The addition of US-made M1A2T Abrams tanks would enhance Taiwan’s military capabilities in anti-landing operations, Taiwanese defense experts said following the arrival of the first batch of the advanced armored vehicles in the country on Sunday.
The 38 M1A2T tanks, a variant of the M1 Abrams, were delivered to the Port of Taipei on Sunday. Before this, deliveries of the last type of tank Taiwan received from the US, the M60A3, began in 1994.
The delivery marks the arrival of the first batch of 108 M1A2T tanks and related equipment, which the US government approved for sale to Taiwan in 2019.
Photo: EPA-EFE
They were transported to the Hsinchu-based Armor Training Command yesterday.
The army previously said that 10 of the tanks would remain at its Armor Training Command and the rest would be deployed to two armored brigades in New Taipei City’s Linkou District (林口) and Hsinchu County’s Hukou Township (湖口) to help defend northern Taiwan.
Chieh Chung (揭仲), a research fellow at the Association of Strategic Foresight, said Taiwan’s army has relied on aging US-made M60A3s and indigenously developed CM11 tanks.
These would be no match for the Chinese People’s Liberation Army’s (PLA) advanced Type 05 amphibious fighting vehicles, he added.
Taiwan’s defense would be at a disadvantage without access to the latest generation of advanced tanks, Chieh said.
Lin Ying-yu (林穎佑), an assistant professor at Tamkang University’s Graduate Institute of International Affairs and Strategic Studies, said Taiwan’s existing tanks — M60A3s and CM11s — have been in service for three decades and would likely be unable to withstand PLA anti-armor firepower.
He said the addition of M1A2Ts would boost Taiwan’s defense.
Su Tzu-yun (蘇紫雲), a research fellow at the military-funded Institute for National Defense and Security Research (INDSR), said that in the event of a PLA landing operation, Taiwan’s first line of defense would be anti-ship missiles, followed by domestic and US-made mobile artillery rocket systems, such as the Thunderbolt-2000 RT/LT-2000, M109 self-propelled howitzer and M142 High Mobility Artillery Rocket Systems.
Combat helicopters such as the AH-64E Apache attack helicopters stand at the third line of defense and coastal defense missiles serve as the fourth line, he said.
The fifth and final line of defense is comprised of tanks, including M1A2Ts and ground forces, he added.
Huang An-hao (黃恩浩), also a research fellow at INDSR, said M1A2Ts and other kinds of tanks play a crucial role in Taiwan’s joint air-ground operations, and would be deployed alongside mechanized infantry troops and with aviation and special forces.
Huang said the combination of M1A2T tanks on the ground and AH-64E helicopters in the air could double Taiwan’s capacity to eliminate invading forces from its beaches and shores.
The M1A2T tanks are equipped with 120mm smoothbore guns that can penetrate 850mm armor and withstand shells fired from most battle tanks.
Their average speed is also significantly faster than Taiwan’s current tanks. The combat vehicle also has a “hunter-killer capacity,” which means it can engage a target while also tracking another.
The armed forces would receive 42 more M1A2Ts next year and 28 in 2026, the Ministry of National Defense’s delivery schedule showed.
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