The national army's joint precision ammunition shooting exercise is on stage. Whether the Hailong-class submarine launches torpedoes becomes the focus

The Ministry of National Defense conducted a live torpedo firing exercise in October 2003. The picture shows the Sea Dragon submarine launching an SUT whale hunting mine and successfully hitting the target ship. The image is quite shocking. (File photo, taken from the Naval History Museum)

[Reporter Luo Tianbin/Reporting from Taipei] The annual highlight of the National Army, the "Joint Precision Ammunition Shooting Exercise" will be held at Jiupeng Base in Pingtung for three consecutive days starting today! What the outside world is most concerned about is whether the Navy's Stegosaurus-class "Sea Dragon" submarine, which has completed its performance improvement, will join the battle and even serve as the terminator of the "sinking exercise", launching heavy war mines to destroy target ships at sea. However, the military remains secretive and has not commented on whether it will fire torpedoes this time, or which model it will fire.

Looking back at the history of submarines in the Taiwan Navy, this kind of destructive "war mine" live ammunition firing is actually very rare. This ultimate weapon that scares the enemy is the German-made SUT heavy-duty torpedo currently in service in our country. Although due to diplomatic difficulties, the navy turned to Indonesia for procurement through secret channels, the power was still astonishing. However, not every war torpedo test is smooth sailing. In the early years, it also went through a difficult road of "revenge", which put naval officers and soldiers under great tension and pressure every time they pressed the launch button.

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A Stegosaurus-class submarine fired a SUT heavy torpedo in 2020 and accurately hit the target ship. However, the video footage released by the military at the time was quite distant and blurry. (Extracted from Ministry of Defense video)

Looking at the drill records of previous presidents, which president has fired the most heavy torpedoes during his term of office? The answer is former President Chen Shui-bian. During the A-Bian government, in order to comprehensively verify its underwater combat capabilities, the Navy launched an unprecedented five war mines intensively in five years, covering the southwest and northeastern waterways of Taiwan. However, during the Hanguang 19 exercise in 2003, the first and third shots missed the target, setting a record of "2 out of 4" defeats. It was not until the Sea Tiger submarine conducted another public test launch in 2005 that it finally succeeded in hitting the target, causing a column of water to rise into the sky. The total hit rate was "3 out of 5", successfully raising the cumulative hit rate to 60%.

After intensive testing during the Bian government, Taiwan's submarines entered a 13-year period of silence. Former President Ma Ying-jeou did not conduct submarine firing of war mines. It was not until the Han Kuang 36 exercise during the term of former President Tsai Ing-wen in 2020 that the Navy's Stegosaurus-class submarine fired SUT war mines in an exercise again for the first time in many years and accurately sunk the target ship, completing the historic sixth war mine test. In other words, in the past 20 years, Chen Shui-bian has conducted five intensive strikes during his tenure, Ma Ying-jeou has had zero strikes, and Tsai Ing-wen has had one. The live ammunition experience of each war mine is extremely precious local data for the national army.

It is still unknown whether submarines will appear in this Jiupeng exercise. However, the performance improvement project of the Navy's Stegory-class submarines has now entered the final mile. The Hailong ship has returned to combat readiness, and the Haihu ship is expected to be refitted before the end of this year. It is understood that the Navy has already prepared the balance of the budget for 2027. The most important task next year is to carry out the first "War Torpedo" live-fire acceptance test of the new US-made Mk48 Mod 6 AT heavy-duty torpedo. By then, Taiwan's underwater combat capabilities will be officially upgraded, demonstrating a completely new deterrent energy.