China's "Carrier Killers" Todd Crowell

A decade ago, an Australian naval architectural firm, AMD Consulting, signed a joint venture to export Australian ferry boats to China, using the company’s unique wave-piercing, supercharged dual hull design.

The Chinese quickly recognized that the catamaran hulls would make perfect platforms for a variety of military uses and began importing scores of the ferry boats, outfitting them with a variety of weapons. It now has a fleet of 82 Houbei-class missile boats.

When the deal was done in 2008, few countries with navies outside of the United States worried overly much about the security concerns of selling dual-use technology to China – information on satellites maybe, but ferry boats?

The proposed exports were checked in 2008 by the official agencies that determined nothing was illegal about the sales. Nor was it a question of the Chinese stealing technology secrets. They simply bought the boats off the shelf, as it were, and then re-engineered them into missile boats using Chinese weapon technology, refitting them with their own technology.

Times change. These days everybody is running around with their hair on fire about China’s naval expansion. Increasingly, the Royal Australian Navy is operating in the South China Sea in concert with the US and other allies and under the AUKUS arrangement established with the UK and the US, is likely to increase its naval footprint.

The new three-party alliance, not to mention increasing worries that China is fixing to invade Taiwan, mean that in the relatively near future Australian warships might come under fire from warships that were at least partially made in Australia.

The Taiwan navy is also building catamarans. Last month it commissioned the second version in a ceremony attended by President Tsai Ing-wen. These are the first indigenous surface warships built in Taiwan. Taipei is planning to build seven of them.

How either country will deploy these warships are unknown (outside, of course, the defense ministries). Exercises practicing beach landings, such as the one going on right now, don’t provide many clues as to how China would be expected to react to an American response to a Chinese invasion.

These exercises probably don’t reveal much under peaceful times. Many of the attributes of these ships, such as speeds up to 38 knots and the catamaran design, allow the Hubei missile boats to operate on the high seas unlike coastal-hugging missile boats.

This could include engaging with the American battle groups approaching the Taiwan Strait before they actually arrive there. They might deploy their whole fleet, swarming the American rescuers and attacking from various angles.

The formidable American battle group might sink 60 of the missile boats, but that would leave another 20 or so to punch holes in America’s giant supercarriers. The Taiwan press is already calling the catamaran boats aircraft carrier “killers”.

Historically, small warships have not been very successful in fighting capital ships. The vaunted PT Boats of World War II did not sink a single battleship or aircraft carrier. The Hubei boats may have the right tools to change this.

This article was published in Asia Sentinel dated 18 October 2021. Republished with permission from Asia Sentinel.