The army is to upgrade its M60A3 Patton tanks as part of a five-year plan to build up its combat forces, army generals told Control Yuan President Chang Po-ya (張博雅) at a conference in Kinmen County on June 28.
The conference took place after Chang and members of the Control Yuan National Defense and Intelligence Committee toured an outpost guarded by the Lieyu Defense Team of the Kinmen Defense Command.
When questioned by committee members about the army’s tanks becoming obsolete, the generals told them the military is planning to upgrade its M60A3 tanks, although it has yet to decide the type of upgrades and the number of tanks to be upgraded.
Photo: Liao Chen-huei, Taipei Times
The program is in the early stages of conceptual planning, they said, adding that battle requirements would guide the military in identifying what improvements are needed for its tanks.
Although the Ministry of National Defense plans to buy 108 M1A2 Abrams tanks from the US and has tendered a letter of request to Washington, the bulk of the army’s armored units would continue to be equipped with legacy platforms after the service acquires new tanks.
The army’s frontline tank fleet consists of 480 M60A3s, 450 CM11s, or modified M48 turrets mated to M60 chassis, and 250 CM12s, or C11 turrets mated to M48 hulls, according to the Defense Industry Daily Web site.
The fundamental technology used in the tanks dates back to the 1940s and 1950s, and their 105mm rifled gun is mostly unable to cope with modern battle tanks, while their armor plating does not utilize composite materials used in modern armored fighting vehicles.
The army in 2017 expressed an interest in upgrading its M60A3 tanks with 120mm smoothbore guns, which have replaced 105mm guns in most Western armies, as well as new turrets, turret hydraulics and ballistics computers.
However, the project’s price tag of NT$100 million (US$3.21 million at the current exchange rate) per tank apparently put off top brass and it did not appear in the nation’s defense budget in the years since.
Police have issued warnings against traveling to Cambodia or Thailand when others have paid for the travel fare in light of increasing cases of teenagers, middle-aged and elderly people being tricked into traveling to these countries and then being held for ransom. Recounting their ordeal, one victim on Monday said she was asked by a friend to visit Thailand and help set up a bank account there, for which they would be paid NT$70,000 to NT$100,000 (US$2,136 to US$3,051). The victim said she had not found it strange that her friend was not coming along on the trip, adding that when she
TRAGEDY: An expert said that the incident was uncommon as the chance of a ground crew member being sucked into an IDF engine was ‘minuscule’ A master sergeant yesterday morning died after she was sucked into an engine during a routine inspection of a fighter jet at an air base in Taichung, the Air Force Command Headquarters said. The officer, surnamed Hu (胡), was conducting final landing checks at Ching Chuan Kang (清泉崗) Air Base when she was pulled into the jet’s engine for unknown reasons, the air force said in a news release. She was transported to a hospital for emergency treatment, but could not be revived, it said. The air force expressed its deepest sympathies over the incident, and vowed to work with authorities as they
A tourist who was struck and injured by a train in a scenic area of New Taipei City’s Pingsi District (平溪) on Monday might be fined for trespassing on the tracks, the Railway Police Bureau said yesterday. The New Taipei City Fire Department said it received a call at 4:37pm on Monday about an incident in Shifen (十分), a tourist destination on the Pingsi Railway Line. After arriving on the scene, paramedics treated a woman in her 30s for a 3cm to 5cm laceration on her head, the department said. She was taken to a hospital in Keelung, it said. Surveillance footage from a
INFRASTRUCTURE: Work on the second segment, from Kaohsiung to Pingtung, is expected to begin in 2028 and be completed by 2039, the railway bureau said Planned high-speed rail (HSR) extensions would blanket Taiwan proper in four 90-minute commute blocs to facilitate regional economic and livelihood integration, Railway Bureau Deputy Director-General Yang Cheng-chun (楊正君) said in an interview published yesterday. A project to extend the high-speed rail from Zuoying Station in Kaohsiung to Pingtung County’s Lioukuaicuo Township (六塊厝) is the first part of the bureau’s greater plan to expand rail coverage, he told the Liberty Times (sister paper of the Taipei Times). The bureau’s long-term plan is to build a loop to circle Taiwan proper that would consist of four sections running from Taipei to Hualien, Hualien to
RSS