By Franz-Stefan Gady
Taipei has just commissioned a new guided missile corvette designed to target Chinese surface vessels.
This week, the Republic of China Navy (ROCN) commissioned its first self-developed guided missile corvette named Tuo Chiang (Tuo River).The 500-ton Tuo Chiang-class multi-mission warship, dubbed the “carrier killer” by Taiwanese media, will be the prototype for up to a dozen such vessels as part of a 25 billion New Taiwan dollar (about $791 million) naval expansion program approved by the Taiwanese legislature in 2011.
The Tuo Chiang-class high-speed corvette boasts a maximum speed of 44 knots (about 81 kph) and a range of 2,000 nautical miles (about 3,704 km). It is reportedly expected to remain in service for 25 years.
The twin-hulled vessel is Taiwan’s largest-ever missile ship and is equipped with the country’s latest stealth technology, as well as domestically built anti-ship missiles (16 of them according to Defense News).
Public sources claim that the the ship is armed with the Hsiung Feng III (HF-3) ramjet-powered supersonic anti-ship missile, specifically designed to target People’s Liberation Army Navy (PLAN) surface vessels, including the PLAN’s new aircraft carrier.
Read the full story at The Diplomat