As the navy phases out its World War II-era Yang-class destroyers in favor of Kidd-class destroyers, it has also started to search for a replacement for its Knox-class frigates, defense sources said yesterday.
The navy has had eight Knox-class frigates in service since 1992. The frigates are equipped with the most effective anti-submarine warfare sensors that the navy has ever had at its disposal.
These frigates, built in the early 1970s, were already approaching their service ceiling of 20 to 30 years when the US delivered them to the navy between 1992 and 1998.
Though useable for a few more years, the Knox-class frigates are already spending much more time in port than at sea.
All the Knox-class frigates are based at the Suao military port.
A naval officer who spoke on condition of anonymity said many of the Knox frigates have developed serious mechanical problems, causing their patrol missions to have been greatly reduced.
"The No. 932 Chiyang, for instance, has become inoperable. Its problems are both mechanical and structural," the officer said.
"Other ships in the same class are not in much better shape. They are either short of spare parts or damaged in some vital way," he said.
A senior official serving with the navy general headquarters acknowledged that the Knox-class frigates are not in good condition but denied that the ships have become "beached wrecks."
"The combat readiness ratio of the Knox-class frigates is still over 50 percent, which is good in terms of ships of this age," the official said.
"We hope to use these ships for another four to six years. We are desperate to find a replacement for the Knox, but it is not easy to find one for the moment," the official said.
The navy is divided over what type of ship should be chosen to replace the Knox, sources said. One group favors smaller ships, of around 2,000 tonnes in displacement, while the other group argues that the navy needs a larger platform to accommodate not only old weapon systems from the Knox but also new ones that could be added. The Knox has a displacement of 3,877 tonnes.
If the navy chooses smaller ships, it might ask the state-run China Shipbuilding Corp (CSBC) to build the new vessels. This would be welcomed by local shipbuilders who would benefit from any contracts won by CSBC.
But the larger platform might win out because many in the navy don't want to wait for new ships to be constructed domestically, which would take many years and entail great cost. For these reasons, many in the navy are inclined to buy ships from the US second-hand market.
A group of Taiwanese-American and Tibetan-American students at Harvard University on Saturday disrupted Chinese Ambassador to the US Xie Feng’s (謝鋒) speech at the school, accusing him of being responsible for numerous human rights violations. Four students — two Taiwanese Americans and two from Tibet — held up banners inside a conference hall where Xie was delivering a speech at the opening ceremony of the Harvard Kennedy School China Conference 2024. In a video clip provided by the Coalition of Students Resisting the CCP (Chinese Communist Party), Taiwanese-American Cosette Wu (吳亭樺) and Tibetan-American Tsering Yangchen are seen holding banners that together read:
UNAWARE: Many people sit for long hours every day and eat unhealthy foods, putting them at greater risk of developing one of the ‘three highs,’ an expert said More than 30 percent of adults aged 40 or older who underwent a government-funded health exam were unaware they had at least one of the “three highs” — high blood pressure, high blood lipids or high blood sugar, the Health Promotion Administration (HPA) said yesterday. Among adults aged 40 or older who said they did not have any of the “three highs” before taking the health exam, more than 30 percent were found to have at least one of them, Adult Preventive Health Examination Service data from 2022 showed. People with long-term medical conditions such as hypertension or diabetes usually do not
POLICE INVESTIGATING: A man said he quit his job as a nurse at Taipei Tzu Chi Hospital as he had been ‘disgusted’ by the behavior of his colleagues A man yesterday morning wrote online that he had witnessed nurses taking photographs and touching anesthetized patients inappropriately in Taipei Tzu Chi Hospital’s operating theaters. The man surnamed Huang (黃) wrote on the Professional Technology Temple bulletin board that during his six-month stint as a nurse at the hospital, he had seen nurses taking pictures of patients, including of their private parts, after they were anesthetized. Some nurses had also touched patients inappropriately and children were among those photographed, he said. Huang said this “disgusted” him “so much” that “he felt the need to reveal these unethical acts in the operating theater
Heat advisories were in effect for nine administrative regions yesterday afternoon as warm southwesterly winds pushed temperatures above 38°C in parts of southern Taiwan, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said. As of 3:30pm yesterday, Tainan’s Yujing District (玉井) had recorded the day’s highest temperature of 39.7°C, though the measurement will not be included in Taiwan’s official heat records since Yujing is an automatic rather than manually operated weather station, the CWA said. Highs recorded in other areas were 38.7°C in Kaohsiung’s Neimen District (內門), 38.2°C in Chiayi City and 38.1°C in Pingtung’s Sandimen Township (三地門), CWA data showed. The spell of scorching