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US-Europeans Building Diesel Subs For Taiwan
U.S. Navy officials have told the Taiwanese government that European firms have been found who will collaborate with the U.S. to build eight diesel-electric submarines for Taiwan. No European country was willing to build subs directly with Taiwan, for fear of offending China. But China is vulnerable right now, with the Olympics coming up next year in Beijing, and much international tumult because of bad manufacturing practices for Chinese exports. The U.S. stopped building diesel-electric subs half a century ago, but American and Europeans sub builders know each other, and a sale is a sale, no matter how many middlemen it has to go through. I think it would be just peachy if the US was to buy or build two or three dozen advanced diesel boats, not to float, but to keep inland as a quickly deployable fleet. They would need to be somewhat modular, maybe not even completely assembled, so each year they could be upgraded and refitted with more advanced systems. The idea being that if needed, in a few months time, they could be finished and "sent down the river." Posted by: Anonymoose 2007-08-23 |
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