In the growing arms race between the Gog-Magog alliance (Russia, China, Iran and their allies) vs. the alliance led by the modern nations of the ten tribes of Israel (USA, UK, many NATO nations and their global allies), many tend to forget Taiwan. I recall when it was usually called Nationalist China years ago, and it has no desire to be taken-over or conquered by the Chinese Communist nation on mainland China. Since Communist China is so aggressive in expanding its military, Taiwan has to pay attention to its own national defense.
The Taiwanese navy has just deployed a new class of Corvette which has been called a “carrier-killer” due to its armament and design. While China has been building weaponry to attack and sink US carriers, Taiwan has built a warship which can sink China’s lone carrier (or, potentially, any other ship in the Chinese navy). The new Taiwanese Corvette is not a large vessel, but it has impressive weaponry and speed. Its twin-hull design makes it both fast and stealthy. I would also suggest that its small size and shallow draft means that it is also less vulnerable to torpedoes. It carries both sub-sonic and super-sonic cruise missiles and other modern weaponry. I noticed that photos of the new warship indicate that it has a contoured, sleek superstructure design which makes it stealthy on enemy radars. As a sidebar, the US Navy’s modern ships feature similar contoured, stealthy superstructure designs. Many older and obsolescent warships bristle with exposed guns, weapons, missiles, etc. which jut out from the superstructure of the ship. Russia’s Cold War warships especially have many exposed and outward-jutting weapons systems. Having a lot of protruding weapons systems on a warship does a good job of projecting “soft power” when entering a port, but that design also makes such warships show up on enemy radars like an 18-wheeler on a police radar gun.
Taiwan intends to build up to twelve of these new Corvettes, and also purchase up to four modern US frigates as Taiwan expands and modernizes its navy. These three links offer varying perspectives on this new class of Taiwanese warship. While the US Navy has been steadily shrinking in recent decades, and the USA’s war planners don’t seem to have yet recognized China’s military build-up as the threat it really is; the nations located near China cannot overlook the Chinese military build-up and they have no choice but to expand their own militaries as well. By building a new class of warships that is small, fast and stealthy as well as armed with many weapons, Taiwan is building warships about which Communist China has to be concerned.
My thanks to a reader who informed me about this development.
- http://news.usni.org/2014/12/24/taiwan-navy-takes-delivery-first-stealth-carrier-killer-corvette
- http://www.businessinsider.com/taiwan-navy-stealth-missile-warship-corvette-2014-12
- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tuo_Chiang_class_corvette
