The Tuo Chiang-class corvette is a Taiwanese-designed class of fast and stealthy multi-mission corvettes built for the Republic of China Navy. It is designed to counter the numerous and increasingly sophisticated People's Liberation Army Navy ships by utilizing hit-and-run tactics, and thus featured clean upper structure design with very few extrusions to reduce radar signature, pre-cooled engine exhaust to reduce infrared signature, and a reduced visual signature to reduce chance of detection.
Development
The program was announced by the Republic of China Ministry of National Defense on 12 April 2010. It was developed by the Naval Shipbuilding Center in Kaohsiung, The Tuo Chiang class was developed to address common weakness of traditional small warships such as patrol craft and corvettes namely poor sea-keeping, a significant handicap for warships expected to sortie for extended periods of time in rough seas around Taiwan. In 2011, the Taiwanese Legislative Yuan approved a NT$24.98 billion budget to fund the construction of up to 12 ships. On 18 April 2011 a top military officer and a lawmaker announced that the construction of a 500-ton prototype would begin in 2012. In the Taipei Aerospace and Defense Technology Exhibition in 2013, the Navy unveiled a model of the Hsun Hai project corvette. The prototype of the Hsun Hai program was named and christened on Friday, 14 March 2014 as ROCS Tuo Chiang in honor of the gunboat that was a combatant in the 9-2 Sea Battle during Second Taiwan Strait Crisis. In early 2016, the ROC Navy began plans for procuring three air defense frigates. It has been speculated that these frigates would possibly be catamarans based on the Tuo River-class hull. Expected weapon systems include the Mark 41 Vertical Launching System equipped with a naval variant of the Sky Bow III and the Sky Sword II, as well as the Sea OryxCIWS system. It will field a ballistic missile defense version of the Sky Bow III missile defense system to shoot down incoming enemy ballistic missiles. In 2019 work commenced on the first of twelve 600-ton coastal patrol vessels for the Coast Guard Administration, the Anping-class offshore patrol vessel, based on the Tuo Chiang-class corvette at the Jong Shyn Shipbuilding Company's Kaohsiung shipyard.
Design
The ship is a catamaran design which is long, wide and carries a crew of 41 personnel. It is capable of a maximum speed of 40 knots and a range of. It is armed with eight subsonic Hsiung Feng II and eight supersonic Hsiung Feng IIIanti-ship missiles launchers, a Phalanx Close-In Weapons System, and a main gun. The ship can operate up to sea state 7 in waves up to high. Taiwan Security Analysis Center stated that the ship features stealth technologies to help evade radar detection, a combat system that includes a distributed-architecture combat direction system known as “Taiwan Aegis" developed by the National Chung-Shan Institute of Science and Technology and an indigenous search/track and fire-control radar and electro-optical director. The ship increases its survivability in naval warfare by utilizing advanced stealth technology and low radar cross section, which makes it less detectable by radar and allows it to be obscured by back ground radar noise when operating closer to the coastline.
