Hsiung Feng III

The Hsiung Feng III (HF-3) (雄風三型, "Brave Wind III") is a missile system currently being developed by the Chungshan Institute of Science and Technology in Taiwan. Very little is known about the HF-3, except that it is a Mach 2 class supersonic anti-ship missile designed to target PLAN surface vessels, including its "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 [http://www.libertytimes.com/2005/new/may/today/today-t1.htm "Liberty Times" article] on May 10, 2005, the basic R&D phase of the HF-3 was mostly complete by that time, and the system was to under-go various countermeasure tests before entering service. According to the article, the main difficulty in designing the HF-3 involved violent trans-sonic 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/Kang Ding" class and "Perry/Cheng Kung" class frigates, and may possibly be deployed on the "Kwang Hwa VI" class missile boats.

In August 2006, Janes subsequently reported that the R&D phase was complete - the first test was conducted in September 2006.

2 version of HF-3 exist so far, a land based and a shipborne version that might be shorter in range in order to fit on board Taiwan's naval ships, as seen of 4 such HF-3 boxes (with 4 other HF-2 AShM) on board ROCN frigate PFG-1101 Cheng Kung as of 2006.

General characteristics

* Primary Function: Anti-ship missile
* Range: 300 Kilomiters
* Flight altitude: 125M-250M
* Power Plant: Ramjet
* Top Speed: 2300 KPH
* Length: ?
* Weight: ?
* Date Deployed: 12/2007 250 Units - approved for official low rate production as of 1/2008

ee also

*Hsiung Feng I
*Hsiung Feng II
*Hsiung Feng IIE

External links

* [http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/world/taiwan/hf-3.htm GlobalSecurity article on the HF-3]
* [http://www.janes.com/defence/news/jdw/jdw060804_1_n.shtml Taiwan completes development of HF-III supersonic anti-ship missile] Jane's, 4 August 2006