On Friday, 31 October 2025, a ceremony was held at the barracks of the 3rd Tank Battalion of the 584th Armored Brigade of the Republic of China Army (Taiwan) in Hukou, Hsinchu, to mark the induction of the M1A2T Abrams tanks, manufactured by the U.S. company General Dynamics Land Systems (GDLS).
Photos: Ministry of National Defense of the Republic of China
The ceremony was announced on social media by the Ministry of National Defense of the Republic of China. As noted, Taiwan’s President Lai Ching-te attended the event.
The 584th Brigade falls under the Army’s 6th Corps, with its subordinate units stationed in northern Taiwan, where they are responsible, among other tasks, for defending the beaches of Taoyuan and Zhubei.
The 3rd Mechanized Battalion has received 28 tanks (two companies of 14 each) from the first batch of 38 vehicles delivered on 16 December 2024. The remaining 10 are used for crew training and were therefore assigned to the 269th Mechanized Infantry Brigade, headquartered in Taoyuan in the same region of the island and subordinated to the Armaments and Training Department.
In May of this year, the first field training exercise took place, including live-fire drills with the main armament at the Hangzikou training area in Hsinchu. A platoon of four vehicles fired 19 training rounds at a stationary target, a replica of a People’s Liberation Army (PLA) tank, as part of practical training. The Ministry of National Defense’s Military News Agency published photos from the exercise on 10 July.
Meanwhile, on 28 July, a second shipment of 42 M1A2T tanks arrived in Taiwan. This means that 28 tanks still remain to be delivered, which will occur in 2026, as the government in Taipei ordered a total of 108 vehicles. In addition to the Abrams tanks, accompanying support vehicles were also contracted, although there is no information yet on the start of their deliveries. The M1A2Ts are replacing CM-11 Brave Tiger tanks within the 6th Corps.
M1A2T Abrams for Taiwan
Taiwan received approval to purchase tanks in the special M1A2T configuration on 8 July 2019, and by the end of that year an intergovernmental agreement had been signed.
The contract value was initially estimated at up to about 2 billion USD, while the agreement itself set the cost at 39.8 billion TWD – 34% less. Deliveries were originally scheduled to conclude by 30 June 2028, but the timetable has been significantly accelerated thanks to expanded production capacity at the Joint Systems Manufacturing Center in Lima, Ohio, a U.S. Department of Defense facility operated by General Dynamics Land Systems (GDLS).
In addition to the tanks, Taiwan also requested 14 M88A2 HERCULES armored recovery vehicles and 16 Oshkosh M1070A1 HET heavy equipment transporters, along with an equal number of M1000 semi-trailers. The package also included support equipment and armament (Taiwan also plans to launch domestic production of 120 mm ammunition).
The M1A2T is a variant of the M1A2 SEPv3 without special armor incorporating depleted-uranium inserts and not configured for the installation of a hard-kill active protection system (APS).
The first two M1A2T tanks were presented at the Taiwan–U.S. Army New Combat Vehicle Project Management conference in July 2022.
Meanwhile, deliveries of M1A2 SEPv3 tanks to Poland (85 of 250 delivered) and Australia (46 of 75 delivered) are ongoing.
President @ChingteLai today presided over the activation ceremony of the #ROCArmy’s 3rd Combined Arms Battalion, 584th Armor Brigade, marking the unit’s re-equipment with #M1A2T tanks.
This milestone marks the #ROCArmedForces’ commitment to modernization and combat readiness. pic.twitter.com/0eSH5vf75K
— 國防部 Ministry of National Defense, ROC(Taiwan) 🇹🇼 (@MoNDefense) October 31, 2025