Taiwan is ready to produce its own submarines

With Taiwan's current military industry levels, now is the best time for Taiwan to develop and produce submarines on its own, a former defense industry leader said in a recent interview with the Taipei Times.

"We may have had an excuse for not being able to produce submarines on our own 10, 20 or 30 years ago. But now we don't have any excuse since our defense industry has been well developed for the task," said retired Vice Admiral Shen Fan-ping (沈方秤).

Shen, who had been the deputy director of the military's Chung Shan Institute of Science and Technology, said building submarines is really not very difficult. Chung Shan is responsible for developing high-tech weapons for the military.

"Submarines were first built during the American Civil War. They were later used extensively during World War II. It is really not that difficult to build submarines," Shen said.

"But if we want to develop our own submarine production capabilities, we must start with a simple design. If you had asked the US to start their submarine industry from sophisticated designs like the Russian-made Kilo-class submarine, the Americans would not have been able to build their submarine industry at all," he said.

"People might have doubts that our industry can make steel strong enough to be used for the hull of a submarine. [But] we must remember our enemy is China. We do not need to build a submarine that can dive 300m or 500m," he said.

"Our submarines' operation area will be mainly in the Taiwan Strait. The Strait only has a depth of around 100m."

Shen said both the Chung Shan and the China Shipbuilding Corp have acquired the capabilities to produce submarines.

"I did not dare to say so 10 years ago, as our precision machinery and software design industries were still not very developed. Now I can say boldly that our local industry has acquired the capability to produce submarines. All we need is a transfer of technology from abroad," Shen said.

"We hope that the government will entrust China Shipbuilding with the task of building submarines using technology transferred from the US. Chung Shan can develop combat systems for the subs at the same time."

At a recent press conference held at the legislature, China Shipbuilding's chiefs also expressed confidence in the company's capabilities of building submarines on its own.

"China Shipbuilding has been studying the construction of submarines for quite a long time. As long as we can get the submarine design from a foreign country, we can assemble the vessel in Taiwan," said China Shipbuilding chairman Yu Chen-nan (于辰南) at the press conference. "We can also take care of the follow-up repair and maintenance of the subs," Yu said.

President Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁) expressed the same wish on Wednesday when he met with a delegation of German congressmen in Taipei.

The president told the German congressmen that he hopes Germany will provide Type-209 submarine designs to Taiwan so that Taiwan can build eight subs on its own.

The main impediment preventing the local industry from building submarines seems to be a lack of capability to design submarines on its own.

But the navy has tried at least once before to design a submarine that would serve the underwater combat needs of Taiwan, a defense source told the Taipei Times.

The design was made around 10 years ago under a project code-named "Water Star."