Taiwan Navy to Commission Locally Made Corvette
The Taiwan Navy plans to put its first locally designed stealth missile corvette and a new locally manufactured supply vessel into service late next month, says a press statement. There will be a ceremony to formally put the corvette Tuo Jiang and supply vessel Panshih into service is scheduled to take place in late March at the navy’s Zuoying base in Kaohsiung. Training on the 502-ton Tuo Jiang began after the corvette was officially delivered to the Navy by local shipbuilder Lung Teh Shipbuilding Co. at a ceremony held Dec. 23 at a commercial harbor in Suao, eastern Taiwan. The twin-hulled Hsun-hai class corvette is equipped with several weapons, including the locally developed Hsiung Feng II and Hsiung Feng III anti-ship missiles, a 76 mm gun and Mark 46 torpedoes, the Navy said.
New Patrol Boats for SEA
Taiwanese boat builder Lung Teh Shipbuilding Co., Ltd. (LTS) has recently won the contract to deliver a series of patrol boats to an unspecified government in South East Asia. The first boat in the series will be delivered early 2015. The boats have 19 m long aluminum hulls equipped with twin MJP DRB 400 waterjets coupled to MAN 1,650 hp engines and will reach speed of about 50 knots. They also have beaching capability. Since the vessels are expected to have a very high number of annual working hours, the customer specified equipment with an emphasis on low life cycle cost.
