According to information published by the Taiwan News website on May 27, 2021, Taiwan has completed live-firing operational trials and evaluations of the Sea Sword II air defense missile system and will be ready to be deployed on the Tuo Chiang-class corvettes of the Taiwanese Navy by August 2021.
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Ta Chiang Tuo Chiang-class corvette of Taiwanese Navy.(Picture source Taiwan Military Twitter)
Citing the Taiwan News website, the new Sea Sword II air defense missile system is the naval variant of the Sky Sword II and will be outfitted on the Taiwanese Navy’s newest vessel, the Ta Chiang, which is a Tuo Chiang-class corvette. The ship is expected to be handed over to the Taiwanese Navy in July 2021.
The Sea Sword II is the ship-launched version of the Sky Sword II or TC-2, a medium-range, radar-guided air-to-air missile locally developed by the Taiwanese National Chung-Shan Institute of Science and Technology. The missile has all-weather capability, is equipped with a thrust-vectoring booster to increase its range as well as maneuverability during the launch phase (although early ship-based launch trials were carried out without this feature), and can engage anti-ship missiles and aircraft. It also has folding control surfaces to be quad-packed into either above-deck oblique launchers or in-deck vertical launch systems. It has an operational range of 100 km.
The Tuo Chiang-class corvette is a Taiwanese-designed class of fast and stealthy multi-mission corvettes built for the Taiwanese Navy. The ship is a catamaran design that is 60.4 m long, 14 m wide, and carries a crew of 41 personnel. It can reach a maximum speed of 40 knots (83 km/h) and a range of 2,000 nautical miles (3,700 km).
The Tuo Chiang-class corvette is armed with eight Hsiung Feng II anti-ship missiles, eight Hsiung Feng III medium-range supersonic missiles, on Otobreda 76 mm naval gun,, one Phalanx CIWS (Close-In Weapon system), two 12.7mm Browning M2HB machine guns, two Mark 32 triple torpedo launcher (one port and one starboard), 32 TC-2N surface-to-air missiles.
