The military has tested one of its classified missiles, a source said yesterday, without confirming if the missile was the Hsiung Feng IIE (HF-2E) that can reach targets well inside China.
In a story published yesterday morning, the Chinese-language United Daily News said that the air force launched a domestically made HF-2E surface-to-surface cruise missile with a range of 1,000km to 1,200km during a drill earlier the same day.
The newspaper included a video on its Web site of what it said was an HF-2E, adding that it flew for more than an hour from a base in Pingtung County.
Photo: Tsai Tsung-hsien, Taipei Times
An unnamed military source confirmed that the air force fired a classified missile as part of an ongoing three-day live-fire drill off Pingtung’s Jioupeng Military Base from Tuesday to today.
The source would not confirm if the missile was an HF-2E.
They added that the air force’s main fighter jets, including Mirage-2000s, Indigenous Defense Fighters and F-16Vs, participated in the exercises and fired a number of missiles, such as French-made MICA missiles, indigenous Sky Sword II air-to-air missiles and US-made AIM-120 advanced medium range air-to-air missiles.
Naval and coast guard vessels also participated in the drills, they said.
Institute of National Defense and Security Research fellow Su Tzu-yun (蘇紫雲) said he believed that the fired missile was the HF-2E.
Su said that he based his opinion on the video clip released by the United Daily News, which showed that the missile had a two-stage ignition process, and the report that the missile flew for about an hour.
Taiwan’s military started developing the HF-2E missile in the early 2000s to be used similarly to the US Navy’s Tomahawk cruise missile.
It had never been publicly acknowledged until March last year, when the missile was mentioned in a report sent to lawmakers.
The extended-range version of the HF-2E can hit targets of up to 1,200km away, but the military has never released any photographs or videos of the missile, the report said.
The Ministry of National Defense report did not say exactly how many HF-2Es it has produced, but it said that it would be capable of making 131 HF-2s and HF-2Es annually after next year, following the expansion of its manufacturing facilities.
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