The army has begun using newly purchased target-acquisition drones to bolster its surveillance and reconnaissance capabilities.
The target-acquisition drones are part of the 3,000 commercial drones that the Ministry of National Defense purchased from the private sector in August. The ministry has also purchased drones that are designed to conduct land-based surveillance and reconnaissance, ship-based surveillance and reconnaissance, and other types of drones.
The entire drone procurement package cost NT$6.87 billion (US$211.7 million), of which about NT$566.6 million has been allocated to pay for 72 target-acquisition drones developed by MiTAC Information Technology, the ministry’s budget report showed.
Photo courtesy of Youth Daily News
Forty-two target-acquisition drones are scheduled to be delivered this year, while 30 are scheduled to be delivered next year, the report said.
A photo published by the ministry-funded Youth Daily News on Friday showed that a target-acquisition drone was displayed at an event celebrating the 93rd anniversary of the Army Artillery Training Command.
Vice Minister of National Defense Hsu Yen-pu (徐衍璞) and other defense officials participated in the event.
The drones would bolster the army’s capabilities in target acquisition, surveillance and reconnaissance as well as in retaliatory and anti-aircraft operations, the ministry said.
They can also be used to monitor firepower of weapons, track the paths of enemy ships at sea and improve combat efficiency, it added.
Target-acquisition drones weigh less than 3kg and have a flight time of about one hour, a notice on the Government e-Procurement System said.
The drone’s remote-control range is up to 50km, with a maximum speed of about 100kph, it said.
They can fly to an altitude of more than 3,000m, carry an electro-optical/infra-red dual optical lens and resist level-5 winds, it added.
‘ABUSE OF POWER’: Lee Chun-yi allegedly used a Control Yuan vehicle to transport his dog to a pet grooming salon and take his wife to restaurants, media reports said Control Yuan Secretary-General Lee Chun-yi (李俊俋) resigned on Sunday night, admitting that he had misused a government vehicle, as reported by the media. Control Yuan Vice President Lee Hung-chun (李鴻鈞) yesterday apologized to the public over the issue. The watchdog body would follow up on similar accusations made by the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) and would investigate the alleged misuse of government vehicles by three other Control Yuan members: Su Li-chiung (蘇麗瓊), Lin Yu-jung (林郁容) and Wang Jung-chang (王榮璋), Lee Hung-chun said. Lee Chun-yi in a statement apologized for using a Control Yuan vehicle to transport his dog to a
BEIJING’S ‘PAWN’: ‘We, as Chinese, should never forget our roots, history, culture,’ Want Want Holdings general manager Tsai Wang-ting said at a summit in China The Mainland Affairs Council (MAC) yesterday condemned Want Want China Times Media Group (旺旺中時媒體集團) for making comments at the Cross-Strait Chinese Culture Summit that it said have damaged Taiwan’s sovereignty, adding that it would investigate if the group had colluded with China in the matter and contravened cross-strait regulations. The council issued a statement after Want Want Holdings (旺旺集團有限公司) general manager Tsai Wang-ting (蔡旺庭), the third son of the group’s founder, Tsai Eng-meng (蔡衍明), said at the summit last week that the group originated in “Chinese Taiwan,” and has developed and prospered in “the motherland.” “We, as Chinese, should never
‘A SURVIVAL QUESTION’: US officials have been urging the opposition KMT and TPP not to block defense spending, especially the special defense budget, an official said The US plans to ramp up weapons sales to Taiwan to a level exceeding US President Donald Trump’s first term as part of an effort to deter China as it intensifies military pressure on the nation, two US officials said on condition of anonymity. If US arms sales do accelerate, it could ease worries about the extent of Trump’s commitment to Taiwan. It would also add new friction to the tense US-China relationship. The officials said they expect US approvals for weapons sales to Taiwan over the next four years to surpass those in Trump’s first term, with one of them saying
INDO-PACIFIC REGION: Royal Navy ships exercise the right of freedom of navigation, including in the Taiwan Strait and South China Sea, the UK’s Tony Radakin told a summit Freedom of navigation in the Indo-Pacific region is as important as it is in the English Channel, British Chief of the Defence Staff Admiral Tony Radakin said at a summit in Singapore on Saturday. The remark came as the British Royal Navy’s flagship aircraft carrier, the HMS Prince of Wales, is on an eight-month deployment to the Indo-Pacific region as head of an international carrier strike group. “Upholding the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea, and with it, the principles of the freedom of navigation, in this part of the world matters to us just as it matters in the