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【Text/Observer.com Bobcat】

According to reports from Taiwan media including the United News Network yesterday, during the second day of the Han Kuang 40th exercise, the Taiwan Army's 586th Brigade publicly displayed for the first time its newly received M1167 Hummer anti-tank missile launcher, as well as the TOW-2B RF's sighting and launch tube - the missile itself was still missing.

According to official data from the Taiwan authorities, in 1977, the Kuomintang army received 13 TOW missile launchers from the US troops stationed in Taiwan at the time. These were the first TOW anti-tank missiles it had obtained. After the US and Taiwan "broke off diplomatic relations", the US approved the first arms sales to Taiwan in 1980. In 1997, the Clinton administration approved the sale of 1,786 TOW-2A missiles and 114 launchers to Taiwan, as well as 100 Hummer high-mobility vehicles as launch platforms. The Taiwan military's TOW missiles have long been based on this batch of TOW-2A missiles as the absolute main force. However, as time went on, the performance of this batch of missiles gradually lagged behind, and the aging of components gradually became prominent. In the "Tianma Exercise" last summer, three consecutive TOW-2A live-fire shots missed the target.

In 2015, the Obama administration approved the sale of 783 TOW-2B missiles, which are said to have the capability of "top attack", to Taiwan. In 2017, the Taiwan authorities again approved the purchase of 1,700 TOW-2B aero RF missiles and 100 transmitters in the name of "Cat Hunting Project". RF refers to Radio Frequency, which is the wireless transmission guided version of the TOW-2B missile. The "wireless version TOW-2B" launcher was displayed in this exercise. This batch of missiles has been officially budgeted since 2018. According to the plan in the budget book, the first batch of 46 launch systems, launchers and 460 missiles should be delivered in 2022, but in fact it was obviously not implemented on time. It was not until April 2023 that netizens on the island witnessed the arrival of the first batch of M1167 Hummer chassis used as TOW-2B launchers in Taiwan, but there was no launcher on the vehicle at that time, and no missiles were delivered.

A recent report by Taiwanese media revealed that until last month, none of the 1,700 missiles had been delivered. According to reports, on the morning of June 17, Taiwan's Defense Department Director Gu Lixiong claimed during questioning in the Taiwan Legislative Yuan that the missiles had been delayed until now because they had not passed the US Army's test evaluation when they were first shipped out of the factory, but that they had "passed the evaluation" and could all be delivered by the end of the year. Wang Dingyu, a DPP legislator who was at the scene, asked Gu Lixiong again to confirm whether they had been "fully delivered," and Gu Lixiong said yes.

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