Abstract:
This research paper aims at defining Royal Thai Navy surface ships characteristics for constabulary role. It empowers the Navy in term of a proper vessel or equipment for operating to cope with new threats and to synchronise with the strategic plan. In addition, it allows the Navy to confirm with maritime protection policy, which is one of national maritime security strategies (2015-2021). The Logic of Force Planning model, which is a part of Fundamentals of Force Planning theory, has been applied in this study. For the observation phase, it revealed that Thailand has taken advantage of maritime and eventually impacted by new challenging attack. Nonetheless, protection and problems-solving have not been effectively conducted. For Thai Navy, it shall serve as a key organisation for providing national naval protection and constabulary role. However, its capability and capacity for the mentioned duties are limited to an intermediate level with regard to suitable vessels for constabulary role. It is due to the fact that the operation of Frigate and Corvette would be costly and influence their availability for battle. Results show that, by analysing national maritime security policies, there is an alignment on certain concerns. Thailand highly requires support from Navy for investigation of the present environment and relevant technologies. Subsequently, data analysis with collected relating information has been performed. This contributes to determining specification of proper surface ship for the constabulary role, which significantly differs from that of high performance warship. In conclusion, Royal Thai Navy surface ship has been exclusively specified on its desired operation in this study.