U.S. Releases Stingers to Taiwan

The U.S. has released a $45.3 million sale of 171 Stinger air-to-air missiles to Taiwan. Raytheon's Missile Systems won the contract under the Foreign Military Sales program.The missiles will be outfitted on new AH-64D Apache attack helicopters released to Taiwan in October.In addition to the 171 missiles, Taiwan will also receive 24 captive flight trainers, 68 air-to-air launchers, seven launcher circuit evaluators, two digital launcher test sets, 60 coolant reservoir assemblies, three launcher emulators and spares.The U.S. Aviation & Missile Command Contracting Center, Army Contracting Command, Redstone Arsenal, Ala., is the contracting activity.In October 2008, the U.S. released 30 AH-64D Block III Apache Longbow attack helicopters for $2.5 billion. The package included 171 Stinger Block I air-to-air missiles and 35 Stinger Missile Captive Flight Trainers.Other items in the October Apache package included 30 modernized target acquisition designation sight/pilot night vision sensors 17 AN/APG-78 fire control radar and AN/APR-48 radar frequency interferometers 69 T700-GE-701D turbine engines, 1,000 AGM-114L Longbow Hellfire missiles, and 66 M299 Hellfire Longbow missile launchers.The Apaches will be used to interdict a Chinese amphibious invasion force attempting to cross the Taiwan Strait.

Posted in: Air defence system,Missile,Taiwan