The National Army will implement the "urgent ammunition replenishment" procurement plan from this year to 2031. The total budget for six years is as high as 27.588945 billion yuan. The moment the National Army M109A2 self-propelled gun fired. (File photo)
[Reporter Tu Jumin/Taipei Report] In response to the current enemy threat, the national army continues to increase its inventory of combat readiness ammunition. According to the Ministry of National Defense's budget for next year, the National Army will implement the "urgent supply of ammunition replenishment" procurement plan from this year to 2031. The total six-year budget is as high as 27.588945 trillion yuan. This year and next year will allocate more than 7.3 billion yuan to accelerate the preparation of various types of urgently needed ammunition. The goal is to gradually increase the national army's ammunition combat readiness inventory from the current 30 days to 120 days, strengthening the continuous combat capability in the case of wartime blockades and blocked foreign aid supplies.
When the Executive Yuan passed this year's supplementary budget on September 3, it allocated 7.3 billion yuan for "replenishment of urgently needed ammunition." Lieutenant General Huang Wenqi, director of the Strategic Planning Department of the Ministry of National Defense, said at the time that the funding was mainly to gradually increase the ammunition combat readiness inventory from 30 days to 120 days. In addition, in recent years, the frequency of national military wars and exercises has increased, and ammunition training consumption has increased simultaneously. Therefore, it is also necessary to accelerate the replenishment of consumption stocks. The Ministry of National Defense's budget for next year further revealed that this is not a single annual purchase, but a six-year ongoing construction project.
As for what ammunition the national army is in urgent need of? The Ministry of National Defense's project report submitted to the Legislative Yuan in March this year revealed that before the new and expanded domestic armament production lines are fully in place, it plans to prioritize the purchase of 120 mm and 105 mm tank ammunition, 30 mm machine gun shells, 155 mm grenade propellant bags, and powerful high-energy explosives to replenish combat readiness stocks at one time to meet the consumption demand for high-intensity ammunition during wartime.
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It is worth noting that relevant ammunition procurement was originally included in the "Special Procurement Regulations for Strengthening Defense Resilience and Asymmetric Combat Power Plans" proposed by the Executive Yuan with a maximum of 1.25 trillion yuan, and was promoted in a dual-track manner with the construction and expansion of arms production lines. On the one hand, it first replenishes inventory, and on the other hand, it increases domestic production capacity. However, the special regulations passed by the Legislative Yuan in May reduced the amount to 780 billion yuan and focused on purchases of the US military. "General purpose ammunition" and new and expanded arms production lines were not included. The Ministry of National Defense warned at the time that it might affect the large amount of ammunition needed for peacetime training and wartime blockade, so it subsequently changed to supplementary budget and annual budget to continue to raise funds.
