VIGIL CONSILIUMSearch
Context. Not headlines.
Conflict coverage · Taiwan Strait

Force Structure

A structured catalogue of major publicly documented forces, formations, and equipment — cross-linked, sourced, and deliberately non-operational.

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Context, not targeting. This atlas describes structure and history. It deliberately excludes current locations, live strength, unit movements, and anything operationally sensitive — the content model has no fields for them. See the methodology.
01

Force Structure

Structural · historical · non-operational

Taiwan / ROC

PRC

United States

Regional states

02

Equipment Library

Major publicly documented systems · full profiles and structured records

Reviewed profiles of major publicly documented systems — the ones unit profiles and key events link to, each with a permanent page. The full structured catalogue, including the stub index, lives at Equipment. Each system's confidence grade, status date and sources are shown on its own record.

China Coast Guard cutters

Naval vessel
Silhouette · not to scale
Role
The largest coast guard vessels in the world — and arguably the most strategically effective platforms in this entire module, precisely because they are not warships.
Origin
China
Also appears in
Taiwan Strait
FieldedFull record →

Conventional ballistic and cruise missile capability

Missile / precision strike
Silhouette · not to scale
Role
The land-based conventional missile capability that features in every assessment of the regional balance — recorded here as a broad category only, with no targeting-relevant detail.
Origin
China
Also appears in
Taiwan Strait
FieldedFull record →

F-16V (Block 70/72 and upgraded Block 20)

Combat aircraft
Silhouette · not to scale
Role
Taiwan's principal fighter and the aircraft most often meeting reported PLA activity — significant here as the visible instrument of a daily attrition problem, not as a war-winning capability.
Origin
United States
Also appears in
Taiwan Strait · global service
FieldedFull record →

H-6 bomber family

Combat aircraft
Silhouette · not to scale
Role
A modernised bomber lineage used principally as a missile carrier — and one of the most politically legible aircraft in the theatre, because its appearance on a flight is itself a signal.
Origin
China
Also appears in
Taiwan Strait
FieldedFull record →

Harpoon coastal defence system

Missile / precision strike
Silhouette · not to scale
Role
A large US coastal-defence missile order that became the test case for whether American arms actually arrive on schedule — the supply-chain question at the centre of the alliance-credibility file.
Origin
United States
Also appears in
Taiwan Strait · global service
DeliveredFull record →

Hsiung Feng anti-ship missile family

Missile / precision strike
Silhouette · not to scale
Role
Taiwan's indigenous anti-ship missile family — the clearest expression of a sea-denial strategy, and the capability class most consistently recommended by advocates of asymmetric defence.
Origin
Taiwan
Also appears in
Taiwan Strait
FieldedFull record →

Indigenous Defense Fighter (Ching-kuo)

Combat aircraft
Silhouette · not to scale
Role
Taiwan's domestically developed fighter — militarily a capable second-tier type, and historically significant as the product of an arms embargo that forced self-reliance.
Origin
Taiwan
Also appears in
Taiwan Strait
FieldedFull record →

J-16

Combat aircraft
Silhouette · not to scale
Role
A heavy multirole fighter, and the type most frequently named in Taiwanese reporting of aircraft detected around the island — the workhorse of the routine pressure activity.
Origin
China
Also appears in
Taiwan Strait
FieldedFull record →

J-20

Combat aircraft
Silhouette · not to scale
Role
China's low-observable fighter — significant less for any single engagement than for what its production rate says about the trajectory of the regional air balance.
Origin
China
Also appears in
Taiwan Strait
FieldedFull record →

Mirage 2000-5

Combat aircraft
Silhouette · not to scale
Role
The third type in Taiwan's 1990s fighter acquisition — capable in the interception role, and the clearest illustration of the sustainment cost of operating a small fleet of a type few others fly.
Origin
France
Also appears in
Taiwan Strait
FieldedFull record →

Patriot PAC-3 (Taiwan)

Air defence
Silhouette · not to scale
Role
The upper layer of Taiwan's air and missile defence, and a central component of the integrated air-defence programme the 2026 special budget was written to fund.
Origin
United States
Also appears in
Taiwan Strait · global service
FieldedFull record →

Tien Kung (Sky Bow) air defence

Air defence
Silhouette · not to scale
Role
Taiwan's indigenous surface-to-air missile family — the domestically controlled element of its layered air defence, and the core of the integrated air-defence concept publicised as "T-Dome".
Origin
Taiwan
Also appears in
Taiwan Strait
FieldedFull record →

Tuo Chiang-class corvette

Naval vessel
Silhouette · not to scale
Role
A small, fast, heavily armed catamaran corvette — the physical expression of Taiwan's shift from a few large warships toward many small ones.
Origin
Taiwan
Also appears in
Taiwan Strait
FieldedFull record →

Type 055 destroyer

Naval vessel
Silhouette · not to scale
Role
China's largest and most capable surface combatant — significant primarily as evidence of shipbuilding capacity, which is the more consequential fact.
Origin
China
Also appears in
Taiwan Strait
FieldedFull record →

Type 075 and Type 076 amphibious assault ships

Naval vessel
Silhouette · not to scale
Role
Large amphibious vessels — the ship class most often cited in invasion discussion, and one where the analytically interesting point runs against the popular framing.
Origin
China
Also appears in
Taiwan Strait
FieldedFull record →