Taiwan Military News, Reports, Data, etc.

voyager1 said:

I know that these photos are funny, but I dont see how, for example, a drone operator could recognise it for military vehicles from that height (above)

Now if you are on the ground, then thats easily recognisable(wheels), but from other angles and from a distance then i dont see why it couldn't fool image recognition. You have to take into the account that even with a powerful resolution the camera sensor wouldnt be able to distinguish small details from such a distance and from above

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tupolevtu144 said:

The new LPD has finally received its official pennant number 1401 and has been named "Yu-Shan", after the tallest mountain in Taiwan.

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Side-firing launchers for TC-2N medium-range anti-air missiles, has a 30km interception range. It is the navy variant of the original TC-2 missile.

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Translation:

Cost: 73.3 billion
Start of construction: 2019/5/6
Launch: 2021/4/13
Pennant number: 1401

Powerplant: MTU 20V 8000 diesel engine *4 (other sources say 2)
Generator: 1100kw generator *4
Range : 7000~12500 nm
Top speed: 21.5 knots
Displacement: 10600 tons

Mission: Amphibious landings, supply transport for remote islands, humanitarian missions

Personnel: 190 sailors, 250 marines, 233 reserves, 673 max

Armament: OTO melara gun*1, phalanx ciws*2, mk44 bushmaster autocannon*2, TC-2N launcher*2, crew small arms

Vehicles: s-70/blackhawk helicopter*2, aav-7*9, LCU*1, LCM*4, LVTH-6*1


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Skywatcher said:

Pretty good and sensible design for ROCN needs.

Would be much better to build another Yushan rather than that LHD.

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Bltizo said:

This prevailing assumption in believing that Xi wants to see Taiwan reunified while he is in a position of leadership in China, imo, is ridiculous.
None of China's current strategic procurements and nation building priorities point to a desire to actively wanting to militarily invade Taiwan in the short-medium term (5-10 years) -- otherwise we'd be seeing them pour money into things that would be militarily, mature, and operationally relevant for that time period rather than systems that will take over a decade or more to reach true maturity.

As for F-35s -- China will obviously oppose any sale of military arms to Taiwan as a matter of principle, but a sale of F-35s on the sort of budget that the ROC military has, in the time span in which they could even conceviably be delivered, would not be a significant change in the cross strait power balance.




That is the whole reason why this entire situation is becoming a more risky flashpoint, because China is reiterating its red lines, the US is trying to salami slice away to those red lines, and Taiwan is in the middle of it with unclear intentions as to how far it wants to take advantage of the geopolitical circumstances to nibble away more towards de jure independence.

You are being remarkably cavalier if you don't think the situation right now between the three parties does not have the potential for military conflict if two of those sides misread each other's intentions. And military conflict involving these three parties is one where the risk of nuclear escalation is not low.


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China's current strategy wrt Taiwan is quite simple.
1. Use every means to deter Taiwan and/or other countries from carrying out actions that would move it towards more in the direction of de jure independence (other similar matters including but not limited to Taiwan acquiring nuclear weapons, formal placement of foreign military forces on the island etc).)
2. Be willing to use military force and its associated escalation ladder, either against Taiwan and/or other outside parties that involve themselves in the matter, in the event deterrence fails and the red line of de jure independence is crossed (or the aforementioned other red lines).
3. Continue to accrue military, economic, geopolitical capability in general over time, to enhance above 1. and 2. in context of whatever the geopolitical conditions of the period are. This point is basically acknowledging that in terms of the hard power ability to deter Taiwan from moving to de jure independence, and the hard power ability to achieve a more favourable outcome in point 2., would both favour China more if something like this happened more into the future. I.e.: that China feels like time is on its side.


Putting it another way, and putting all of China's current priorities (both in terms of military procurement and domestic nation building efforts), I find these assertions that China is going to invade Taiwan in the near term (either from pro China people, or from pro Taiwan people, or from your standard mainstream media) to be silly.
There's a difference between having the capability to invade if it is required, versus having the capability they want to invade if they were actively planning for it.

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tupolevtu144 said:

New peculiar disguise for CM-32 APC during a recent exercise:
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tamsen_ikard said:

So, China now is in a big dilemma. They can either raise military pressure on Taiwan or they back down and Taiwan will achieve defacto Taiwan Independence.

The way things are going, I think just doing flybys around Taiwan is not pressure enough to create fear in DPP and US. They need to do something kinetic soon.

I think China will have to do something much more violent in order to signal the DPP and US to stop provocations. But I think they will do something short of a full invasion.

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