The U.S. will soon announce the sale of the M109A6 self-propelled gun to Taiwan, the first arms sale to Taiwan since Biden became president. Military experts said the M109A6 self-propelled gun will significantly improve the artillery unit’s response and return fire capabilities, and Taiwan’s military is expected to acquire the weaponry from 2023. In addition, Taiwan’s military will hold its annual Han Kwang exercise from Friday to the end of this month for 8 days and 7 nights, the longest ever.
Just after the U.S.-Japan summit issued a joint statement last week reaffirming the importance of peace and stability in Taiwan, the Taiwan United Daily News quoted sources as reporting that the U.S. will sell Taiwan’s M109A6 self-propelled gun, which has been requested for many years, and if true, will be the first arms sale to Taiwan since President Biden took office.
The Minister of National Defense, Qiu Guozheng, responded to media questions before going to the Legislative Yuan for questioning on the 19th, and confirmed in a very low-key manner that he had proposed the arms purchase project to the U.S., but no further information was available.
The case has been going on for a long time, and recently it has been going on, but it has not been officially informed. As for the recent rumors, I do not understand how his message came, but there is this case, so far there is no such news.
Taiwan’s M109A6 self-propelled gun will significantly improve the reaction and return fire capabilities of its artillery units, said Jie Zhong, a senior research associate at the National Foundation for Policy Research.
Jie Zhong said: “With the addition of the M109A6, the first one has a networked combat capability. The M109A6 can use its mission computer and automatic fire control system to start firing in less than a minute after receiving the message. So far, our artillery had to rely on the artillery command post to receive messages and then decode the coordinates, and then pass them on to each gun position, which could take five minutes for the first shot. In this modern, fast-paced combat, five minutes and one minute is often the difference between life and death.
The United Daily News quoted a high-level pipeline to confirm that the Taipei Office of the American Institute in Taiwan (AIT) had informed Taiwan in March that the previously procured M109A6 self-propelled gun case would be announced by the U.S. Security Cooperation Agency (DSCA) in the near future regarding the notification process to Congress. The Army plans to receive and install the guns in batches from 2023 to 2025, and will perform the pre-construction of ancillary facilities from this year.
In addition, Minister of National Defense Qiu Guozheng said in response to questions from legislators that the self-propelled artillery sales case had nothing to do with the visit to Taiwan last week by a delegation led by former U.S. Senator Dodd. He confirmed that he had talks with the U.S. delegation during the visit, and the content talked about the cross-strait situation, the surrounding situation and the current shape and condition of the Indo-Pacific, which naturally led to some questions about how to prevent and cooperate, but did not talk about what weapons and equipment to obtain.
DPP legislator Wang Dingyu said that in October last year, the director of the American Institute in Taiwan, Li Yingjie, had said that the self-propelled artillery military purchase case belongs to the 2021 arms sales case. He pointed out that this arms sales case to Taiwan’s old self-propelled artillery vehicle upgrade is indeed a great benefit. Wang Dingyu reiterated that the self-propelled artillery vehicle is already an old case and has been for some time. The two are not related, according to Chiu.
According to the information, the M109A6 self-propelled gun is the main artillery of the U.S. artillery unit, and differs from Taiwan’s current A2 and A5 models in that it can calculate initial firing plots through the Automatic Firing Control System (AFCS), and the gun can be fired using the Dobler initial velocity radar to implement ballistic calculations, automatically set target plots, and automatically aim and retarget after firing. The M109A6 has a maximum range of 24 kilometers when firing grenades, and can reach 30 kilometers with extended range ammunition, and up to 40 kilometers with the precision-guided M982 “Excalibur”.
In addition, Qiu Guozheng revealed in the Legislative Yuan on Monday that the Taiwanese army will hold its annual “Han Kwang 37” exercise from Friday (23rd) to next Friday (30th), with a total of 8 days and 7 nights, the longest in history. He pointed out that he had decided to extend the military exercise time before his arrival, the length of time depends on the environmental conditions, courses, seminar topics, after review found that the past military exercise time rush, can not fully discuss, decided to extend the time.
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