Chinese netizens have published images of the HTMS Chang or Type-071E, which is a landing platform dock, the Navy has ordered from China since 2019 and has satellite images showing continuous progress. Today the ship has been released into the water. This is considered to be very fast for China considering the size of ships larger than 20,000 tons.
On September 9, 2019, China released a picture of the signing of a contract for the supply of a landing platform dock or LPD class Type-071E of the Royal Thai Navy. According to information from China, the budget was used to build 6,100 million baht as an empty boat, no weapon system and the Thai Navy said it would bring the HTMS Chang as a submarine tender boat. This will be the first time in the world that the LPD is used as a tender boat for a submarine.
In 2020, the Thai Naval commander sent a letter to Chinese authorities explaining the reasons for the failure to procure the second and third S26T submarines and asked China to support and equip the HTMS Chang ship with weapons-free of charge in order to be able to operate with the Chinese Navy in the future. Which has information that the Navy wants to install a CX-1 hypersonic anti-ship missile on the HTMS Chang but there is no information whether the Chinese Navy or the Chinese government has approved the aid or not.
HTMS Chang submarine tender (image : War and Technology Club Thailand)
However, if the Chinese Navy does not support the installation of weapons for free The Royal Thai Navy is also preparing to propose a project to purchase weapons, radar systems, and various electronic systems to install on the HTMS Chang. The budget is expected to be around 1 billion baht, but it is unclear which weapon system can be installed. And it is unclear whether it is a Chinese system or a Western system.
The Royal Thai Navy plans to take delivery of the HTMS Chang ship within 2022.
(TAF)