I've thought about the whole issue of Taiwan putting M48 turrets on M60 hulls. Korean tanks could work too but South Korea is probably less willing to sell tanks to Taiwan and get China angry at them than Japan. But the M1A1 has the highest possibility of being purchased.Ĭonsidering that, I'd figure the lighter Japanese Type 90 would have some appeal to Taiwan. Taiwan is in a final stage of investigation, looking at tank options from other countries like South Korea, Japan, or Israel. The Taiwan Army wanted 200 but the budget limit cut it down to 120 Abrams. A modernization upgrade is included in the 2017 year budget. Originally they were considering M1A2 Abrams but due to the high cost of buying AH-64E and UH-60 helicopters, the used M1A1 Abrams become the target of consideration. Taiwan is currently investigating buying 120 used M1A1 Abrams. The Taiwanese page is dated October 5th 2014. The CM12, a modernized M48 is a little lighter than the CM11 thus having tad better power to weight ratio but it's operational range is about half (203km vs 450km) because of much smaller fuel tanks (657 liters of the CM12 vs 1463 liters of the CM11).Īs for acquisition, the below information is coming from a Japanese page translated from a Taiwanese page. In 2002, ERA made by GIAT has been fitted on the turret. It's said that the rangefinder, gun control, sights and sensors are comparable to the M1 (variant not specified). It goes on saying mobility is very important because the terrain in Taiwan has many slopes. It's said in the link above that for the CM11 the M48 turret was used for its lighter weight in order to increase mobility.
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