The United States government has authorized the potential sale of 720 Switchblade 300 anti-personnel and anti-armor loitering munitions to the Taiwan Army, in an operation that would be around US$60.2 million. The information comes from a notification, made public yesterday, by the State Department to the US Congress.
According to what was reported by the Defense and Security Cooperation Agency (DSCA), Taiwan would have requested a total of seven hundred and twenty Switchblade 300 loitering munitions, to which one hundred and one SB300 fire control systems must be added. As is usual, the acquisition also includes technical and logistical support from the US, which means that Taiwan will be able to access user manuals, training courses, technical evaluations of the bases that will house them, and transportation of the aforementioned ammunition, among other issues.
As for the main contractor involved in this possible sale, it is worth mentioning the company AeroVironment, Inc. which has its headquarters in the state of California, and which has worked with the US Army Contracting Command to define the contract guidelines. This is due to the fact that the participation of a total of ten Americans will be required for a period of five years to guarantee the conditions of the purchase, in principle they would be eight representatives of the US Army and two of the contractor.
According to the DSCA, the purchase: “This sale is consistent with U.S. laws and policies expressed in Public Law 96-8. (…) serves the national, economic, and security interests of the United States by supporting the recipient’s continued efforts to modernize its armed forces and maintain a credible defensive capability. The proposed sale will help improve the security of the recipient and help maintain political stability, military balance and economic progress in the region. (…) The recipient will not have difficulties absorbing this equipment into his armed forces.”
It is worth remembering that the Switchblade 300 munitions stand out for having a set of high-resolution EO/IR panoramic cameras with a 20-minute flight time, these allow the operator to obtain images of their target even beyond their own line of sight. vision (up to 30 kilometers according to the manufacturer), complementing the GPS system that guides it to carry out high-precision attacks. It is also a system that only weighs about 4 kilograms per projectile, and can be deployed in about 2 minutes from different platforms, which makes this system a highly versatile tool for the battlefield (in the which has already been deployed, for example, in Ukraine).
*Images used for illustrative purposes
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