Does Anybody Have......

[Rain_Song]

.....some pics of the Taiwanese M14 rifle being deployed by Taiwanese forces? I saw a pic once in the Toronto Star of a Taiwanese coastal patrol with an M14, but that's the only one I've seen of the rifles being used over there. Apart from the odd brief blurb about Taiwan being given all the Springfield tooling for making M14 rifles, you never see too much more about the Taiwanese M14. Maybe someone out there could contribute some pics to this thread?

 

[eos]

I beleive Taiwan received H&R's tooling for the M14 or as it's called in Taiwanese service, the Type 57. The Taiwanese "type year" designation system uses 1911 (foundation of the KMT republic under Sun Yat Sen) as "year zero" . Type 57 = 1968 as the year of adoption.

 

[Splatter]

The Taiwanese did recieve actual USGI tooling (I always thought it was the TRW stuff). They no longer produce the rifle.
Curiously, the Norinco M14 is almost entirely USGI spec. HMMmmmm.

 

[ian_in_vic]

Strangely enough,(or maybe not) the two China's have had nothing to do with each other on this. According to Different, the origins of mainland China's M14 is probably more a result of spreading "Liberation" in U.S. influenced areas (the Philipines, Viet Nam) makes sense, especially in the Philipines - not only ammo but parts available at the next enemy contact.

 

[Different]

Taiwan purchased documents, machine tools, components, and technical assistance from the U. S. government in Fiscal Years 1967 through 1969 so they could produce their Type 57 rifle. In 1968, the U. S. government delivered a lot of Harrington & Richardson M14 project machine tools and equipment to Taiwan. However, Taiwan was not able to get the equipment for producing the magazines and flash suppressors. So, those items were produced with Taiwan's own machinery. The Type 57 rifle was in production until the late 1980s.

The Chinese M14 rifles were reverse engineered from captured U. S. M14 rifles in the Republic of Viet Nam. The Chinese manufactured 100,000 select fire copies of the M14 by no later than 1971. These select fire copies and later semi-automatic copies of the M14 have been made at State Arsenal 356 in Yunnan Province, People's Republic of China.