A NT$16.9 billion (US$534.93 million) project to upgrade the military’s missile defense systems would be completed this year, allowing the deployment of at least 100 long-range Hsiung Sheng missiles and providing more deterrence against China, military sources said on Saturday.
Hsiung Sheng missiles are an extended-range version of the Hsiung Feng IIE (HF-2E) surface-to-surface cruise missile, and are believed to have a range of up to 1,200km, which would allow them to hit targets well inside China.
They went into mass production in 2022, the sources said.
Photo: Hung Chen-hung, Taipei Times
The project is part of a special budget for the Ministry of National Defense aimed at improving naval and air combat capabilities, and while the project’s time line was four years, the majority of production would be completed this year, they said.
Two other versions of the HF-2E missile system are already in use by the air force. They are classified as either Type A or Type B, with Type A having a range of 500km and Type B having a range of 1,000km due to their different propulsion systems.
The military developed a new turbofan engine codenamed Kunpeng (鯤鵬) for the Type B missile, which is able to fly farther while conserving fuel, one source said.
The Type A missile was first tested in 2004, and the Type B in 2007, the source said, adding that both have since been in regular mass production and supplied to the air force’s missile brigade.
“The new longer-range surface-to-surface cruise missile ... looks similar to the American Tomahawk,” the source said.
Although the ministry has not specifically disclosed the range of the Hsiung Sheng, sources have put it at up to 1,200km.
A report submitted to the Legislative Yuan in April 2022 revealed that the Hsiung Sheng can carry high-explosive and fragmentation warheads.
“It can be used to conduct counter-attack operations against the enemy’s command posts, bunkers and airport runways,” the source said.
A previous report from the ministry to the Legislative Yuan also said that the Hsiung Sheng shares a production line with the surface-to-air variants of the Hsiung Feng IIE.
Although the military has not announced expected production capacity, a new missile production plant at the Chungshan Institute of Science and Technology would likely allow more than 130 of the new missiles to be produced annually, the source said.
“When deployed alongside existing sea and air defense missile systems, the extended-range missile would improve overall combat readiness significantly,” the source said.
Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) is expected to start construction of its 1.4-nanometer chip manufacturing facilities at the Central Taiwan Science Park (CTSP, 中部科學園區) as early as October, the Chinese-language Liberty Times (the Taipei Times’ sister newspaper) reported yesterday, citing the park administration. TSMC acquired land for the second phase of the park’s expansion in Taichung in June. Large cement, construction and facility engineering companies in central Taiwan have reportedly been receiving bids for TSMC-related projects, the report said. Supply-chain firms estimated that the business opportunities for engineering, equipment and materials supply, and back-end packaging and testing could reach as high as
CHAMPIONS: President Lai congratulated the players’ outstanding performance, cheering them for marking a new milestone in the nation’s baseball history Taiwan on Sunday won their first Little League Baseball World Series (LLBWS) title in 29 years, as Taipei’s Dong Yuan Elementary School defeated a team from Las Vegas 7-0 in the championship game in South Williamsport, Pennsylvania. It was Taiwan’s first championship in the annual tournament since 1996, ending a nearly three-decade drought. “It has been a very long time ... and we finally made it,” Taiwan manager Lai Min-nan (賴敏男) said after the game. Lai said he last managed a Dong Yuan team in at the South Williamsport in 2015, when they were eliminated after four games. “There is
Democratic nations should refrain from attending China’s upcoming large-scale military parade, which Beijing could use to sow discord among democracies, Mainland Affairs Council Deputy Minister Shen You-chung (沈有忠) said. China is scheduled to stage the parade on Wednesday next week to mark the 80th anniversary of Japan’s surrender in World War II. The event is expected to mobilize tens of thousands of participants and prominently showcase China’s military hardware. Speaking at a symposium in Taichung on Thursday, Shen said that Chinese Minister of Foreign Affairs Wang Yi (王毅) recently met with Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi during a visit to New Delhi.
FINANCES: The KMT plan to halt pension cuts could bankrupt the pension fund years earlier, undermining intergenerational fairness, a Ministry of Civil Service report said The Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) caucus’ proposal to amend the law to halt pension cuts for civil servants, teachers and military personnel could accelerate the depletion of the Public Service Pension Fund by four to five years, a Ministry of Civil Service report said. Legislative Speaker Han Kuo-yu (韓國瑜) on Aug. 14 said that the Act Governing Civil Servants’ Retirement, Discharge and Pensions (公務人員退休資遣撫卹法) should be amended, adding that changes could begin as soon as after Saturday’s recall and referendum. In a written report to the Legislative Yuan, the ministry said that the fund already faces a severe imbalance between revenue
RSS