Taiwan Military News, Reports, Data, etc.
- Thread starter Gollevainen
- Start date
I think the kidds, while impressive ships, number too few and are not armed to survive a saturation missile attack. At the very least, sitting in the Taiwan strait at commencement of hostilities, they would serve big targets for anti shippers and air power, not to mention SSKs.
They could potentially retire the kidds and spend that money on more survivable deterrence weapons (long range LACM to strike at mainland in some minimal amount, mini subs, AShM batteries, etc)
However that won't ever happen, given Taiwans military seems to take a very "traditional" view of defending against the PLA, and how the kidds are relatively new, and that economic and political integration only seems set to increase anyway and kidds do have value as large multi role capital ships. Also, events in conflict may play out so maybe a few ROCN ships manage to escape and survive, potentially being able to harassa strait crossing, or maybe down a few unsuspecting PLA aircraft.
TerraN_EmpirE
Tyrant King
Ma Ying-jeou president of Tiawan has been in some Hot water of late his approval numbers are up from a few weeks back when he reach single digits. They are now in the 20% range which is still not good. And A sign of Discontent.
Those four Kidd class destroyers was sold to Taiwan in 2005 and 2006. They were upgraded with new electronics and weapon systems before being sold to Taiwan. But the electronic systems of the upgrade are now no longer in use with the USN and there for spare parts for these systems are no longer being made or stored in the US. The Americans are supplying the Taiwanese with parts they cannibalize from decommissioned ships. I wonder how long this can continue.
These vessels are extremely capable. The received the New Threat Upgrade, have two dual launcher capable of four very fast individual launches have 4 directors, and are capable of cooperative engagement with US AEGIS vessels, which is a very important quality in the event of any conflict where the US supported Taiwan.
Remember that a lot of the same technology applies to the Perry frigates which Taiwan built there on the island so I imagine that between USN many spare parts fom the retired destroyers and cruisers, and Taiwan's own manufacturing capabilities that the ROCN will have no problems with spare parts over the life of these vessels.
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New threat upgrade dates from middle of 1980s, that in itself isn't very sophisticated. Taiwanese ships allegedly got some hardware upgrades but it's hard to tell just what was upgraded. Radar antennas, for example, remained the same. Also, those launchers still take 10 seconds to launch 2 missiles. While 4 missiles total every ten seconds doesn't seem bad, for real saturation attacks that has been decided as lacking even back in 1980s. And if anyone can pull off true saturation attacks its US, Chinese and Russian forces.
The new threat upgrade and other advancements and upgrade since have led to their CE capability with US AEGIS vessels, and other network centric capabilities, which is a decidedly good advantage in those circumstances.
Even without AEGIS, having two of these working together, particularly I they have their E-2s feeding them targeting data, makes them a very strong vessel for air defense along any major threat axis for the ROC, particularly in conjunction with their Patriot and other batteries.
In an at sea confrontation, with their missile defenses and their ASW and ASuW capabilities, they would be a very strong center piece for any SAG. An adversary would be very mistaken to underestimate them or take them for grante.
The kidd's are very strong vessels, no doubt about it, and their sheer displacement and missile load makes them a force to be reckoned with, but the lack of VLS is probably their greatest limitation, as that physically constrains how many missiles they can let off against a competent saturation attack, not to mention the long range of SM-2 will be somewhat constrained by the lack of terminal illumination, meaning they can only properly engage them well below the 150 km range or whatever it is.
Still they're great looking ships, and the'yre among the few ships in the world to still utilize the brisk looking twin arm launchers.
Still they're great looking ships, and the'yre among the few ships in the world to still utilize the brisk looking twin arm launchers.
If you mean upgrading the OH Perry's to launch SM-2MR and Harpoon's from the Mk.13 launcher, that would probably be cheaper than installing a VLS system.
But the ROCN has numerous other pressing issues. For one, the La Fayette frigates are still equipped with Chaparral SAM system.