President dissatisfied with military drill performance

Article

President Ma Ying-jeou expressed his dissatisfaction with a large-scale live-fire air defense exercise, yesterday, in which one-third of the missiles missed their targets.

There is still room for improvement,” Ma commented on the drill, the largest in recent years, while demanding an immediate review.

At the exercise held at the Jiupeng air base in the southern Pingtung County, the military fired off a total of 19 missiles — two more than initially planned — six of which failed to hit their targets.

According to the United Evening News, the missiles that were off the mark included the short and medium-range, anti-air and multi-target MICA (Missile d'interception et de combat aerien, “Interception and Aerial Combat Missile”) manufactured by French-based MBDA launched from a Mirage 2000 fighter and a Taiwan-made short-range missile and air-to-air Tien-chien II missile from a Indigenous Defence Fighter (IDF).

A Sparrow anti-air missile, on the other hand, shut off and dropped to the sea six seconds after launch. An extra Sparrow missile, fired by the Army also overshot the target.

Air Force spokesman Pan Kung-hsiao (潘恭孝) explained that the Tien-chien II missile failed to explode after reaching target while the MICA was successfully locked on to its target but missed its planned projectile after firing.

While commending the military officials for their efforts in planning the exercise, Ma said he was “not very satisfied” with the result and that there was room for improvement to address the mechanical problems or human errors that led to the high off-target rate.

Among the 12 units involved in yesterday drill were the Army's 602 Air Cavalry Brigade, the Marine Corps 77 Brigade and the Air Force 427 Wing.

The drills covered combat tactics, combat strategies and air counterattacks, and involved the test-firing of a variety of missiles, including Tien-kung, Hawk, Sparrow, Stinger, vehicle-launched Tien-chien I short-range, and air-to-air missiles.

The Chinese-language United Evening News reported that NT$300 million worth of weapons and target crafts were used in the exercise.

The drill was open to the media to help raise security awareness among the public, the ministry said.

Opinion

It shows couple things. First of all, the governments waste our money by this way. then later they will tell people us, we need to buy more missiles and weapons. Second, the government is lost control. It’s means, if any official did something wrong, their boss will not have any punishment, but give them 18% bank saving rate. Finally, people can not stand for that anymore, as the media did, they use satirical to write this story. And the only thing we can do is don’t to vote him next time.

Vocabulary

drill

• A hand tool, power tool, or machine with a rotating cutting tip or reciprocating hammer or chisel, used for making holes

initially

• at the beginning; "at first he didn't notice anything strange"

interception

• An act or instance of intercepting something, particularly
• An act of a defensive player catching a forward pass
• An act or instance of receiving electronic transmissions before they reach the intended recipient

indigenous

• Originating or occurring naturally in a particular place; native

Sparrow

• A small finchlike Old World bird related to the weaverbirds, typically with brown and gray plumage
• Any of a number of birds that resemble true sparrows in size or color

counterattack

• an attack by a defending force against an attacking enemy force in order to regain lost ground or cut off enemy advance units etc.