US To Build Eight Subs for Taiwan (Not!)

This article from the Washington Times discusses a plan for eight diesel submarines to be built for Taiwan by Ingalls Shipbuilding. Near the bottom of the article, one person predicts that this will never happen. I agree. Building submarines is nothing at all like building surface ships; the tolerances involved are orders of magnitude more restrictive. In order to retool Ingalls, and send down the experts from Newport News Shipyard that would be needed to oversee the effort, the costs of the boats would probably exceed the entire $18B budget Taiwan has for military modernization, even if they are diesel. But wait, you may say... can't we just build the subs to lesser specifications? That'll sure go over well in Taiwan... (Proposed headline in Taipei Times: "Greedy US Shipbuilders Put Taiwanese Submariners at Risk".)