The navy yesterday established its first two minelaying squadrons, each armed with one minelayer, at the Zuoying Naval Base in Kaohsiung.
“These are the first minelaying squadrons established by the Republic of China Navy,” President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) said at a ceremony to mark the formation of the first and second minelaying squadrons under the 192nd Fleet. “I am glad we are able to witness this important moment together.”
Tsai said that the newly established forces show Taiwan’s achievement in building up its domestic defense industry and commitment to safeguarding the nation.
Photo: Taiwan Presidential Office via AP
The navy allocated NT$917.77 million (US$33.22 million) from 2017 to last year to build four rapid minelaying ships with the aim of enhancing Taiwan’s mine deployment capacity to better counter enemy threats.
Taiwanese manufacturer Lungteh Shipbuilding said that each minelayer is 41m long and 8.8m wide, and has a draft of 1.607m with a full-load displacement of 315 tonnes.
The minelayers are each armed with a T-75 20mm cannon on the bow, and a T-74 7.62mm machine gun and three mine-laying tracks on each side. The vessels are also equipped with an automatic mine-laying system developed by the Chungshan Institute of Science and Technology.
The ships, which can carry different types of mines, were delivered before the end of last year, but only two were put into active service yesterday.
The navy previously placed mines in the sea using landing ships, but that was not efficient and also potentially dangerous in choppy waters, Tsai said.
The minelayers built by Lungteh and equipped with the institute’s system would enable the navy to lay mines more efficiently and accurately, she said.
The Naval Fleet Command said the minelaying forces were established as part of the Ministry of National Defense’s efforts to bolster the nation’s asymmetric defense capabilities.
The new forces can collaborate with allies to jointly deter and delay the landing of enemy forces, it said.
Institute for National Defense and Security Research analyst Su Tzu-yun (蘇紫雲) said that mines are “cheap and highly effective denial weapons” that can disrupt an enemy’s advance and force their vessels to alter planned routes.
They can be also used in conjunction with anti-ship missiles to strengthen the country’s defense, he added.
The Ministry of Transportation and Communications yesterday inaugurated the Danjiang Bridge across the Tamsui River in New Taipei City, saying that the structure would be an architectural icon and traffic artery for Taiwan. Feted as a major engineering achievement, the Danjiang Bridge is 920m long, 211m tall at the top of its pylon, and is the longest single-pylon asymmetric cable-stayed bridge in the world, the government’s Web site for the structure said. It was designed by late Iraqi-British architect Zaha Hadid. The structure, with a maximum deck of 70m, accommodates road and light rail traffic, and affords a 200m navigation channel for boats,
PRECISION STRIKES: The most significant reason to deploy HIMARS to outlying islands is to establish a ‘dead zone’ that the PLA would not dare enter, a source said A High Mobility Artillery Rocket System (HIMARS) would be deployed to Penghu County and Dongyin Island (東引) in Lienchiang County (Matsu) to force the Chinese military to retreat at least 100km from the coastline, a military source said yesterday. Taiwan has been procuring HIMARS and Army Tactical Missile Systems (ATACMS) from the US in batches. Once all batches have been delivered, Taiwan would possess 111 HIMARS units and 504 ATACMS, which have a range of 300km. Considering that “offense is the best defense,” the military plans to forward-deploy the systems to outlying islands such as Penghu and Dongyin so that
Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電), the world’s largest foundry service provider, yesterday said that global semiconductor revenue is projected to hit US$1.5 trillion in 2030, after the figure exceeds US$1 trillion this year, as artificial intelligence (AI) demand boosts consumption of token and compute power. “We are still at the beginning of the AI revolution, but we already see a significant impact across the whole semiconductor ecosystem,” TSMC deputy cochief operating officer Kevin Zhang (張曉強) said at the company’s annual technology symposium in Hsinchu City. “It is fair to say that in the past decade, smartphones and other mobile devices were
‘CLEAR MESSAGE’: The bill would set up an interagency ‘tiger team’ to review sanctions tools and other economic options to help deter any Chinese aggression toward Taiwan US Representative Young Kim has introduced a bill to deter Chinese aggression against Taiwan, calling for an interagency “tiger team” to preplan coordinated sanctions and economic measures in response to possible Chinese military or political action against Taiwan. “[Chinese President] Xi Jinping [習近平] has directed the People’s Liberation Army to be ready to invade Taiwan by 2027. China has a plan. America should have one too,” Kim said in a news release on Thursday last week. She introduced the “Deter PRC [People’s Republic of China] aggression against Taiwan act” to “ensure the US has a coordinated sanctions strategy ready should
RSS