Posted on 12/26/2013 1:08:02 PM PST by sukhoi-30mki
Taipei, Dec. 26 (CA) The United States has begun delivery of submarine-launched Harpoon missiles this year, the Ministry of National Defense (MND) has said in a report to the Legislative Yuan.
The anti-ship cruise missiles will become operational on Taiwan's two Dutch-built combat-capable submarines, the Tuesday report said.
The NT$5.87 billion (US$195.46 million) deal, to be fulfilled between 2008 and 2016, is aimed at extending the country's undersea force's strike capability, the MND said.
The deal reportedly includes 32 UGM-84L sub-launched Harpoon Block II missiles along with two UTM-84L exercise missiles and two weapon control systems, according to media coverage.
The supersonic sea-skimming missiles, which have a range of about 125 kilometers, would bring targets along the Chinese coast within range for Taiwan, the media has said.
The MND sent its report to the Legislature's Foreign Affairs and National Defense Committee a day before Deputy Defense Minister Andrew Hsia was scheduled to report on Taiwan-U.S. military exchanges and progress in Taiwan's arms procurement projects.
The MND report outlined plans to upgrade all three of Taiwan's Patriot-II anti-missile batteries and purchase three Patriot III batteries between 2007 and 2021 at a cost of more than NT$179 billion.
Two of the three batteries have been upgraded to date, the report said.
The upgrading of the Patriot anti-missile batteries is expected to improve Taiwan's capability to fend off a ballistic missile attack by China, it added.
Meanwhile, new military aircraft will soon take to Taiwan's skies as the country has begun taking delivery of new fixed-wing maritime patrol aircraft along with attack and utility helicopters.
The MND report said US$7.6 billion worth of new equipment and aircraft designed to beef up Taiwan's defense has begun filling arsenals this year, the report said.
The list includes 12 refurbished Lockheed Martin P-3C Orion maritime patrol aircraft, 30 Boeing AH-64E Apache Longbow attack helicopters, and 60 Sikorsky UH-60M Black Hawk utility helicopters.
Three P-3C Orion maritime patrol aircraft and six Apache attack helicopters have already been delivered and UH-60M utility helicopters are set to start arriving in November 2014, the report said.
Looking ahead, the MND said Taiwan could face more hurdles in procuring advanced weapons and military equipment from the U.S. as Washington-Beijing relations continue to get closer.
The military will therefore continue to push for a transfer of production technologies and know-how from the U.S. under various industrial cooperation programs to enable Taiwanese production of weapons and equipment, it said.
If Taiwan really wants to keep its independence from Beijing, it should follow the Swiss model.
Send every military conscript home with his rifle and some ammunition. Bring them back every 1-2 years for training and updates.
They are going to need a LOT more than 32 missiles.
They need to start their own missile program.
South Korea, Japan, Philippines and Taiwan need to start their own joint-ventures to build some advanced weapons.
maybe Australia and New Zealand could join in
Well, somebody’s gonna be fired. This definitely is contrary to the Obama Regime’s policy of making Taiwan defenseless to China.
I don’t think the Harpoon is supersonic. It’s a subsonic turbojet-powered missile ...
It is ridiculous and unsustainable that Taiwan has but two subs.
It is reckless.
“I don’t think the Harpoon is supersonic. It’s a subsonic turbojet-powered missile ...”
It’s not necessarily the weapon but how the weapon is used. Even obsolete weapons can be useful if employed properly.
Having said that I agree with the poster who said every country facing China’s aggression needs their own advanced weapons program. The US can’t face off a country holding our purse strings. India, S. Korea and Taiwan would make good partners.
Taiwan’s best defense against a naval invasion is surprisingly low tech: to produce very large numbers of small naval drift mines.
Naval mines are historically very deadly to shipping and can deny large stretches of ocean. They could be given fairly complex programming with mass produced devices the size of a wristwatch. And after a given length of time they could be programmed to harmlessly sink.
Several hundred thousand such mines could make the Taiwan Strait impassable for weeks or months, far beyond the timetable of an naval invasion.
Taiwan needs at least 10 subs, even if they are mini-subs.
they need a vendor so sell them some. the PRC probably won’t sell any of its subs, nor wants any of its debtors or trading partners to either..
Not so easy. The strategic area of the Taiwan Strait has about the same area as West Virginia, and, as the expression goes, “You can’t shovel a hole in a lake.”
That is, if you popped nukes in there, they would have to be large enough to make a corridor for ships, but the onrush of water and the strong current in the strait would negate any gap quickly, by bringing in more mines.
Plus, you would be creating a lot of fallout, in this case, radioactive particle-containing water droplets, that would precipitate on your own ships.
The US recently got a horrific example of this when the USS Ronald Reagan got a “snow-out” of radioactive snow from the Fukushima nuclear plant, and even this low level of fallout is causing dozens of casualties. A Taiwan Strait detonation(s) would cause much worse fallout than that, and would cripple or outright kill many ships crews, and faster.
Ironically, mines of this sort would be unlikely to sink ships immediately, but they would certainly disable them and slow them down to a crawl. Multiple hits are a possibility, and could sink ships.
But it is an effort of scale.
A related and just as deadly an effort by the Taiwanese would be to make hundreds of thousands of expendable UAVs, that could be launched in a vast armada to attack a flotilla of a thousand ships, decimating them.
Such aircraft would have to fly less than a hundred miles, each carrying (optimally) a 250 pound bomb. Minimal electronics, even using tubes, that are far less susceptible to electronic countermeasures. If they detect a ship, they attack it. If they don’t detect a ship, they attack the enemy coast or ports, from which the mainland has likely already launched thousands of its own missiles, which are currently positioned there to attack Taiwan.
This is a kind of warfare that hasn’t been used in a while, because in the balance between quantity and quality, the world has moved too far in the direction of quality. This means that the battlefield advantage, in at least one major battle, favors quantity.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.