Does 'Han Kuang' means Light of the Han? Does that sound like a level of ethno-nationalism that even the PRC won't pull of?
Taiwan Military News, Reports, Data, etc.
- Thread starter Gollevainen
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Does 'Han Kuang' means Light of the Han? Does that sound like a level of ethno-nationalism that even the PRC won't pull of?
PiSigma
"the engineer"
Lol yep the communists are just like those manchus, must restore the Ming...
Mr T
Senior Member
Taiwan's defence budget has not been cut. It has been increased.
One of the issues is that the US$ rate changes because of fluctuations in the exchange rate. So it might look like the budget has been cut one year when actually it hasn't. Although the KMT did severely stiff the military for a long time when they had control of the legislative, so that could be part of the issue.
Not that it helps the dead, but it's worth pointing out that the Kiowa crashed after the exercise whilst returning to base - it had even stopped to refuel at another base first. Sounds a lot like a maintenance or parts defect issue.
I hadn't heard about the zodiac, but the seas around Taiwan can be very rough and that seems to be why it flipped over from reports. Don't ask me whether the weather was bad when they started or not.
The suicide is probably unrelated to the exercise and just coincidental in timing.
vesicles
Colonel
Many of the mishaps and accidents may be caused by lack of training, including training of combatants and technicians who maintain their equipment...
If Taiwan is serious about defending itself, they should start acting like it. Maybe lengthening the military service to a reasonable time frame, like 3-4 years? The current 4-month service time is a joke. How does anyone expect to get familiar with any training in 4 months? Weapon systems are getting more sophisticated by the day. Boot camp in the US Army takes 10 weeks. That's 2 and half months. If your entire service time is merely 4 months, you have another month and half after boot camp, even assuming you have a proper boot camp? How do you expect any proper training? How do you expect to yield any effective combatants with a 4-month service time. To this day, I have not heard any logical justification for this...
If Taiwan is serious about defending itself, they should start acting like it. Maybe lengthening the military service to a reasonable time frame, like 3-4 years? The current 4-month service time is a joke. How does anyone expect to get familiar with any training in 4 months? Weapon systems are getting more sophisticated by the day. Boot camp in the US Army takes 10 weeks. That's 2 and half months. If your entire service time is merely 4 months, you have another month and half after boot camp, even assuming you have a proper boot camp? How do you expect any proper training? How do you expect to yield any effective combatants with a 4-month service time. To this day, I have not heard any logical justification for this...
Sometime, I think the approach taken by Taiwan towards the defence of the island is half-hearted.
Maybe because deep down, they know it's a loss cause.the disparity between China and Taiwan is too great, and this disparity is growing daily.
Taiwan knows the defence of their island depends largely on the USA. If USA announced overnight it is no longer prepared to defend Taiwan, it'll be game over. Everyone knows that on both sides of the strait.
Mr T
Senior Member
Sure, but it's speculation. Best wait until the report is out.
That's for reservists. The professionals train for a lot longer. But, sure, some people have said that the reserve force needs to be reorganised as the current system could be better.
Taiwan's defense strategy (against mainland China) can be summarized in two sentences: pay exorbitant money to buy outdated or ill-fit US weaponry as on-going protection fees; resist just long enough when PLA starts to invade so the US intervention can come, if they come at all.
Deep-down, I feel majority Taiwan residents, including the seemingly die-hard pro-independence people, believe that resistance is futile, spilling blood and sacrficing lives for it are not worth it, and unification with the mainland is not that bad at all. Considering almost two million Taiwanese live and work on mainland these days, and mainland Chinese treat them as compatriots.
Mr T
Senior Member
That's a significant exaggeration. The US has sold plenty of quality gear, such as the refurbished P-3C Orions, PAC-3 missiles, Apaches, F-16V updates and now agreed to provide the new F-16Vs and Abrams.
Realistically the US would have enough time to react, not least because China would find it hard to conceal the necessary military build-up.
Well if you want to talk about "deep-down" feelings you don't need to deal with empirical evidence, like polling data. Also, if China invaded and took control of Taiwan my guess is that the CCP would not make it easy for Taiwanese to complain about the occupation.
I'm not sure where you have the two million figure from. From memory it's an old number that doesn't really have any relevance now. Last year I heard the number is somewhere between 400,000 and a bit under 1 million.
If they are increasing the Defense budget, then where is the money going?
Buying 66 F-16V, but only have 200 AIM-120 (to be shared with the existing ~150 F-16A), less than 1 missile per plane.
2nd Helicopter crash this year, 1st killed the military Chief of Staff. If that is not ringing alarm bells with regards to maintenance staff quality, then there is no point in maintenance at all.
The suicide is not speculated to be coincidental because this officer was one of the ones in charge of that portion of the exercise, and his suicide came within hours of the confirmation of the first death.
All volunteer army has been a failure (not the current administration's fault necessarily) from what I've read. The pay is competitive with Taiwanese salaries, but Taiwanese salaries are amongst the lowest in Asia.
The issues with the ROC military are well documented. Allowing celebrities to do Instagram on Apache, reservists dodging training. I thought it was overblown, but to have so many deaths in one training exercise, supposedly the most important of the year, it’s totally unprofessional.
You can buy all the advanced equipment you want, but if the quality of the operators is poor, so will the results. Look at Pantsir performance in Libya, sitting ducks for Turkish drones.