The first two of four Kidd-class destroyers are due to be delivered and commissioned into service in December, the Ministry of National Defense said yesterday.
"The first two Kidd-class destroyers have finished renovations and are combat-ready. The two destroyers are undergoing a live-fire drill under the inspection of our navy and the US navy. The two warships will return to Taiwan after they complete testing of SM-2 missiles in October," said Rear Admiral Lee Hao (
Lee said that more than 1,000 sailors have spent eleven months training in Deytens, South Carolina to man the warships.
PHOTO COURTESY ROC NAVY
A Chinese-language newspaper yesterday reported that the navy had initially proposed the testing of two SM-2 missiles on each of the four vessels to verify their multi-target-engagement capability.
However, to save money, the navy has decided that each warship will test only one SM-2 missile.
The paper said that one SM-2 costs US$1.2 million, and that the navy is unable to afford test-firing eight missiles.
The report also questioned whether the Kidd-class destroyers would be properly tested on their multi-target-engagement capabilities if only one missile was to be launched from each vessel.
In response to the report, Lee said that the significance of the Kidd-class destroyers lay in their "direct role" in a conflict, not their anti-missile capability.
"If the enemy launched a large-scale missile attack on our military, the navy's Lafayette-class frigates, Perry-class frigates and Knox-class frigates would be responsible for destroying missiles, while the Kidd-class destroyers would hold a distance from that conflict to attack the enemy's jet fighters after they launch their missiles and ascend," he said.
The ministry said the two Kidd-class destroyers performed well at this year's computer-simulation war games, with the two vessels attracting most enemy fire, yet destroying 19 short-range ballistic missiles and 16 jet fighters.
The ministry said that Suao's (
The US sold the four vessels to Taiwan in 2001. The other ships should be delivered between next year and 2007.
A crowd of over 200 people gathered outside the Taipei District Court as two sisters indicted for abusing a 1-year-old boy to death attended a preliminary hearing in the case yesterday afternoon. The crowd held up signs and chanted slogans calling for aggravated penalties in child abuse cases and asking for no bail and “capital punishment.” They also held white flowers in memory of the boy, nicknamed Kai Kai (剴剴), who was allegedly tortured to death by the sisters in December 2023. The boy died four months after being placed in full-time foster care with the
A Taiwanese woman on Sunday was injured by a small piece of masonry that fell from the dome of St Peter’s Basilica in the Vatican during a visit to the church. The tourist, identified as Hsu Yun-chen (許芸禎), was struck on the forehead while she and her tour group were near Michelangelo’s sculpture Pieta. Hsu was rushed to a hospital, the group’s guide to the church, Fu Jing, said yesterday. Hsu was found not to have serious injuries and was able to continue her tour as scheduled, Fu added. Mathew Lee (李世明), Taiwan’s recently retired ambassador to the Holy See, said he met
The Shanlan Express (山嵐號), or “Mountain Mist Express,” is scheduled to launch on April 19 as part of the centennial celebration of the inauguration of the Taitung Line. The tourism express train was renovated from the Taiwan Railway Corp’s EMU500 commuter trains. It has four carriages and a seating capacity of 60 passengers. Lion Travel is arranging railway tours for the express service. Several news outlets were invited to experience the pilot tour on the new express train service, which is to operate between Hualien Railway Station and Chihshang (池上) Railway Station in Taitung County. It would also be the first tourism service
A BETRAYAL? It is none of the ministry’s business if those entertainers love China, but ‘you cannot agree to wipe out your own country,’ the MAC minister said Taiwanese entertainers in China would have their Taiwanese citizenship revoked if they are holding Chinese citizenship, Mainland Affairs Council (MAC) Minister Chiu Chui-cheng (邱垂正) said. Several Taiwanese entertainers, including Patty Hou (侯佩岑) and Ouyang Nana (歐陽娜娜), earlier this month on their Weibo (微博) accounts shared a picture saying that Taiwan would be “returned” to China, with tags such as “Taiwan, Province of China” or “Adhere to the ‘one China’ principle.” The MAC would investigate whether those Taiwanese entertainers have Chinese IDs and added that it would revoke their Taiwanese citizenship if they did, Chiu told the Chinese-language Liberty Times (sister paper
RSS