The Endeavor Manta, Taiwan’s first military-specification uncrewed surface vehicle (USV) tailor-made to operate in the Taiwan Strait in a bid to bolster the nation’s asymmetric combat capabilities made its first appearance at Kaohsiung’s Singda Harbor yesterday.
Taking inspiration from Ukraine’s navy, which is using USVs to force Russia’s Black Sea fleet to take shelter within its own ports, CSBC Taiwan (台灣國際造船) established a research and development unit on USVs last year, CSBC chairman Huang Cheng-hung (黃正弘) said.
With the exception of the satellite guidance system and the outboard motors — which were purchased from foreign companies that were not affiliated with Chinese-funded or Chinese-owned supply chains — the rest of the USV was produced in Taiwan, he said.
Photo: CNA
The ship uses a trimaran hull for better balance in choppy seas and is designed for low observability. It is 8.6m long and 3.7m wide, can carry up to 1 tonne of payload — including lightweight torpedoes and high-powered explosives — and has a top speed of 35 knots (64.8kph), Huang said.
The vessel can alternate between 4G networks, radio frequency or satellite guidance for remote control when its signal is interrupted, he said.
The ship is programmed to automatically return to its designated home port and would self-destruct if seized by another party, he added.
The USV has in-built settings for multiple USVs to operate together, collision prevention, artificial intelligence-assisted target acquisition and anti-ship hijacking, Huang said.
The Yushan-class landing platform dock, for example, can carry about 20 USVs, he said, adding that a single control station can control up to 50 USVs.
CSBC said it would not be attending the Chungshan Institute of Science and Technology USV contest involving the institute’s project Kuai Chi (快奇), as it would have its hands full with the development of the Endeavor Manta, which was so named because the designers took inspiration from the manta’s camouflage abilities and the comparably severe sting compared with its size.
Meanwhile, the Chinese-language Liberty Times (sister newspaper of the Taipei Times) reported yesterday that the first F-16 block 70 jets have completed tests would be turned over to Taiwan in Greenville, South Carolina, on Friday.
As of press time last night, neither the air force nor the Ministry of National Defense had commented on the report.
The ministry on March 13 said that it would send a deputy minister to the event, while the air force said it would send its deputy chief of staff.
Additional reporting by Fang Wei-li and Chen Chih-cheng
‘ABUSE OF POWER’: Lee Chun-yi allegedly used a Control Yuan vehicle to transport his dog to a pet grooming salon and take his wife to restaurants, media reports said Control Yuan Secretary-General Lee Chun-yi (李俊俋) resigned on Sunday night, admitting that he had misused a government vehicle, as reported by the media. Control Yuan Vice President Lee Hung-chun (李鴻鈞) yesterday apologized to the public over the issue. The watchdog body would follow up on similar accusations made by the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) and would investigate the alleged misuse of government vehicles by three other Control Yuan members: Su Li-chiung (蘇麗瓊), Lin Yu-jung (林郁容) and Wang Jung-chang (王榮璋), Lee Hung-chun said. Lee Chun-yi in a statement apologized for using a Control Yuan vehicle to transport his dog to a
BEIJING’S ‘PAWN’: ‘We, as Chinese, should never forget our roots, history, culture,’ Want Want Holdings general manager Tsai Wang-ting said at a summit in China The Mainland Affairs Council (MAC) yesterday condemned Want Want China Times Media Group (旺旺中時媒體集團) for making comments at the Cross-Strait Chinese Culture Summit that it said have damaged Taiwan’s sovereignty, adding that it would investigate if the group had colluded with China in the matter and contravened cross-strait regulations. The council issued a statement after Want Want Holdings (旺旺集團有限公司) general manager Tsai Wang-ting (蔡旺庭), the third son of the group’s founder, Tsai Eng-meng (蔡衍明), said at the summit last week that the group originated in “Chinese Taiwan,” and has developed and prospered in “the motherland.” “We, as Chinese, should never
‘A SURVIVAL QUESTION’: US officials have been urging the opposition KMT and TPP not to block defense spending, especially the special defense budget, an official said The US plans to ramp up weapons sales to Taiwan to a level exceeding US President Donald Trump’s first term as part of an effort to deter China as it intensifies military pressure on the nation, two US officials said on condition of anonymity. If US arms sales do accelerate, it could ease worries about the extent of Trump’s commitment to Taiwan. It would also add new friction to the tense US-China relationship. The officials said they expect US approvals for weapons sales to Taiwan over the next four years to surpass those in Trump’s first term, with one of them saying
INDO-PACIFIC REGION: Royal Navy ships exercise the right of freedom of navigation, including in the Taiwan Strait and South China Sea, the UK’s Tony Radakin told a summit Freedom of navigation in the Indo-Pacific region is as important as it is in the English Channel, British Chief of the Defence Staff Admiral Tony Radakin said at a summit in Singapore on Saturday. The remark came as the British Royal Navy’s flagship aircraft carrier, the HMS Prince of Wales, is on an eight-month deployment to the Indo-Pacific region as head of an international carrier strike group. “Upholding the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea, and with it, the principles of the freedom of navigation, in this part of the world matters to us just as it matters in the
RSS