News of a surprise delivery of the famous Stinger short-range anti-air missile system follows just weeks after Taiwan announced it had started testing a new version of its Sky Bow III anti-air missile, which can intercept enemy jets and missiles at altitudes of up to 100 kilometers
A cargo jet made an unannounced delivery of a shipment of FIM-92 Stinger missiles to Taiwan’s main airport late in the night of last Thursday, May 25. Taiwan’s Chinese-language Liberty Times reported on Friday morning that a batch of the missiles arrived at Taoyuan International Airport the night before. Due to the sensitivity of the issue, Taiwan’s Ministry of National Defense did not give any details about the number of missiles in the shipment.
The delivery follows confirmation by Taiwan’s defense minister on May 8 that Taiwan was awaiting a fast-tracked delivery of $500 million worth of U.S. weapons, as part of a decision by the White House to send $1 billion worth of fast-tracked weapons to Taiwan over the next few months. These transfers are seen as an emergency measure to fill the most important gaps in the production bottleneck that has seen long delays in the delivery of $19 billion of U.S. weapons that Taiwan had ordered over the last decade.
The fast-tracked delivery was made possible by the U.S.’s Presidential Drawdown Authority, which allows the president to take weapons from the U.S. military’s own stockpiles for delivery to allied nations in cases of emergency. In this case the emergency is that Taiwan has to prepare to repulse a possible imminent invasion while it is waiting in line behind other nations for U.S. manufacturers to finish producing weapons like Stingers, Harpoon anti-ship missiles and F-16 jets. The production of these weapon systems has been delayed by a number of issues, most notably supply-chain crises caused by the global COVID pandemic and the war in Ukraine.
The new batch of Stingers will join Taiwan’s stockpile of 1,800 Stinger missiles to form a formidable defense against low-flying airplanes, missiles and drones. The news comes less than a month after Taiwan announced that it will start mass producing an extended-range version of its own long-range air-defense missile system, the Sky Bow III (Tien Kung 3). The new version will extend the Sky Bow III’s maximum kill altitude from 45 kilometers to 70 kilometers, and the manufacturer is already testing an even more impressive version that can intercept threats at an altitude of 100 kilometers.
The Sky Bow III and Stinger are a good combination to field, as the former is designed to destroy high-flying threats and the latter is designed to intercept aircraft flying at altitudes of under 4 kilometers. The strong point of the Stinger system is that it is light and small enough to be carried and fired by a single soldier, while the Sky Bow and other long-range missiles are launched from large platforms that are not as easy to hide as a Stinger system.
The small size of the Stinger means it can easily be hidden in a basement or behind a tree, only to be quickly picked up and used to destroy fighter jets and helicopters as they dive low to attack ground targets. This means the Stinger has excellent survivability while representing a serious threat to low-flying aircraft, including the ability to destroy troop-transport planes as they come in to land. Taiwan’s landscape of dense forests interspersed with dense apartment-block urban areas multiply the potency of the Stinger, as both these environments provide excellent cover for small teams of soldiers to hide in and strike from.
The news of the Stinger delivery comes just one day after a senior official of Taiwan’s Ministry of National Defense (MND) told lawmakers on Thursday that the U.S. will help Taiwan to obtain access to NATO’s Link-22 secure data link system. This is a big deal as it would greatly increase the ability of Taiwan’s military units to interact with NATO military units during military drills and actual combat. Not many countries are allowed access to the secret hardware and software that makes up the Link-22 data network.
Analysts told CNA that the new data link would be more secure and more resistant to enemy jamming operations, while allowing longer transmission distances. It would also combine Taiwan’s combat data with that of the U.S. and other NATO countries, thereby giving all allies a combined view of what is happening in any given theater of operations. They also pointed out that by giving Link-22 to Taiwan, NATO allies show that they trust Taiwan and distrust China because of the close relationship it currently has with Russia.
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