The army recently concluded two rounds of drills in Pingtung County testing the precision shooting capabilities of its missiles and rockets, the Military News Agency reported yesterday.
The two rounds of live-fire exercises included the annual “Mighty Eagle” exercises featuring the Aviation and Special Forces Command’s attack helicopter series: the AH-64E Apache and AH-1W SuperCobra attack helicopters, and the OH-58D Kiowa Warrior reconnaissance helicopter, the report said.
During the daytime portion of the “Mighty Eagle” drill, the helicopters fired cannons at targets in the sea and in the air, the report said.
Photo courtesy of the Military News Agency
At night the choppers fired Hellfire and Sidewinder missiles at targets in the sea, it said.
Another drill codenamed “Thunder” featured live-fire exercises involving troops from the army’s 43rd Artillery Command and 58th Artillery Command operating the locally made Thunderbolt-2000 multiple launch rocket system (MLRS).
The Thunderbolt-2000 is a wheeled MLRS produced by the Chungshan Institute of Science and Technology.
The modular, truck-mounted, multi-barrel MLRS has quick-fire potential against amphibious assault landings.
“Mighty Eagle” and “Thunder” are major annual drills that test troops’ familiarity with precision weapons systems. They were held at the Jiupeng (九鵬) military base in Pingtung County’s Manjhou Township (滿州) this year.
The agency report did not disclose when the drills were held but an army source said both took place from Tuesday last week to Wednesday.
The Kaohsiung Museum of Fine Arts yesterday apologized for forbidding children from copying paintings by freehand drawing, saying it welcomes visitors to make sketches of paintings on drawing tablets or sketchpads. The museum issued the remark after a museumgoer nicknamed “Mickeyelk Gesner” on Thursday posted on Facebook that her son had been sketching a painting by Pablo Picasso on a tablet computer at the exhibition “Capturing the Moment” on Wednesday when a museum worker told him to stop drawing. “The staff told us, ‘Only taking photos is allowed. No copying. This is a rule,’” she quoted the worker as saying. Physician Lee Chia-yan
ACCESS DENIAL: Beijing would likely take formation in the Philippine Sea, outside Taipei’s missile range, while its forces on the east would be a deterrent to foreign aid China is increasingly likely to employ a strategy of anti-access/area denial (A2/AD) around Taiwan, which would use three carrier groups, a report from the Mainland Affairs Council (MAC) said. When China’s third aircraft carrier, the Fujian, is completed next year, China would have three carriers, which would likely be used to surround Taiwan and implement an A2/AD strategy, it said, adding that efforts to strengthen China’s two other carriers — the Liaoning and the Shandong — appear to corroborate this. In the quarterly report, the council cited declassified documents from the Ministry of National Defense that categorized China’s carriers as
China’s travel booking platform ctrip.com has removed the Evergreen Laurel Hotel in Shanghai from its listings after the chain’s Paris venue banned the Chinese national flag during the 2024 Summer Olympics, sparking an Internet furor. The story — which had garnered 110 million views on Sina Weibo — had since been removed from the platform’s list of most popular posts. On Monday, a Chinese influencer known as Instructor Zhang (張教官) accused the Evergreen Laurel Hotel in Paris of refusing his request for the Chinese flag to be displayed at the venue in a video uploaded to TikTok. A person purported to be a
A magnitude 5.7 earthquake struck off the coast of Yilan County at 5:06pm yesterday, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said. The earthquake occurred offshore, 38.3km south-southeast of Yilan County Hall, at a depth of 9km, CWA data showed. The quake’s intensity, which gauges the actual effect of a seismic event, was highest in parts of Yilan County, where it measured a “weak 5” on Taiwan’s 7-tier intensity scale. The temblor recorded an intensity of 4 in parts of Hualien, Taoyuan and New Taipei, and 3 in parts of Taichung, Nantou, Taipei, Hsinchu and Miaoli, CWA data showed. There were no immediate reports of damage