New page: The cold war Thai Navy

The Kingdom of Thailand has many difficult internal and external defence problems to resolve with limited means. She has nearly 700 miles of navigable waterways, increased by half in the monsoon. Up to 1939 Thailand was known in the English-speaking world as Siam. The existence of an anti-Japanese underground movement won Thailand moderate treatment at the end of the war, though she was forced to return the territories acquired in 1941 and 1943 to French and British control. The Royal Thai Navy was left almost unmolested and the ships served the new Thai state for many years. One coast defence ship, Sri Ayuthia, was lost during the 1951 rebellion. Manpower rose from 10,000 to 18,000 in the 1950s.
Thailand was one of the original signatories of the 1954 SEATO Manila Pact agreement, having already lost a frigate in the Korean War, and later provided troops, air bases and equipment to assist American forces in Vietnam. Currently Thailand, one of the instigators of the ASEAN agreement, has formed close ties with both Malaysia and the Philippines.

During the 1980s the navy received numerous fighting ships including US-built Ratanakosin class fast corvettes, German-built minesweepers/hunters and Thai-built patrol boats of the Sattahip class. Four frigates of the ‘Jianghu’ type were completed in China in the 1990s along with Kamronsin class corvettes built in Thai shipyards to a British design. The Chinese ships cost only half as much as Western-built equivalents, but their combat effectiveness is lower because of their obsolescent armament and equipment. The Italthai shipyard, on the other hand, is delivering big modern and capable landing ships of the Sichang class. Thailand, like other countries in the region, is trying to build up its shipbuilding industry…

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