The United States government has authorized the potential sale of thousands of ALTIUS family loitering munitions to Taiwan’s armed forces. This information comes from a series of authorizations and notifications submitted by the State Department to the U.S. Congress. Specifically, this transaction, part of the Foreign Military Sales (FMS) program, is valued at US$1.1 billion.
Seeking to enhance its asymmetric capabilities, and mindful of the increasing use of unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) on the battlefield, Taiwan has been pursuing a plan to equip its armed forces with thousands of UAVs, both locally designed and manufactured, as well as those from abroad.
In this last group are the ALTIUS family of loitering munitions, supplied by the American company ANDURIL, which has already delivered the first examples of the ALTIUS-600 series, following the authorization issued by the State Department in June 2024. Furthermore, as recent publications from the Taiwanese Ministry of Defense indicate, they are already being used in operator training and drills.
According to a report by the Defense Security Cooperation Agency (DSCA) on December 17, Taiwan has requested the purchase of an unspecified number of ALTIUS-600 and ALTIUS-700 loitering munitions from the United States, suggesting that this could involve thousands of unmanned systems along with their respective support equipment. This is based on the total value of the transaction, which amounts to US$1.1 billion.
In addition to the loitering munitions themselves, the provision of practice and training munitions, ground control systems, training and maintenance services is also listed, to name just a few items listed in the authorization issued days ago.
Finally, regarding the characteristics of the ALTIUS family, these loitering munitions can be deployed from various air, land, and naval platforms, as well as by operators on the ground. Over the past few months and years, the United States Armed Forces have conducted launch tests from a growing number of platforms, including AC-130J gunships and even the Valkyrie XQ-5 drone; Polaris tactical vehicles equipped with multiple launch systems and Black Hawk helicopters are also listed.
Although their main function is attacking ground targets, both the ALTIUS-600 and the 700 can be equipped with various payloads to fulfill intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance missions, where the former has an autonomy of 3.5 hours and a range of 375 kilometers, and the latter, in its ALTIUS-700M version, an autonomy of 1.25 hours and a range of 160 kilometers.
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