George1 Thu Oct 15, 2020 3:52 pm
US plans to supply Taiwan with HIMARS and SLAM-ER missile systems
As Reuters reported on October 12, 2020 , the US government has sent three notifications to the US Congress "in recent days" about upcoming deliveries of new weapons systems to Taiwan through the US Foreign Military Sales (FMS) program of intergovernmental foreign military sales. Collins Aerospace MS-110 suspended reconnaissance container proposed for sale to Taiwan on advertising image for Lockheed Martin F-16 (c) UTC Aerospace Systems (Collins Aerospace)
The delivery to Taiwan includes Lockheed Martin HIMARS ground-based missile systems, Boeing AGM-84H SLAM-ER air tactical cruise missiles, and Collins Aerospace MS-110 suspended reconnaissance containers. The latter two systems are designed to equip the Taiwanese Air Force's Lockheed Martin F-16V Block 70 fighters, which are being upgraded and planned for delivery.
The exact figures and monetary amounts of the volumes of the proposed deliveries have not been disclosed. Characteristically, these notifications to Congress were not publicly published on the website of the US Department of Defense's Defense Cooperation Agency (DSCA).
Reuters also reports that a total of seven agreements on potential arms sales to Taiwan through the FMS are in the process of approval in the US administration, and in the near future notifications of three more of them may be sent to Congress - for the supply of coastal mobile anti-ship missile systems with missiles to Taiwan. Boeing Harpoon Block II, unmanned aerial vehicles (probably referring to the four General Atomics MQ-9 Reaper UAVs, which Taiwan had previously applied for) and sea mines.
As for the acquisition of HIMARS missile systems by Taiwan, it is worth noting that they may include not only corrected GMLRS missiles, but also ATACMS operational-tactical missiles, as well as promising American PrSM missiles, the range of which is planned to be increased to 700-800 km with the addition of them anti-ship capabilities.
Aviation cruise missiles SLAM-ER, as previously reported, were ordered by Saudi Arabia, for which it is resuming the production of these missiles at the plant in St. Louis. As you can see now, the resumption of production of SLAM-ER under the Saudi contract opened the way for export deliveries of these missiles to other customers, as a kind of less "politically sensitive" version of the aviation CD in comparison with the JASSM missile.
The MS-110 suspended "multispectral" reconnaissance container was first introduced by UTC Aerospace Systems (now Collins Aerospace) in 2017 as an upgraded and slightly smaller version of the DB-110 reconnaissance container.
https://bmpd.livejournal.com/4163098.html
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