Thailand to Replace Coastal Guns with Long-Range Missiles

In Juni 2011, Coastal Defense Battalion 12 of the RTN conducts exercise to fire eight 155mm Chinese artillery shells on an arced trajectory, aiming and tracking the projectiles with a Raytheon Pathfinder MK targeting system and Thales Group BOR A-550 portable radar system. (photo : Pattaya Mail)

The Royal Thai Navy's (RTN's) Coastal Defence Command is replacing a number of the service's coastal guns with long-range missiles and is currently reviewing several options.
According to a senior RTN official who was speaking at the Coastal Surveillance conference held on 1-2 December in Kuala Lumpur, the replacements are being sought in light of advances in naval weapons technology that put a number of important infrastructures on Thailand's eastern seaboard at risk.

"As a result, the RTN intends to replace our coastal guns [with] long-range missiles that have better range and [are] more accurate", said Captain Panuwat Samakgarn, Deputy Director of the RTN's Combatant Capability Planning and Development Division.

(Jane's)