Republic of China Army’s New Abrams Tank Brigade Tests Firepower in Exercises

The Republic of China Army 3rd Battalion, 269th Combined Arms Brigade, has conducted exercises testing the targeting capabilities of its newly operationalised M1A2 Abrams main battle tanks, which were procured from the United States in 2025. The brigade is the second in the Army to have received the vehicles, following the 584th Armored Brigade, with the Defence Ministry having ordered 108 of the vehicles which are expected to equip three brigades. Personnel utilised vehicle-mounted weapons such as the M153 remote weapon station, and employed an internal bore gunnery training system to simulate tank cannon firing. Exercises reportedly verified the effectiveness of the tank crew's weapons operation, and demonstrated excellent results. 

M1A2 Abrams tanks began deliveries to the Republic of China Army in December 2024, with the service having operationalised the vehicles on October 31, 2025. Training for crews at the Hukou Armor Training Command began in early 2025, while in July 2025 four of the tanks participated in a live-fire exercise at the newly constructed Kengzikou Range as part of the Han Kuang 41 military drills. Commenting on the Abrams’ performance, Army Captain Cheng Yu-chun observed that it provided “a major leap forward in firepower, mobility and protection” compared to the ageing M60A3 tank previously relied on to equip elite units. Commander of the 584th Armoured Brigade, Major General Chou Kuang-i at the time observed of the tank’s advanced “hunter-killer” system: “It allows the gunner to engage a target while the commander uses an independent thermal sight to locate the next one.” “This greatly increases engagement efficiency and situational awareness compared to older-generation tanks,” he added.

Although the Abrams represents a significant improvement in capabilities over the Republic of China Army’s previous Vietnam War era M60 and Korean War era M48 main battle tanks, its viability for high intensity combat operations in the event of hostilities in the Taiwan Strait has been widely questioned. The Abrams has proven highly vulnerable to attacks using even relatively basic anti-tank weapons when deployed by the Iraqi Army and the Ukrainian Army, and by early June 2025 the Ukrainian Army was assessed to have lost 87 percent of the American sourced vehicles, with 27 of the 31 Abrams tanks destroyed or captured. This was despite the vehicles having only begun to be deployed to the frontlines in February the previous year, extensively up-armoured, and frequently withdrawn from the frontlines to limit attrition. The far superior anti-tank capabilities of the Chinese mainland’s People’s Liberation Army compared to the Russian Armed Forces has been among the factors leading analysts to predict that the Abrams fleet will likely not last long in a potential high intensity conflict.