The military yesterday held live-fire exercises involving precision weapons in Pingtung County to test troops’ capabilities to counter potential amphibious and sea attacks by China.
The “Sky Horse” exercises were open to the media and involved troops from the army’s 542nd, 564th, 269th and 234th brigades, Hualien Defense Command, Army Infantry Training Command and the 99th Marine Brigade.
During the drills, soldiers fired TOW 2A anti-tank missiles at targets in the sea from a coastal drill area in Fangshan Township (枋山).
Photo: Ann Wang, Reuters
Major Huang Chieh-hung (黃介宏), an instructor from the Army Infantry Training Command who was in charge of the drill, said the soldiers used sighting devices to boost the missiles’ accuracy, adding that about 70 percent of the projectiles hit their designated targets at sea.
The major difference between this year’s Sky Horse exercise and previous ones is that TOW 2B anti-tank missiles were fired from vehicles instead of from the ground, he said.
Firing missiles from a vehicle increases mobility and helps soldiers defend against enemy attacks by engaging effectively at an early stage, Huang added.
Photo: Lo Pei-de, Taipei Times
Taiwan has purchased 1,240 TOW 2B anti-tank missiles, 24 Humvee armored vehicles upon which the missiles would be mounted and 30 targeting systems from the US, the Ministry of National Defense has said.
The weapons are to be delivered by 2025, the ministry said.
The military also held a live-fire exercise involving helicopters and Thunderbolt-2000 rocket systems at a separate drill ground in Pingtung.
Today, the armed forces are to hold live-fire exercises that would involve Avenger air-defense systems and Stinger surface-to-air missiles.
The drills come against the backdrop of aerial and naval maneuvers by China in and around the Taiwan Strait.
Last month, eight Chinese warplanes approached Taiwan’s contiguous zone — or the band of sea within 24 nautical miles (44km) of its coast.
In May, China’s Shandong aircraft carrier group sailed through the Taiwan Strait in a rare voyage.
Additional reporting by AFP
More than half of the bamboo vipers captured in Tainan in the past few years were found in the city’s Sinhua District (新化), while other districts had smaller catches or none at all. Every year, Tainan captures about 6,000 snakes which have made their way into people’s homes. Of the six major venomous snakes in Taiwan, the cobra, the many-banded krait, the brown-spotted pit viper and the bamboo viper are the most frequently captured. The high concentration of bamboo vipers captured in Sinhua District is puzzling. Tainan Agriculture Bureau Forestry and Nature Conservation Division head Chu Chien-ming (朱健明) earlier this week said that the
Kenting National Park service technician Yang Jien-fon (楊政峰) won a silver award in World Grand Prix Photography Awards Spring Season for his photograph of two male rat snakes intertwined in combat. Yang’s colleagues at Kenting National Park said he is a master of nature photography who has been held back by his job in civil service. The awards accept entries in all four seasons across six categories: architectural and urban photography, black-and-white and fine art photography, commercial and fashion photography, documentary and people photography, nature and experimental photography, and mobile photography. Awards are ranked according to scores and divided into platinum, gold and
NAMING SPAT: The foreign ministry called on Denmark to propose an acceptable solution to the erroneous nationality used for Taiwanese on residence permits Taiwan has revoked some privileges for Danish diplomatic staff over a Danish permit that lists “Taiwan” as “China,” Eric Huang (黃鈞耀), head of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs’ Department of European Affairs, told a news conference in Taipei yesterday. Reporters asked Huang whether the Danish government had responded to the ministry’s request that it correct the nationality on Danish residence permits of Taiwanese, which has been listed as “China” since 2024. Taiwan’s representative office in Denmark continues to communicate with the Danish government, and the ministry has revoked some privileges previously granted to Danish representatives in Taiwan and would continue to review
The first bluefin tuna of the season, brought to shore in Pingtung County and weighing 190kg, was yesterday auctioned for NT$10,600 (US$333.5) per kilogram, setting a record high for the local market. The auction was held at the fish market in Donggang Fishing Harbor, where the Siaoliouciou Island-registered fishing vessel Fu Yu Ching No. 2 delivered the “Pingtung First Tuna” it had caught for bidding. Bidding was intense, and the tuna was ultimately jointly purchased by a local restaurant and a local company for NT$10,600 per kilogram — NT$300 ,more than last year — for a total of NT$2.014 million. The 67-year-old skipper
RSS