The U.S. State Department has made a determination approving a possible Foreign Military Sale to the Taipei Economic and Cultural Representative Office in the United States (TECRO) of 155mm M109A6 Paladin Medium Self-Propelled Howitzer System and related equipment for an estimated cost of $750 million. TECRO has requested to buy forty (40) 155mm M109A6 Medium Self-Propelled Howitzer Systems; twenty (20) M992A2 Field Artillery Ammunition Support Vehicles (FAASV); one (1) Advanced Field Artillery Tactical Data System (AFATDS); five (5) M88A2 Hercules vehicles; five (5) M2 Chrysler Mount .50 caliber machine guns; and one thousand six hundred ninety-eight (1,698) multi-option, Precision Guidance Kits (PGK).
Also included are M109A6/M992A2 overhaul, conversion and refurbishment services; Special Tools and Test Equipment (STTE); Defense Advanced Global Positioning System (GPS) Receiver; AN/VVS(2) Night Driver’s Viewer (NDV); Dynamic Reference Unit Hybrid Replacement Inertial Navigation System; Basic Issue Items (BII); Components of End Items (COEI), Additional Authorized List (AAL), Technical Manuals; Quality Assurance Team (QAT); 155mm M232A1 Propelling Charges, M82 Percussion Primer Fuzes; OCONUS Deprocessing Service; Export Single Channel Ground and Airborne Radio System (SINCGARS); OCONUS Contractor provided Training, Field Service Representatives (FSR); M2A1 .50 Cal MG; MK93 MOD 2 Mount Machine Gun and M239 Smoke Grenade Launchers.
The Biden administration on Wednesday approved its first weapons sale to Taiwan. Taiwan’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs on Thursday thanked the American government for its commitment to the Taiwan Relations Act and the Six Assurances. The prime contractor for the Self-Propelled Howitzer Systems will be BAE Systems, Anniston, AL, and Elgin, OK; M992A2 FAASV, Anniston Army Depot (ANAD), Bynum, AL; and M88A2 recovery vehicles, BAE, York, PA. The Taiwan Army’s current artillery arsenal includes the older M109A2-A5 series of the weapon, the M114 155 howitzer, and the M110A2 self-propelled howitzer. The newest of these, the M109A2-A5, was purchased from the U.S. during the Third Taiwan Strait Crisis in 1996, was delivered in 1998, and has been in service for 21 years.
The M109 is an American 155 mm turreted self-propelled howitzer, first introduced in the early 1960s to replace the M44. It has been upgraded a number of times, most recently to the M109A7. The M109 family is the most common Western indirect-fire support weapon of maneuver brigades of armored and mechanized infantry divisions. Paladin M109A6 is a cannon artillery system with self-propelled howitzer (SPH) developed by the ground system division of United Defense LP (now BAE Systems Land and Armaments) and manufactured at the Paladin Production Operation centre at Chambersburg, Pennsylvania.
