FY2025.
Sen. Susan Collins (R-ME), chair of the Senate Appropriations Committee, put the comparison in writing on May 21, 2026: “The Fiscal Year 27 budget request, however, includes funding for only one DDG-51, compared to two in Fiscal Year 26, and three in Fiscal Year 25.” She has pressed Navy officials to commit to no fewer than two destroyers a year to keep shipyards, including Bath Iron Works in her home state, on a stable production line.
Acting Secretary of the Navy Hung Cao has pointed to a construction backlog at Bath as the reason the Navy requested only one hull. Collins has separately noted China’s navy now approaches 400 ships against roughly 291 for the United States.
None of that is a claim that the desert replica and the destroyer count are causally linked. It is simply the two facts sitting side by side: the same class of ship China is refining new ways to target is the same class of ship the U.S. is currently funding at its slowest rate in three years.
China has spent five years building increasingly realistic targets shaped like American warships in a desert missile range, and the newest one — a full-scale, three-dimensional Arleigh Burke replica — is the most detailed yet. The Pentagon’s own December 2025 assessment confirms Beijing has separately fielded a missile capable of reaching Alaska and Hawaii. Neither government will discuss the imagery on the record. The Navy’s own FY2027 budget, meanwhile, funds one new destroyer of the exact class China keeps rehearsing how to sink.
