Taiwan Military News, Reports, Data, etc.

Zetageist said:

Looks like Mistral-class ship does have some use for Taiwan in SCS as a hospital ship:

Taiping should be a rescue base in South China Sea: Tsai

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A 10,000 ton hospital ship based out of Taiping would be overkill. Think of all the logistics to sustain the crew, fuel, provisions. Not unless if Taiping gets transformed into ironically, something like a naval base.

The rescue base concept would make more sense if they simply rotated CG cutters through there with a small but state of the art hospital as well as SAR facilities built at Taiping.

10,000 tonnes is actually pretty small compared to most hospital ships. The Peace Ark is 1.5times that size and the American Mercy class is almost 9 times. So it's not that big. A large Carferry hull is about that big and those are dwarfed by your average cruise ship. But still if you want an alternative, the USN has started testing one of the Joint High Speed Vessel Spearhead class as a small rapid response hospital ship.. Perhaps "Ambulance Ship" would be a more fitting classification. It's based on a small ferry hull but internally converted with medical facilities that can handle all but the most extensive treatment. Its small size and high speed makes it faster then a full hospital ship, its low draught means if can get close to shore well being based on a commercial ferry designed for the south pacific making it fairly cheap.

Zetageist said:

Looks like Mistral-class ship does have some use for Taiwan in SCS as a hospital ship:

Taiping should be a rescue base in South China Sea: Tsai

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As regards this "proposal," for a 10,000 ton hospital ship, I believe the key statement is this:

Tsai said:

Tsai suggests Taiwan build a 10,000-ton hospital ship to operate out of Taiping to carry out humanitarian missions. Tsai believes that in this way Taiwan can make Taiping a humanitarian platform in East Asia. She said the proposed hospital ship would not be put under the command of the ROC Navy or any other military authority and could provide assistance and relief to the nationals of any country.

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So you have a politician in Taiwan's opposition party "suggesting," Taiwan should build a humanitarian base on one of its islands and a humanitarian hospital ship to operate from it...all not under the control of Taiwan's Navy or any other Taiwan military.

I simply cannot take such a suggestion seriously when it comes to "military," news from Taiwan. She is not even suggesting it be military. Good luck on her getting any commercial or private funding for such a venture except for maybe Green Peace.

Jeff Head said:

As regards this "proposal," for a 10,000 ton hospital ship, I believe the key statement is this:

So you have a politician in Taiwan's opposition party "suggesting," Taiwan should build a humanitarian base on one of its islands and a humanitarian hospital ship to operate from it...all not under the control of Taiwan's Navy or any other Taiwan military.

I simply cannot take such a suggestion seriously when it comes to "military," news from Taiwan. She is not even suggesting it be military. Good luck on her getting any commercial or private funding for such a venture except for maybe Green Peace.

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Actually you are not too far off. Taiwan's DDP's philosophy is pretty much aligned with the Green Peace. DDP is an anti-nuclear, environmental conscious green party. Even their party flag is green.

In 2007, under DDP President Chen's government (2000-2008), the entire Pratas Island Atoll was turned into a national marine park. Pratas Island is strategically situated at the mouth of Hong Kong, Taiwan Strait and Luzon Strait. Furthermore, according to maps posted on the internet, Pratas Island is sitting on top of guaranteed huge deposit of gas and oil field. In theory, turning Pratas Atoll into a national park is to make it less a military target ,and at the same time, to gain more international recognitions.

DDP was basically in the process of renouncing the claim to Diaoyu/Senkaku Islands and demilitarizing Itu Aba/Taiping Island to appease neighboring countries in the hope of gaining international recognitions and supports. In 2000, ROC marine corps on Taiping Island was replaced with Coast Guards. After 2001 Hainan Island incident of air collision between US Navy EP-3E ARIES II signal plane and PLAN J-8II interceptor fighter jet, US pressured President Chen into building an airstrip and an airport in 2007 so that Hercules transporter airplane can land. ROCN deep sea divers were trained by the US counterpart in coordinated search and rescue to provide emergency support to US airmen or submarine crews. Again in 2013, US pressured the current Ma's government into building a 3000-ton ship capacity pier on Taiping Island.

Since PRC considered Taiping Island as Chinese territory, it won't attack the island unless it is invaded by foreign force. Vietnam won't attack the island because it is afraid of PLA's retaliation and as an excuse to capture all Vietnam occupied islands in the Spratlys. Same theory goes with Philippines plus Filipino military lacks the capability to attack Taiping Island. So the most prized natural island in the Spratyls is actually the safest place in the SCS.

Also Taiping Island has lost its significance to PRC since their massive artificial islands creation unless using it in the international legal battle with Philippines and Vietnam to claim EEZ. Philippines has denounced Taiping Island as a rock rather than a habitable island in hoping to win the arbitration case under UNCLOS against China.

Few months ago, an American scholar suggested Taiwan of making Taiping Island neutral by handing over it to a neutral international body (aka US allies). Most people believe the minute Taiwanese government renounced the sovereignty over Taiping Island, PRC would invade it. So DDP's idea of turning the island into an international rescue base without loosing sovereignty to it is probably a better idea of appeasing to the US allies thereby gaining more international recognitions without inflaming PRC.

Furthermore, with estimated 1/4 of world submarines lurking underneath SCS, submarines collision is a very likely scenario. Who knows, maybe DDP's leader Tsai does have the far sight - there might be an usage for a hospital ship around Taiping Island after all. Maybe and just maybe, this is another US idea....

It doesn't matter what Taiwan say they will use the Mistral for. The French are not going to sell the Mistral to Taiwan. Because they know the wrath to come from China if they do.

Mistral class is likely not even on the radar for such a project. It was it never meant to be a hospital ship. Plain and simple.
Besides that the price for it and the modifications would not be justified.
A small commercial cruise line hull or a large car ferry would be cheaper is more readily available for purchase and has much of the amenities such as extensive water plumbing for toilets and drinking/ cleaning, a Kitchen and store's for larger numbers of meals and additional space for cold storage of medical needs And even some of the prefabricated hotel berths could be kept for recovery rooms. Casino areas could be converted to operating theatres and there large power supply used for XRay and Ultrasound machines as well as.other special medical systems. Some even have well deck like spaces and spots on the deck which could be used for helicopters.

Franklin said:

It doesn't matter what Taiwan say they will use the Mistral for. The French are not going to sell the Mistral to Taiwan. Because they know the wrath to come from China if they do.

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Yes, I totally agree with you. It is impossible right now, and Taiwan doesn't need that big tonnage and doesn't have the budge for it. DPP didn't actually mention Mistral. They wanted something smaller, about 10,000 ton. However, did you know that Taiwan was about to secure the sale of Su-27s from Russia when the US sold them the F-16s back in the 1990s, according to the stories floating in the Taiwanese media? Later the same batch of Su-27s went to PRC instead.

Unable to find a buyer and won't deliver to Russia, it looks like the French newly built Mistral class ship just have to sit there for years and maybe used as a floating amusement park (ie Ukrainian flattop later sold to China). How about triple the price that Russia originally paid for them to offset the penalty paid to Russia for non-delivery and the court awards to Taiwan for Lafayette scandal. Perhaps, 10 years down the road, that floating piece hunk of junk might actually still worth some premium price.

Didn't that Ukrainian flattop turn into the Cv16? The hold on all joint European Russian programs will hold until there is a Ukraine settlement. And that's not just the Mistral class that the Atom and the Joint Russian Italian Submarine. Whatever the end. It won't have anything to do with Taiwan. Claiming that they would want the Vladivostok hull was sensationalist at best. Might as well have claimed Bat Boy was appointed commander. Taiwan wanting a hospital ship is one thing, a politician making a speech trying to score points with pacifist is one thing. Trying to buy a ship of the Mistral class is a total other, the price tag, conversion costs and expenses incurred for such would be higher then it would be worth. Operating it is another issue the article claims some nonmilitary group would be in charge of it. That's not really practical as the costs of maintaining and crewing would demand a large budget and the logistics train would be a nightmare for creating and maintaining such a agency.

No if Taiwan wanted to operate such a hospital ship, they probably could. There best bet would be the ROC Navy that already exists and there best options for a hull would be either a new class of ship built by either heavily modification to a ship already in there service or based on a commercial hull that is already in Taiwan. I pointed to a large Carferry and the US recently trailing a JHSV as a small hospital ship. There is a Taiwanese carferry the Natchan Rera, its based on the proven Incat Catamaran super ferry has just over a 10,000 tons displacement. The hull is of the same class from which the JHSV was derived. Meaning its fast for rapid humanitarian assistance. Because the USN is already working on the JHSV medical ship concept and The ROC Navy and USN have good relations its likely that designing a Taiwanese Hospital ship conversion based on a hull of the Natchan Rera class would be simplified by the USN giving input and even access to blueprints related to the JHSV medical conversion and giving them lessons learned from the same. Since ships of this family have already served in both the US and Australian militaries and the hull is similar to the new Taiwanese Cat there is plenty of experience to grow on and the ship can be used with helicopters. Its swath hull gives a low Draught perfect for the region and its already designed for the south pacific.

Taiwan has recieved the first of their Northrop SABR radars, wich will be part of their F-16V upgrade.

Northrop delivers first SABR radar for Taiwan F-16s
By: Stephen Trimble - Washington DC
Source: Flightglobal.com - 21:39 12 Dec 2014

Northrop Grumman has delivered the first of several developmental radars sold to Taiwan as an upgrade for their Lockheed Martin F-16s.

The APG-83 scaleable agile beam radar (SABR) will replace Northrop’s mechanically-scanned APG-68 system in Taiwan’s F-16s.

Northrop delivered the first SABR – an active electronically scanned array (AESA) – within 16 months of contract award by Taiwan.

The AESA radar upgrade is a key element of Lockheed’s “F-16V” upgrade concept. It also includes a new mission computer and cockpit display upgrades.

Northrop designed SABR to offer simultaneous air-to-air and air-to-ground search and track capability. It is similar to AESA technology developed for Northrop’s APG-77 radar installed on the Lockheed F-22 and APG-81 onboard the F-35.

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(Defense Industry Daily) Despite China’s ominous military buildup across the strait, key weapons sales of P-3 maritime patrol aircraft, Patriot PAC-3 missiles, and diesel-electric submarines to Taiwan had been sabotaged by Taiwanese politics for years – in some cases, since 1997. The KMT party’s flip-flops and determined stalling tactics eventually created a crisis in US-Taiwan relations, which finally soured to the point that the USA refused a Taiwanese request for F-16C/D aircraft.


That seems to have brought things to a head. Most of the budget and political issues were eventually sorted out, and after a long delay, some major elements of Taiwan’s requested modernization program appear to be moving forward: P-3 maritime patrol aircraft, UH-60M helicopters, Patriot missile upgrades; and requests for AH-64D attack helicopters, E-2 Hawkeye AWACS planes, minehunting ships, and missiles for defense against aircraft, ships, and tanks. These are must-have capabilities when facing a Chinese government that has vowed to take the country by force, and which is building an extensive submarine fleet, a large array of ballistic missiles, an upgraded fighter fleet, and a number of amphibious-capable divisions. Chinese pressure continues to stall some of Taiwan’s most important upgrades, including diesel-electric submarines, and new American fighter jets. Meanwhile, other purchases from abroad continue.



I will now get back to bottling my Malbec