Taiwan Military News, Reports, Data, etc.

AssassinsMace said:

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I love how they say China was jolted by this. Yeah I guess you can spin it that way with China's notorious canned responses. Of course the media ignores the obvious. 40 nm away and a supersonic missile took twenty-five minutes to get there. I think I've driven my car that fast once. No need for any fancy anti-missile missile system to knock that one down.

Something really strange about this story. I can see so many scenarios from they fired a missile thinking the fishing boat was a Chinese military vessel in their waters to a missile was never even fired. I love how that because countries are allied with the US, there's this automatic belief that they're more responsible countries. I still love the supposed North Korean torpedo attack on the Cheonan. They found German torpedo parts in the wreckage so of course North Korea had to have laced one of there own torpedoes with German parts to make it look like it was a US/South Korean conspiracy to frame the North. Yeah how did North Korea engineer it that only the German parts were found and no North Korean parts? Of course it works because they have to protect one another. No critical thinking required.

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siegecrossbow said:

Don't know how they'll spin this one if President Tsai ends up firing or arresting the crew responsible for this fiasco.

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Dolcevita said:

Not even a question of if. President Tsai will be highly incompetent and irresponsible if nobody gets fired and arrested for this fiasco.

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Taiwan prosecutors search for clues about navy’s ‘inexcusable’ accidental missile launch

Ship contained surveillance cameras but none was installed in the operations room where the launch took place, authorities say

Taiwanese prosecutors searched a naval vessel on Sunday for clues about how a petty officer could have single-handedly fired a supersonic anti-ship missile in an incident the island’s leader Tsai Ing-wen has called “absolutely inexcusable”.

The navy also ordered missile firing cable connectors be kept by ship captains in future to avoid any repeat of the blunder that had exposed a serious lapse of management in the island’s military.

The misfire, which shocked the island’s public, took place on Friday morning when an unsupervised petty officer accidentally fired Taiwan’s self-developed Hsiungfeng 3 – dubbed a “carrier killer” – from a warship docked at a naval base in Kaohsiung.

The missile hit a fishing boat about 40 nautical miles from the base, killing its captain and injuring three other crew members.

Huang Yuan-kuan, chief prosecutor in Kaohsiung, said his men had boarded the 500-tonne Chinchiang-class corvette from which Kao Chia-chun allegedly set the wrong control mode and accidentally fired the missile.

“We examined four sets of surveillance cameras on the ship, but none was installed in the operations room where the missile was launched, adding difficulty for us in collecting evidence,” he said.

Huang said prosecutors had searched the bedrooms of Kao and his immediate supervisor, Chen Min-hsiu, and seized their mobile phones to see if they contained anything suspicious.

On Friday, prosecutors summoned the two and their captain, as well as a weapons control officer for questioning. All four were released, with Kao and Chen freed after each posing bail of NT$300,000 (HK$72,000).

Prosecutors said Kao claimed he did not know he had switched the missile mode to attack from test. He said he was stressed due to the test and had been unable to sleep until 3am that day, but then had to get up at 5am to prepare for the test.

“I do not have the faintest idea why I switched to the wrong mode – from simulation to attack,” he reportedly told prosecutors.

Chen was supposed to supervise Kao, but told prosecutors he had been thirsty and had left the room, leaving Kao alone.

Their testimonies were questioned by local news media and some military experts, who claimed it had been too easy for Kao alone to clear all the procedures for launching the missile.

The defence ministry admitted no launch key was needed for this missile and the firing cable had been connected to the launch control system during the test.

A furious Tsai – who returned from an overseas visit on Saturday – slammed the incident as “absolutely inexcusable”, saying it showed an “utter contempt of discipline and a complete lack of competence” within the military.

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Apparently a single petty officer can fire the missile from the ship. Isn't there suppose to be a command key hold only by the captain for these things ?

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TerraN_EmpirE said:

Hunt for Red October much? This was not a ICBM. There are supposed to be some security systems in place but often they are not as extreme as Hollywood would make you think. Heck Even the ICBM launch key system of the Cold war was designed to allow quick use. ( Oh and The nuclear footballs of nations are just satalite phones and code books.... No Glowing Red button of Doom)
It's a question of Compromise the ability to rapidly respond to aggression vs the need to keep from Accidental discharges. In this case it failed.

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The missile flew north about 40 kilometers into the Taiwan Strait, which divides Taiwan from China. After 25 minutes, it hit the fishing boat.

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