Ballistic plates made in Taiwan for use in military-grade bulletproof vests have met local and international standards, and passed tests showing their effectiveness, the Ministry of National Defense said yesterday.
The ministry made the statement at a news conference after a video on YouTube said that bulletproof vests used by Taiwan’s military were ineffective.
Major General Pan Huan-ya (潘煥亞) of the Armaments Bureau’s 205th Arsenal said that ballistic plates produced by his arsenal have repeatedly passed required tests in Taiwan and the US.
Photo: Chang Chia-ming, Taipei Times
In 2016 the plates were sent to Riverside, Maryland-based Chesapeake Testing, which specializes in testing ballistic and armor protection systems, and passed Level III body armor compliance testing, which is administered by the US Department of Justice’s National Institute of Justice (NIJ), Pan said.
The military also conducted four rounds of tests locally on Nov. 15 and Nov. 30 last year, and on Feb. 7 and June 27, which also showed the domestically made ballistic plates meet NIJ Level III ballistic capabilities in accordance with NIJ Standard 0101.04, he said.
Pan said that tests shown in videos released by YouTuber Uncle Sam Gun & Fun (山姆小叔 Gun & Fun) on Friday revealed that the YouTuber did not understand NIJ body armor compliance testing standards.
NIJ Level III testing is conducted with regular 7.62mm NATO full-metal jacket bullets, but the YouTuber used 5.56mm armor-piercing bullets, Pan said.
The NIJ standard also stipulates that body armor compliance testing be done on ballistic plates with inserts, but the YouTuber either failed to use inserts or put them in the wrong place, he said, without elaborating on the nature of the insert or its proper use.
The US-based Taiwanese YouTuber said that the ballistic plate was provided by New Taipei City Councilor Lin Ping-yu (林秉宥), a member of the Democratic Progressive Party.
The camera operator and narrator in the videos said that the guns and bullets used to test the body armor were not those used by the Chinese army, but were similar.
Lin has refused to say where he found the plate purported to be made by the 205th Arsenal.
He said his main goal was to show that Taiwanese soldiers need better protection from Chinese bullets.
The ministry said that if the ballistic plate used in the videos was found to be a controlled product of Taiwan’s armed forces, it would hold whoever was responsible for the item being given to a member of the public legally responsible.
‘DENIAL DEFENSE’: The US would increase its military presence with uncrewed ships, and submarines, while boosting defense in the Indo-Pacific, a Pete Hegseth memo said The US is reorienting its military strategy to focus primarily on deterring a potential Chinese invasion of Taiwan, a memo signed by US Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth showed. The memo also called on Taiwan to increase its defense spending. The document, known as the “Interim National Defense Strategic Guidance,” was distributed this month and detailed the national defense plans of US President Donald Trump’s administration, an article in the Washington Post said on Saturday. It outlines how the US can prepare for a potential war with China and defend itself from threats in the “near abroad,” including Greenland and the Panama
A wild live dugong was found in Taiwan for the first time in 88 years, after it was accidentally caught by a fisher’s net on Tuesday in Yilan County’s Fenniaolin (粉鳥林). This is the first sighting of the species in Taiwan since 1937, having already been considered “extinct” in the country and considered as “vulnerable” by the International Union for Conservation of Nature. A fisher surnamed Chen (陳) went to Fenniaolin to collect the fish in his netting, but instead caught a 3m long, 500kg dugong. The fisher released the animal back into the wild, not realizing it was an endangered species at
The High Prosecutors’ Office yesterday withdrew an appeal against the acquittal of a former bank manager 22 years after his death, marking Taiwan’s first instance of prosecutors rendering posthumous justice to a wrongfully convicted defendant. Chu Ching-en (諸慶恩) — formerly a manager at the Taipei branch of BNP Paribas — was in 1999 accused by Weng Mao-chung (翁茂鍾), then-president of Chia Her Industrial Co, of forging a request for a fixed deposit of US$10 million by I-Hwa Industrial Co, a subsidiary of Chia Her, which was used as collateral. Chu was ruled not guilty in the first trial, but was found guilty
The Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) is maintaining close ties with Beijing, the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) said yesterday, hours after a new round of Chinese military drills in the Taiwan Strait began. Political parties in a democracy have a responsibility to be loyal to the nation and defend its sovereignty, DPP spokesman Justin Wu (吳崢) told a news conference in Taipei. His comments came hours after Beijing announced via Chinese state media that the Chinese People’s Liberation Army’s Eastern Theater Command was holding large-scale drills simulating a multi-pronged attack on Taiwan. Contrary to the KMT’s claims that it is staunchly anti-communist, KMT Deputy
RSS