Taiwan shows interest to purchase US M1A2 Abrams main battle tanks.

According to the newspaper website "The Epoch Times", Taiwan has showed interest to purchase American-made main battle tank M1A2 Abrams to replace its aging fleet of main battle tanks. The new tanks will equip armored units of the Taiwanese army.

U.S. Army Soldiers assigned to 1st Brigade Combat Team 1st Cavalry Division 2-5 Cavalry Battalion move to contact in a M1A2 Abram Battle Tank during Decisive Action Rotation 18-02 at Fort Irwin CA, November 17, 2017. (Picture source U.S. MoD)

According to the Taiwanese media, military sources have confirmed the interest to purchase American-made M1A2 main battle tanks for a budget of around $650 million to $1 billion including training and the purchase of spare parts;

Currently, the Taiwanese army uses old generation of U.S. main battle tanks including 460 M60A3, 450 CM11/CM12 an upgraded version of M-48 and 650 Type 64, a modified version of M-41 tank.

The Abrams M1A2, is a further improvement of the Abrams M1A1 main battle tank with a commander's independent thermal viewer, weapon station, position navigation equipment, and a full set of controls and displays linked by a digital data bus. The improvements of the M1A2 include Improved Commander's Weapon Station (ICWS), Commander's Independent Thermal Viewer (CITV), an Inter-Vehicular Information System (IVIS), Position/Navigation System (POS/NAV) and several survivability initiatives.

Main armament of M1A2 Abrams consists of one 120 mm smoothbore M256 cannon which can fire a wide range of ammunition as the M829 APFSDS-T (Armor-Piercing, Fin-Stabilized, Discarding Sabot), M830 HEAT-MP-T (High Explosive Anti-Tank-Multi Purpose - Tracer), M831 TP-T training round and M865 TPCSDS-T training round. It has a maximum firing range of 4 km.

The subsystems of M1A2 includes Commander's Independent Thermal Viewer (CITV), Hull/Turret Electronics Unit (H/TEU), Line of Sight/Dual-Axis Head Assembly (LOS/DAHA), Position/Navigation Unit, Direct Support Electrical System Test Set (DSESTS), Commander's Integrated Display (CID), Driver's Integrated Display (DID), Fire Control Electronics Unit (FCEU), Gunner's Control and Display, Panel (GCDP), Hull Power Distribution Unit (HPDU), Hull/Turret Position Sensor (HTPS), Improved Commander's Weapon Station (ICWS) and Radio Interface Unit (RIU).