“In addition to promoting the domestic building of ships according to the plan, the Ministry of National Defense also looks ahead to future naval combat needs and develops combat systems, electronic-warfare systems and sonar in parallel.” “The current shipbuilding programs are implemented in accordance with the planned schedule,” the ministry stated. In its annual report, the defense ministry stressed the importance of evolutionary development-acquiring increasingly complex warships while working toward the goal of producing indigenous surface combatants. In just the last decade the firm has built for the ROCN a new, 21,000-ton supply ship, a 10,000-ton assault ship and several new minelayers and corvettes.Ī frigate, with its complex sensors and weaponry, is a whole other thing, and officials in Taipei know it. Taiwanese shipbuilder CSBC is getting pretty good at making hulls. It’s for that reason that the Chungshan Institute of Science and Technology, Taiwan’s main weapons-development agency, is designing the new frigate around a missile system. Boosting the fleet’s air-defense capacity is a top priority. Thus it’s problematic that of the 26 frigates and destroyers in the ROCN fleet, just four-the ex- Kidds-possess long-range surface-to-air missiles, American SM-2s with a range between 40 and 90 miles. It’s hard to overestimate the importance of these surface combatants to Taiwanese naval doctrine-and the danger they would face from anti-ship missiles in a direct clash with the huge, heavily armed Chinese fleet.
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