According to Asia Pacific Defense Journal, the Taiwanese Ministry of National Defense announced on June 17 that it signed two contracts worth a total of US$1.75 billion with the American Institute in Taiwan (AIT), for the acquisition of Boeing’s Harpoon Coastal Defense System (HCDS) and Lockheed Martin M142 High Mobility Artillery Rocket System (HIMARS).
The Harpoon is an all-weather, over-the-horizon, anti-ship missile, developed and manufactured by McDonnell Douglas (now Boeing Defense, Space & Security). The Standoff Land Attack Missile (SLAM) is a land-attack variant. The regular Harpoon uses active radar homing and flies just above the water to evade defenses. The missile can be launched from:
* Fixed-wing aircraft (the AGM-84, without the solid-fuel rocket booster)
* Surface ships (the RGM-84, fitted with a solid-fuel rocket booster that detaches when expended, to allow the missile’s main turbojet to maintain flight)
* Submarines (the UGM-84, fitted with a solid-fuel rocket booster and encapsulated in a container to enable submerged launch through a torpedo tube);
* Coastal defense batteries, from which it would be fired with a solid-fuel rocket booster.