The Ministry of National Defense has presented a report to the legislature outlining the current status on Perry-class frigates and the nation’s other arms procurement requests to the US, and confirmed the military’s plan to initiate a program for indigenously built submarines.
Deputy Minister of National Defense Andrew Hsia (夏立言) presented the report at the legislative session of the Foreign Affairs and National Defense Committee on Wednesday.
Hsia said the government has officially requested that Washington meet Taiwan’s defense needs and provide the nation with a total of eight weapons system packages, adding that the government has contacted US manufacturers to inquire about procurement details and prices.
Washington has approved the sale of Perry-class frigates the USS Taylor, USS Gary, USS Carr and USS Elrod to Taiwan. The government has budgeted NT$5.5 billion (US$174.8 million) to buy two Perry-class frigates, and any further purchases would depend on budget approval.
The military is planning to buy 36 AAV-7 assault amphibious vehicles from the US, which are used by Taiwan’s Marine Corps for troop transport, mechanized operations and combat support on island or shoreline landing situations.
Among the other arms procurement requests are ones for advanced Tactical Digital Information Link (TADIL) systems for coordinated communication and information exchange between tactical command centers, and Advanced Integrated Electronic Warfare System (AIEWS) systems, which are expected to be installed on the two Perry-class frigates.
Other requests include the Phalanx Closed-In Weapon Systems (CIWS) for frigates and destroyers, diesel-powered submarines, precision-guided bombs for F-16A/B jets and aerial mines, which would be dropped by the P-3C Orion marine patrol aircraft.
Six of the eight arms procurement packages are related to the Republic of China Navy and its Marine Corps.
At the committee meeting, officials also said that Taiwan’s four aging submarines need to be replaced to bolster the nation’s maritime defense and combat capabilities.
As the US has used nuclear submarines for the past two decades, the military said it is initiating a program for indigenous-built submarines, which would require core technology transfers from the US to Taiwan, and also the sale of needed components from US suppliers.
Officials said that weapons bought by the nation in the past decade have been successfully installed and are in operation, such as the US$1.38 billion long-range Surveillance Radar Program (SRP), and US$921 million worth of PAC-3 missiles.
The ministry also said that other US military purchases and technology transfers of previous years demonstrated a good bilateral relationship and had enhanced Taiwan’s defense capabilities, such as 30 AH-64 E Apache helicopters, UH-60M Black Hawk helicopters, and an upgrade of the Active Electronically Scanned Array (AESA) radar system for F-16A/B jets.
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