TSAMTO, November 25. On November 24, a ceremony was held at the CSBC shipyard in Kaohsiung in the presence of Taiwan's President Tsai Ing-Wen to mark the start of construction of national-designed submarines.
The delivery of diesel fuel is one of the areas of implementation of the island's defense strategy against the backdrop of escalating tensions with China.
According to President Tsai Ing-Wen, submarines are an important component that allows Taiwan to conduct an asymmetric war, deter and block enemy ships.
Taiwan is said to have decided to implement the expensive and time-consuming task of building its own submarines after Beijing prevented it from purchasing such ships abroad, using economic and diplomatic threats. Despite this, it is reported that foreign experience was used in the design of Taiwanese submarines.
As part of the project, the cost of which is estimated at $ 16 billion. taiv. dollars, it is planned to build eight submarines. The first of them will be built by 2024. The project has already been criticized for its cost. So, the cost of the design phase was 3 billion rubles. taiv. dollars (100 million US dollars). According to CSBC head Cheng Wen-long, " during the four-year design stage, all sorts of difficulties were overcome that cannot be disclosed to the General public."
As reported by TSAMTO, in 2017, the leadership of Taiwan, after receiving refusals from the world's leading manufacturers to sell nuclear submarines and fruitless negotiations with the United States, decided to build new submarines on their own. The napls will be built as part of the" national submarine Program", also known as the"Hai Chan" program.
On March 21, 2017, the Taiwan Navy command signed a Memorandum of understanding with The national Chung-Shan Institute of science and Technology (NCSIST) and the CSBC shipbuilding company on the joint development of the project and construction of national submarines. The project is supported by the submarine development center, which CSBC opened in 2016.
According to preliminary information, the length of the new submarine will be about 70 m, width-8 m, displacement-2500-3000 tons.
Currently, the Taiwan Navy has only about 86 ships and vessels in combat, about half of which are missile boats. Taiwan's submarine fleet consists of four diesel-electric submarines. Two of them (type "Guppy II") were built in the 1944-1950-ies in the United States, transferred in the 1970 - ies and are suitable only for training personnel. Two more modern high Loon-class DPLs (zwaardvis class), acquired in the Netherlands in 1987-1988, also cannot provide effective protection of the island's Maritime borders. Currently, the Ministry of national defense of Taiwan, NCSIST and the Dutch company RH Marine are implementing a project to upgrade them to extend their service life until 2030.