The Republic of China Armed Forces, commonly known as the Taiwanese Armed Forces, demonstrated the nation’s long-range strike capacity during recent military exercises.
Last week, Taiwan’s Air Force has wrapped up a large-scale exercise involving test flights with an air-to-ground, subsonic cruise missile, called the Wan Chien.
Taiwanese state media said the drill held at the southern Tainan airbase, flight crew from the First Tactical Fighter Wing deployed the Wan Chien cruise missiles on an Indigenous Defense Fighter, also known as the F-CK-1 or Ching-Kuo.
The missile, developed by the military’s top research unit, the National Chung-Shan Institute of Science and Technology (NCSIST), is said to be able to hit Chinese airports and military units in coastal Fujian and Guangdong provinces if fired by Taiwanese fighter jets from around the median line of the strait.
The missile has a maximum range of approximately 240 kilometers and is currently being mass-produced. It has the ability to strike airports, bases, and troop assembly areas along the southeast coast of China.
According to CSIS Missile Defense Project, the Wan Chien is 3.5 m in length, with a diameter of 0.63 m, and a launch weight of approximately 650 kg. The missile has pop-out wings that extend after launch with a span of 1.5 m. The missile is guided by INS/GPS and may have a terminal seeker. The payload is approximately 350 kg with either a high explosive, semi-armor piercing, or submunitions warhead.9 The submunitions warhead can reportedly be equipped with as many as 100 bomblets.
