Hsiung Feng III
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
The Hsiung Feng III (HF-3) (雄風三號, "Brave Wind III") is a missile system currently being developed by the Chungshan Institute of Science and Technology in Taiwan ROC. Very little is known about the HF-3, except that it is an anti-ship missile designed to target PLAN Sovremenny class destroyers. It has been speculated that the anti-ship variant is being designed to outperform the Russian-made Sunburn anti-ship missile possessed by the PLAN. It is known that there have been a series of successful test firings of the HF-3 in December 2004.
According to a Liberty Times article on May 10, 2005, the basic R&D phase of the HF-3 is mostly complete, and the system will be undergoing various countermeasure tests before entering service. According to the article the main difficulty in designing the HF-3 involved violent transsonic vibrations damaging missile parts; advances in materials science allowed extensive miniaturization of the HF-3 system. It is expected to be deployed aboard the ROC Navy's Lafayette class and Perry class frigates, and may possibly be deployed on the Kwang Hwa VI class missile boats.
[edit] General characteristics
- Primary Function: Anti-ship missile
- Range: 180-200 km
- Flight altitude: 20-200 m
- Power Plant: Ramjet
- Top Speed: Mach 2-2.5
- Length: Approximately 6 m
- Weight: Approximately 1 ton
- Date Deployed: In development
[edit] See also
[edit] External links
- Taiwan primer
- GlobalSecurity article on the HF-3
- Taiwan completes development of HF-III supersonic anti-ship missile Jane's, 4 August 2006
