Taiwan's Homemade Vehicle Designed to Stop China

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Is Taiwan’s domestically produced CM-32 the right vehicle for the island's defense? It has a main gun bigger than the US Bradley and it can carry 2 extra soldiers, a full squad of 8 dismounted infantry all while weighing only half as much. That said, the procurement process has been dragging on for 20 years, and production has run into all kinds of setbacks including shocking legal accusations of Chinese espionage. What does the CM-32 tell us about Taiwan's unique military industrial complex? Will those speedbumps slow the clouded leopard down? What kind of specific weapons systems and capabilities make this vehicle a great choice for Taiwan?

Written by: Chris Cappy and Justin Taylor

Edited by: Savvy Studios

The CM-32 cost only about $21.9 million USD to develop, which is an absolute bargain in military R&D. Each unit runs you about $2 million bucks half that of the similar American Stryker. The CM32 base design is 24 tons. Though unlike most western crews of three, the CM32 is only crewed by 2, a driver located in a front left hatch, and a commander/gunner who has high intensity thermal sights to allow for long range spotting and lasing targets. This increases the effective range of each weapon system beyond what would be capable of manned operation, and gives the crew the ability to visually engage targets up to 8 kilometers away. So you could use the thermal optic to pretty much look across the Taiwan strait and see Xi Jinping waving back at you. Not really but that might be a good thing.

Gangs all over the world love this next feature. The Turret is fully stabilized which allows you to do what I call combat drive by shootings with an armored vehicle. It can hit targets while traveling at speeds of over 74 miles per hour over hard top paved roads. I would feel bad for the dismounts in the back if they were going that fast though, because anything over 30mph in a military vehicle feels like riding a spaceship reentering the atmosphere. The turret comes standard with twin T-85 smoke grenade launchers, both as good obscuration for the vehicle itself, and for concealment of infantry if they dismount under fire.

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