Taiwan Military News, Reports, Data, etc.

SamuraiBlue said:

It states engineers but does not specify what kind of engineers.
They could be design engineers or manufacturing engineers or both.
In manufacturing industry they are both engineers so we do not know which.

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sequ said:

Well, those M1's wil be great in plinking LST, hovercrafts, amphibious vehicles and such during a potential invasion. And they can can be quickly moved around to plug gaps in (static) defences.

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Skywatcher said:

a Taiwan News article said those engineers last worked on the Haurshio?

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SamuraiBlue said:

I doubt it.
IF they were in their 40's when they worked as design engineers then they will be around mid 70's or early 80's.
Probably the Oyashio which was in R&D during the early 90's.Even with this they will be in their mid 60's.

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Skywatcher said:

That makes more sense. I wonder which American contractor they're fronting for ( that's what the Diplomat article made it sound like they're doing)?

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Taiwan has declared its

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fully operational, according to its National Defense Ministry.

In a July 17 ceremony held at the Tawianese Army base at Longtan in northern Taiwan, the 601st Aviation Brigade was declared fully operational as its second Apache Guardian squadron was commissioned into service.

The commissioning of Taiwan’s fleet of 29 Apache Guardians is a big leap in capability for the island, which has up to now been operating the remaining survivors of 63 Bell AH-1W Super Cobra attack helicopters delivered in the 1990s.

The ceremony was attended by Taiwanese President Tsai Ing-wen, who said in her speech that the brigade has a vital role in the Taiwanese military’s efforts to defend Taiwan and deter the enemy.

The 601st Aviation Brigade is made up of two squadrons that operate Taiwan’s 29 Apache Guardians, with the first squadron achieving full operational capability in July 2017.

It was revealed in 2011 that Taiwan had signed a contract, reported to be worth up to $1.91 billion, for 30 Apache Guardians following notification to Congress by the U.S. Defense Security Cooperation Agency of the sale in October 2008. Deliveries started in 2012, and crew training in the United States began later that same year.

The first six helicopters were ferried by sea to Taiwan in November 2013, and the remaining Apache Guardians were delivered in batches. The last helicopters were received in October 2014, although by this time one had been written off when it crashed into a residential building in Taoyuan County, northern Taiwan, in April that year.

The Taiwanese Apache Guardians are equipped with the AN/APG-78 Longbow millimeter-wave radar, which is capable of day, night and all-weather operations and can fire the Lockheed Martin AGM-114L/M Hellfire missiles that have been acquired by Taiwan.

Taiwan has been under increasingly severe diplomatic pressure from neighboring China, which views the self-governing island as a rogue province and has not ruled out the use of force to retake it. It has also used its diplomatic and economic clout to restrict foreign arms sales to Taiwan, although the U.S. is bound by the Taiwan Relations Act to “make available to Taiwan such defense articles and defense services in such quantity as may be necessary to enable Taiwan to maintain a sufficient self-defense capability.”

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As Beijing lifts PLA budget, Taiwan spends less on defense
Taiwan President Tsai Ing-wen was elected on a pledge to increase military spending, but has fallen short of her promise
By Asia Times staff July 20, 2018 7:16 PM (UTC+8)

Two years into Taiwanese President Tsai Ing-wen’s tenure, the island’s military is still operating on a shoe-string budget, in the face of more menacing from Beijing.

Figures from Taiwan’s defense ministry reveal the defense budget over the past two years averaged 1.84% of the island’s gross domestic product, falling short of Tsai’s campaign pledge to increase the share of military spending in Taiwan’s economic output to no less than 3%.

The average defense spending over the past two years represents a decline from 2.54% of GDP in 2008.

The defense budget this year is NT$327.8 billion (US$10.73 billion), of which almost half of the outlay, or NT$153.9 billion, will be set aside for pension and personnel expenditures, according to the ministry’s report to the island’s Legislative Yuan.

Had Tsai’s campaign promise been fulfilled, the defense budget this year would be NT$535 billion, according to Taiwan’s Central News Agency.

Across the strait on the mainland, Beijing’s national defense budget this year is set to break the 1.1 trillion yuan (US$175 billion) mark, up 8.1%, or almost 17 times Taiwan’s. That figure is on the conservative side given the fact that Beijing’s military outlays are often camouflaged as something else, like infrastructure, industrial, research and development investment, among other things.

The People’s Liberation Army’s 2017 budget – about 1 trillion yuan – was equivalent to 1.5% of its GDP that year.

Xinhua said in a commentary in March that China’s defense spending compared to its GDP showed Beijing’s “magnanimity” in its dealings with other nations, plus its commitment to “non-hegemonic, peaceful development” and love of peace.

Still, China has long outspent Russia, India, France, Japan, Germany and others and was second only to the US on a 2016 list of military expenditure compiled by the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute.

In Taiwan, according to analysts, excluding any additional procurement of arms from the US, Taiwan’s military spending is unlikely to reach the 3% goal before the end of Tsai’s four-year tenure, given the island’s flagging economy, revenue shortfalls and the opposition’s efforts to scale down the defense budget during parliamentary deliberations, led by the Beijing-friendly KMT party.

Previously the military had hoped for an increase in the defense budget to NT$360 billion in 2019, or 2% of GDP.

Still, Tsai has vowed to progressively raise defense spending by 2 or 3 percentage points annually from 2019 onwards and assured disgruntled soldiers and veterans that more spending on training and weapon purchases – such as the M1A2 Abrams main battle tanks, an indigenous fast attack missile boat program and a new mobile surface-to-air missile system – would not eat into their pensions and benefits.

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kurutoga said:

Taiwan's military budget is already too high.

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PRC has 30+ times the national budget, 60 times the population, but only 17 times the military spending, according to above ATimes story. But again, ATimes is not a good source.

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