Taiwan Military News, Reports, Data, etc.

Norfolk said:

And that seems to be the chief characteristic of Taiwan's strategic and military situation - lack of determination, even apathy it almost seems. It was abundantly clear even a decade ago that much of Taiwan's kit needed either serious upgrading or outright replacement, and in sufficient quantity. Instead, Parliament dithered for several years, and even what has finally been approved is only a fraction of what is needed, and it will take a very long time to get much of that.

Click to expand...

You must realize that Taiwan simply cannot win an arms race. They're walking a fine line between maintaining a reasonable deterrent and keeping cross-straight relations on track.

If they attempt a massive build up then:
1) the mainland can match Taiwan's spending 10 to 1,
2) Taiwan's business interests in the PRC would be damaged.

The second factor is probably more important than the first, believe it or not. The cheap goods that used to be made in Taiwan are increasingly being made by Taiwanese-owned factories on the mainland ("transplants"). The suburbs of Shanghai are full of wealthy Taiwanese businessmen. And wealthy businesspeople have a lot of political clout. They like the status quo and exert influence to make sure it isn't upset by increased tensions.

... Ami.

AmiGanguli said:

You must realize that Taiwan simply cannot win an arms race. They're walking a fine line between maintaining a reasonable deterrent and keeping cross-straight relations on track.

Click to expand...

Actually that seems to be problem for ROC military, rather than building a deterrent and defense force against invasion threat, it seems that they're rather maintaining forces for arms race. Astounding number of surface combatants, large fighter force, quite large army, all this tells that it seems that ROC military leadership is stuck into age when ROC could reasonably expect to outmatch PRC quality hardware.

IMHO, the more reasonable route would be to build an asymmetric force (no, I'm not talking about Kalashikov's and IED's) to counter PRC threat and to form a deterrence. This would be harder to match for PRC as well. Subs, SSM's, robust air defense system (whether based in SAM's or interceptors), an army capable of throwing landing back to the sea as well as countering special forces threat. Additionally, ROC is years ahead of PRC in various electronics fields and has an extremely well educated population. These factors are strength for a defense using various high-tech means instead of mass.

As for my final comment on ROC subs, ROC is a nation with fine engineers, good scientists and well established machine industry.
They also have foreign sonars and torpedoes to study for. If they really wanted to, they could build subs. It's not an unreasonable commitment for their defense budget. Sweden has maintained sub industry for decades with smaller budget.

FuManChu said:

Where did we talk about the Hans? I thought we were on conventionally-powered submarines.

Click to expand...

So what really is the difference? China's first truly indigenous sub went all the way to a streamlined nuclear sub. And they did that without any Soviet help or from anyone else. And that's from a ship building industry still coping with the effects of the Cultural Revolution. So tell me, is making a conventional submarine no less harder, with a ship industry now at least 4 decades in advance over the ship industry at that time that built the Han? And this is for a sub, where 90% of the plan is accounted for (according to Bryan C in the CDF), not 80%. Not hard to figure out the remaining 10%---like the Zvaardis, Japan's Harushio is another Barbel class descendant.

As for engines and sonars, you can always claim dual use like China, and maintain sources as being classified, or use plausible deniability.

I just don't see the excuses why Taiwan cannot build a sub on its own.

crobato said:

So what really is the difference? China's first truly indigenous sub went all the way to a streamlined nuclear sub. And they did that without any Soviet help or from anyone else. And that's from a ship building industry still coping with the effects of the Cultural Revolution. So tell me, is making a conventional submarine no less harder, with a ship industry now at least 4 decades in advance over the ship industry at that time that built the Han? And this is for a sub, where 90% of the plan is accounted for (according to Bryan C in the CDF), not 80%. Not hard to figure out the remaining 10%---like the Zvaardis, Japan's Harushio is another Barbel class descendant.

As for engines and sonars, you can always claim dual use like China, and maintain sources as being classified, or use plausible deniability.

I just don't see the excuses why Taiwan cannot build a sub on its own.

Click to expand...

It's the technical aspects of integrating all the equipment together that is the issue. There are only a handful of nations that have expertise in sub building. For nations that wish to design and build their own subs from scratch without that expertise means that they have to learn all the lessons that experienced sub makers already know. Even with major assistance, things don't work out the way they should. The Australian Collins class submarines are perhaps the best example; the Aussies built and designed their own submarines, with major technical assistance from Sweden, but the end product, although on paper, capable and advanced, was in reality a mess in terms of systems integration, bugs, delays and cost overruns. The end result was subs that were not combat ready and potentially hazardous to their crews until a major refit was undertaken immediately after introduction to service. The Aussies are just throwing money at the problems with the subs to make problems go away.

And yet despite all that, the Collins did get honed down to a fine sub, showing up well even against CSGs and LA class subs. Every project is going to have all sorts of teething problems, so? There is no glory without pain. All those problems are no excuse if you consider that project fundamental to the national interest. No justification to a defeatist, all "but" attitude.

crobato said:

And yet despite all that, the Collins did get honed down to a fine sub, showing up well even against CSGs and LA class subs.

Click to expand...

Again, crobato, you're ignoring the fact the Australians were able to import whatever technology or engineering requirements they needed. Plus their budget is much larger (the equivalent of US$19 billion this year) so they've got spare cash to do that sort of work. Taiwan can't just double its defence spending, especially given it's already been going up by a fair amount.

Well if Taiwan actually wants to truly defend itself, what you are saying is not an excuse either. The Collins was imported yes, but so was the Zvaardis, and you have 90% already of what is needed to build the sub. All you have to do is the remaining 10%. What is that hard to do? Taiwan has a GDP greater than Australia, certainly has much greater financial reserves. Let me remind you again that nothing can derail the PLAN more than anything else but submarines. You spend over a billion for one AEGIS destroyer or the same amount of money for three diesel subs, and you have much better chances on the latter.

Once you are building the sub locally, you have much greater control of its cost. Mind you, a Type 214 or Scorpene right now ain't cheap. A modern state of the art diesel sub can cost at least 300 to 500 million dollars now. Once you are building them locally, the money spent is just circulating within the economy, and you have control of future development.

crobato said:

Well if Taiwan actually wants to truly defend itself, what you are saying is not an excuse either. The Collins was imported yes, but so was the Zvaardis, and you have 90% already of what is needed to build the sub. All you have to do is the remaining 10%. What is that hard to do? Taiwan has a GDP greater than Australia, certainly has much greater financial reserves. Let me remind you again that nothing can derail the PLAN more than anything else but submarines. You spend over a billion for one AEGIS destroyer or the same amount of money for three diesel subs, and you have much better chances on the latter.

Once you are building the sub locally, you have much greater control of its cost. Mind you, a Type 214 or Scorpene right now ain't cheap. A modern state of the art diesel sub can cost at least 300 to 500 million dollars now. Once you are building them locally, the money spent is just circulating within the economy, and you have control of future development.

Click to expand...

It is technical resources that become problematic. The expertise to build high end subs is only in the hands of a few nations. Your going to have to locally learn from scratch all the lessons that someone else learned because most likely, they will not be willing to give you all the lessons. And with those lessons come major headaches, problems, cost overruns, and maybe even loss of life.

Local production can significantly cause major cost overruns. Canada went for local production for its old army jeep, the Iltis. Had they been purchased straight from Germany, where the production facilities were, they would have cost $26,000 bucks each. Due to the licensed production requirement, the price shot up to $81,000 per jeep. The only export customer for the Canadian built Iltis was Belgium, and they only ordered a few, then the production line was closed. This was not very fiscally responsible, so the new jeeps that replaced them, the Mercedes-Benz G-Wagen, they were ordered straight from the factory in Austria, skipping local production.

We're not starting with a high end sub. What you got is essentially a Barbel class for god's sake. Those subs were being made pre 1960. You don't need a high tech base to build the sub alone. Sonars, control and command systems, polymers for the elastic coatings, adhesives for the tiles, these are something, but nonetheless are obtainable through means that can plausibly deniable.

Cost is irrelevant, freedom has no price tag. If the PLA overruns Taiwan, you can say to the money accountant I lost because I'm too cheap to insist on making a sub on my own when no one wants to sell me.