Taiwan is reportedly purchasing Volcano mines from the United States, while also buying M977A4 HEMTT 10-ton cargo trucks worth 180 million dollars on which the mine deployment system will be mounted. These are anti-personnel and anti-tank mines.
The Volcano mine system can deploy 960 anti-personnel/anti-tank mines in an area 1,100 meters long by 120 meters wide, and it can be deployed by truck or helicopter. The prime contractors for sale are Northrop Grumman and Oshkosh Corporation, the manufacturers of munitions and trucks.
The US sale of Volcano is intended to strengthen Taiwan’s capacity for “asymmetric warfare” in the face of rising tensions with China, which claims Taiwan as its territory and has threatened to take the island by force if necessary. In the Indo-Pacific region, South Korea is the other country whose forces use the Volcano mine system for their operations against potential invaders from North Korea.
It is said that the Volcano system would make Taiwan a tough nut to crack, slow down the enemy’s advance and buy the armed forces time to retaliate with concentrated power.
It is argued that while the Volcano system would strengthen the land defense of Taiwan, similar mines can also fortify the naval defense and make Taiwan less vulnerable to attack.
Naval mines could serve as a highly effective method of denying and confining a potential naval adversary’s precious maritime space in a theater to maneuver freely without worry of damage. These can also tie down considerable naval forces of the adversary in a said region to painstakingly sweep its desired operational waters for mines before deploying units in the sanitized area.
