The MK48 could soon join Taipei's Navy. China won't like that one bit.
The National Interest
Date: June 20, 2020
By: Kris Osborn
Beijing steps up presence in ‘military grey zones’ to pressure Taiwan
The mainland is using various indirect tactics to intimidate the island without engaging in conventional combat, observers say
The strategies range from deploying sand dredgers in Taiwanese-controlled waters to using fishing boats to ram coastguard vessels, they say
Topic | Taiwan
Lawrence Chung
Lawrence Chung
Published: 6:00pm, 20 Jun, 2020
Why you can trust SCMP
For the fourth day in a row on Friday, warplanes from mainland China flew into airspace that Taiwan considers its own, prompting the island’s air force to scramble jets to warn them off.
It was the sixth such foray by a People’s Liberation Army warplane in less than a fortnight.
Earlier in the month, a dredger from the mainland sailed near the Taiwanese-administered island of Penghu in the Taiwan Strait and began mining for sand, also prompting the Taiwanese coastguard to go in to deter the vessel.
The dredger is just one of about 1,200 mainland vessels that have operated in Taiwanese-administered waters since January, according to the island’s coastguard.
The U.S. appears to be arming Taiwan with up to eighteen Mk48 Heavyweight torpedoes, extremely lethal submarine-fired undersea weapons built to destroy enemy surface ships, submarines, and other targets at sea.
The move, which was approved by the U.S. State Dept. last month, offers Taiwan vastly improved undersea defenses against a potential Chinese amphibious assault or maritime-attack upon its shores. Unlike lighter-weight torpedoes that can be launched from a ship-deck or helicopter, the Mk 48 represents a precision-guided heavily explosive weapon fired from beneath the sea. It goes without saying that undersea superiority and attack possibilities would figure prominently in the Taiwan Strait during any Chinese invasion.
Having an ability to hold surface vessels, and amphibious operations in particular, at risk of torpedo attack, would of course greatly diminish the effectiveness of any kind of Chinese maritime assault. Mk 48s could, for example, seriously complicate any Chinese effort to move heavy armored vehicles, equipment and other assets ashore, as they could easily get destroyed in transit. The presence of these weapons might force invading Chinese forces to rely more heavily upon air attack and present less of a fast-moving ground threat involving heavy armored vehicles. This kind of dynamic might help offset Taiwan’s substantial Naval inferiority to China by virtue of forcing Chinese air attacks and the delivery of more lighter-weight weapons able to be air-dropped for ground attack.
In recent years, the U.S. Navy has been prototyping a new, longer range and more lethal Mk 48 that can better destroy enemy ships, submarines and incoming weapons at longer ranges, service officials said. Many details of the new weapon, which include newer propulsion mechanisms and multiple kinds of warheads, are secret and not publically available. Developers explained that some of the improvements to the torpedo relate to letting more water into the bottom of the torpedo as opposed to letting air out the top.
[FULL STORY]
