The military’s new Tien Kung IV (Sky Bow IV) missiles have completed initial operational evaluation and limited field testing, with mass production expected to start next year, a defense official said yesterday.
Created by the Chungshan Institute of Science and Technology’s Strong Bow (強弓) program, the Tien Kung IV system is a new air defense weapon with a maximum altitude of 70km, the source said on condition of anonymity.
This marks a significant improvement over the Tien Kung III and the PAC-3 Missile Segment Enhancement systems, which have maximum altitudes of 45km and 60km respectively, they said.
Photo: Lo Tien-pin, Taipei Times
The Tien Kung IV’s enhanced capability allows the system to intercept high-flying cruise missiles and ballistic missiles with a higher probability of success, they said.
The quantity of Tien Kung IV systems to be purchased is yet to be decided, although the Tien Kung III system’s mass production would cease early next year, as its NT$27.4 billion (US$908.1 million) budget is expected to be all but exhausted by December, they said.
The Ministry of National Defense aims to develop two additional weapon systems with the Strong Bow program, including an air defense missile with a maximum altitude of 100km and a surface-to-surface missile with a range of 1,000km, they said.
Separately, the armed forces are planning an unprecedented move to increase defense spending to 3 percent of GDP to meet targets set by the US, a source familiar with the matter said.
The ministry has a NT$247.2 billion special budget to buy 66 F-16C/D Block 70 jets and a NT$388.3 billion special budget on various domestically manufactured missile systems.
Next year, the ministry plans to allocate NT$116.4 billion to harden military telecommunications hubs and command centers, and improve training facilities as part of the Cabinet’s special project to bolster national resilience, they said.
The ministry also plans to allocate NT$500 billion to buy US arms, with a plan to be unveiled in late August, they said.
The armed forces would invest in other domestic programs, including Albatross uncrewed aerial vehicles, second-generation Kestrel anti-armor rocket launchers and launching more assembly lines for 155mm artillery shells, they said.
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
Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) lawmakers have declared they survived recall votes to remove them from office today, although official results are still pending as the vote counting continues. Although final tallies from the Central Election Commission (CEC) are still pending, preliminary results indicate that the recall campaigns against all seven KMT lawmakers have fallen short. As of 6:10 pm, Taichung Legislators Yen Kuan-heng (顏寬恒) and Yang Chiung-ying (楊瓊瓔), Hsinchu County Legislator Lin Szu-ming (林思銘), Nantou County Legislator Ma Wen-chun (馬文君) and New Taipei City Legislator Lo Ming-tsai (羅明才) had all announced they
Nvidia Corp CEO Jensen Huang (黃仁勳) yesterday visited Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電), as the chipmaker prepares for volume production of Nvidia’s next-generation artificial intelligence (AI) chips. It was Huang’s third trip to Taiwan this year, indicating that Nvidia’s supply chain is deeply connected to Taiwan. Its partners also include packager Siliconware Precision Industries Co (矽品精密) and server makers Hon Hai Precision Industry Co (鴻海精密) and Quanta Computer Inc (廣達). “My main purpose is to visit TSMC,” Huang said yesterday. “As you know, we have next-generation architecture called Rubin. Rubin is very advanced. We have now taped out six brand new
POWER PLANT POLL: The TPP said the number of ‘yes’ votes showed that the energy policy should be corrected, and the KMT said the result was a win for the people’s voice The government does not rule out advanced nuclear energy generation if it meets the government’s three prerequisites, President William Lai (賴清德) said last night after the number of votes in favor of restarting a nuclear power plant outnumbered the “no” votes in a referendum yesterday. The referendum failed to pass, despite getting more “yes” votes, as the Referendum Act (公民投票法) states that the vote would only pass if the votes in favor account for more than one-fourth of the total number of eligible voters and outnumber the opposing votes. Yesterday’s referendum question was: “Do you agree that the Ma-anshan Nuclear Power Plant
RSS