President Lai Ching-de boarded the Coast Guard Bali in August this year to inspect the missile tank combat readiness mount and Coast Guard armor to verify the Coast Guard vessel's "peacetime and wartime transition capabilities" (Photo: Presidential Office: Provided by the Presidential Office).
[Reporter Luo Tianbin/Reporting from Taipei] Coast guard ships will shoot Xiongfeng series missiles to verify their peacetime and wartime conversion capabilities in a joint precision ammunition shooting exercise next week, which has attracted great attention from the outside world. According to the latest verification record of the Hanguang exercise between the Ministry of National Defense and the Coast Guard, the Coast Guard's Anping-class frigate performs a "peacetime and wartime transition" mission. On the premise that the coast guard ship has arrived at the naval port, it only takes "a few hours" to complete the task from hoisting the missile launch box to the Navy's "weapon control team" boarding the ship and emergency departure from the port, demonstrating extremely high tactical mobility. This high efficiency is mainly due to the "modular" advanced design adopted by the entire ship, which allows the law enforcement patrol ship to transform into a maritime tactical strike platform in a short period of time.
Military sources pointed out that when the Anping-class frigate was originally built, space for the installation of missile launch boxes had been reserved on the rear deck of the stern, which is commonly known as the "bomb bay (bomb tank)" structure. In order to avoid causing international geopolitical tensions during normal law enforcement, this groove is usually covered with a movable protective cover. It looks like an ordinary deck and is not loaded with missiles at all. However, the Chinese Academy of Sciences secretly buried the military-standard digital signals and power lines connected to the fire control cabin when building the ship. It is a typical "leaving space and not loading bombs" design.
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Coast guard ships will participate in a joint precision ammunition shooting exercise to be held next week and launch Xiongfeng anti-ship missiles. The picture shows the Anping-class frigate of the Coast Guard launching a Yuer missile during a drill in the past. (File photo, provided by the Ministry of National Defense)
Once the country receives an emergency conversion order, the coast guard will quickly sail into the designated military port. At this time, the logistics officers and soldiers will lift the protective cover of the rear deck, use the heavy crane at the port, and hoist the 4-unit Xiongfeng II or Xiongfeng III anti-ship missile launcher and missile box module that have been assembled in the naval ammunition depot into the bomb chute. Officers and soldiers only need to fix the launcher on the reserved base and plug the signal line of the missile box directly into the reserved slot on the ship's hull to connect it to the ship's universal guidance and control interface. The entire hanging and testing process can be completed within a few hours.
In terms of personnel operations, the transition from peacetime to wartime is not to replace all coast patrol members, but to adopt a mixed coordination model of "coast patrol launches ships and the navy launches missile strikes." Military sources pointed out that since the operation of anti-ship missiles is highly professional, the Navy will dispatch a "weapons control team" of about 4 to 6 people to board the ship during wartime. This elite group of officers and soldiers includes fire control officers, operators, and communications officers. They are responsible for operating the simplified missile console installed during the war, and receiving the precise coordinates of enemy ships from the military through the "Security System". As for sailing the ship, engine maintenance, fire extinguishing and leak plugging, and the existing Zhenhai rocket operations, the Coast Guard officers and soldiers who are most familiar with the ships are still responsible.
This "modular" and "hybrid" operating mechanism has been successfully verified many times in the precision weapon firing of the Hanguang Exercise in recent years. The naval officers and soldiers on board the ship even successfully guided the coast patrol ship to shoot the Xiong 2 and Xiong 3 missiles and hit the target. After completing the missile mounting and system testing, the coast guard can cooperate with the Navy's Tuojiang-class warships or Guang-6 missile speedboats to make an emergency departure from the port, and fully transfer command to the Navy. Through this flexible and flexible conversion, the Coast Guard Anping-class ship can instantly transform into a terrifying firepower carrier with up to 16 anti-ship missiles during wartime, becoming an indispensable deterrent force for the national army's coastal strikes.
