Taiwan reveals first homegrown submarine in defense milestone

Tremendous achievement by a brilliant nation in just 7 years!

Well done to the Taiwanese - another layer of defense for your beautiful island nation.

I recommend they remove the Taiwanese flag in the bows. It will make it too easy for the Chinese subs to spot.

Why don't their friend countries sell them subs?

Every step toward self sufficiency is a good one on the surface, but, its guaranteed a great lot of the raw materials and parts came from abroad. And if there is war with China there is no way one could be completed in Taiwan.

I would say that Taiwan's position is so bad, it should focus all its expertise on maintenance and repair of foreign bought subs, not manufacture of subs at home.

Go Taiwan! Those PLA members must be pretty nervous that they may be transported to the next life rather than their intended target.

ianToday 03:25 pm JST

Why don't their friend countries sell them subs?

Even if it were cheap, there aren't unlimited shipyards in the US. Better to have some control over your destiny. This can serve in an asymmetric capacity so the money is well spent.

TaiwanIsNotChina

Today 04:26 pm JST

ianToday 03:25 pm JST

> Why don't their friend countries sell them subs?

> Even if it were cheap, there aren't unlimited shipyards in the US. Better to have some control over your destiny. This can serve in an asymmetric capacity so the money is well spent.

Lol what?

Lots of targets for these new subs.

This pushes Chinese naval surface units further from the east coast of Taiwan. The land based long range missiles are one thing but torpedoes launched from a much closer distance is another. Landing ships will be a priority target.

China has pressured all nations that have "investigated" the possibility of selling new submarines to Taiwan and have successfully stopped all avenues to purchase them. Leaving Taiwan no choice but to build domestically. All parts will be manufactured in Taiwan and things like foreign made combat systems will have complete spares stored in Taiwan to allow the subs to be fully maintained in war time, in Taiwan.

A force of eight new submarines, even ones slightly behind the state of the art models of some other nations, will ensure Chinese ships will need to remain on their toes at all times.

No doubt China will always be aware of how many are at sea at any given time, but that wont stop them from being an effective deterrent. They can still fire state of the art weapons which are deadly no matter who fires them.

Looks rubbish.

Yeah, nowhere near as great as the subs you have designed and built I guess?

Taiwan already has four subs, from the Netherlands and from the US, so the Narwhal will be their fifth.

Taiwan's navy currently has only four submarines: two World War II-era vessels from the U.S. used for training and two bought from the Netherlands in the 1980s.

It's do much money waste to make conventional weapons. Small nations like Taiwan should play smart, not strong. A few dozens of nukes plus delivery capability will make all the difference.

Why don't their friend countries sell them subs?

The US hasn't built a diesel electric sub since the 1950s, concentrating solely on nuclear subs. The rest of the world fears Chinese economic and diplomatic retribution if they sell any arms to Taiwan.

The differences between nuclear powered and diesel-electric subs are not confined to the propulsion. Nuclear subs has huge power reserves that support much more power hungry sonars and combat systems. In theory the US could potentially build modern diesel electric subs but the US Navy won't permit it, fearing that as soon as some US yard has a DE boat under construction Congress will strip funding from the program to build nuclear subs and force the US Navy to buy diesel boats, which are pretty much useless for the kinds of things the US Navy does with submarines. That fear is real and visceral.

Reginald BokSep. 28  04:43 pm JST

Looks rubbish.

What do you mean it looks rubbish lol?

It looks like a submarine.

Like Gundam , Zaku alloy toys, nothing special!