The navy is reportedly considering building eight light patrol ships with displacements between 2,000 and 2,500 tonnes amid a delay in plans to update the nation’s fleet of guided missile frigates.
There are three types of warships in the Navy Command, classified by vessel size and commander rank. First are destroyers and patrol vessels led by a captain, followed by patrol ships larger than 1,000 tonnes led by a commander and smaller patrol boats led by a lieutenant commander.
However, ships fitting the second category are no longer in commission, requiring 500-tonne Ching Chiang-class patrol boats to assume the duties previously assigned to 1,000-tonne vessels.
Taiwan’s new Tuo Chiang-class corvettes also fall under the third and smallest category.
If the navy were to commission heavier, 2,000-tonne patrol ships, they could act as “sea warhorses,” said Shu Hsiao-huang (舒孝煌), an assistant research fellow at the Institute for National Defense and Security Research.
Tuo Chiang-class corvettes are meant for rapid combat and serve as launch sites for anti-ship missiles, Shu said in an interview on Saturday.
The 2,000-tonne patrol ships could better withstand challenging winter sea conditions in the Taiwan Strait and are more suited to cruising missions that would be expensive for 4,000-tonne vessels to carry out, Shu added.
Building ships is not a problem; the issue is their intended capabilities, retired navy Captain Yang Yu-sheng (楊于勝) said.
The Chungshan Institute of Science and Technology has clearly run into a bottleneck in its plan for the next generation of guided missile frigates, Yang said.
If it wants to build light patrol ships, they cannot be “super warships” equipped with a full suite of capabilities, he added.
Asked if the nation needs more healthy competition in military research and development, Yang said it depends on whether a market exists.
The military hardware industry has a high threshold for entry, and private academic institutions must also be willing to cooperate, he said.
Another analyst disagreed with the rumored plan, saying that the institute should instead purchase phased array radar and other key systems from the US.
Given the current strength of Taiwan-US relations, this should be the priority rather than building “barely usable” light cruisers, said Lu Li-shih (呂禮詩), a former instructor at the Republic of China Naval Academy and a former naval captain.
After all, modern patrol ships without vertical launch systems to fire anti-aircraft missiles or phased array radar could hardly stave off a saturation attack, he said.
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