Taiwan is stepping up plans to create self-sufficient supply chains for combat drones and increase foreign orders from the US to counter China’s numerical superiority, a defense official said on Saturday.
Commenting on condition of anonymity, the official said the nation’s armed forces are in agreement with US Admiral Samuel Paparo’s assessment that Taiwan’s military must be prepared to turn the nation’s waters into a “hellscape” for the Chinese People’s Liberation Army (PLA).
Paparo, the commander of the US Indo-Pacific Command, reiterated the concept during a Congressional hearing in Washington on Wednesday. He first coined the term in a security conference last year.
Photo: Bloomberg
The hellscape strategy refers to utilizing uncrewed aerial vehicles, boats, submersibles and loitering munitions to conduct saturation strikes or precision attacks against high-value targets to attrit or paralyze the PLA invasion fleet, the official said.
Such attacks are cost-effective, require a comparatively small number of troops and could potentially overwhelm the defensive systems of a larger adversary, they said.
As the Sea-Air Combat Power Improvement comes to a close, the Ministry of National Defense is mulling significant investments in creating a domestic capability to sustain the mass production of uncrewed vehicles, components, guidance kits and related pyrotechnics, the official said.
Observations of foreign conflicts suggest that modern warfare consumes uncrewed vehicles and loitering munitions at rates that strain the capabilities of any defense industrial base, they added.
The military tentatively plans to develop four types of combat drones consisting of a short-ranged direct attack model, a loitering munition model, a vertical takeoff and horizontal airlift-capable model, and a cost-effective type with capabilities comparable to guided missiles, they said.
The ministry would also place thousands of additional AeroVironment Switchblade 300 and Anduril Altius-600M orders from the US to complement planned indigenous systems, the official said.
Officials have yet to determine if drones would be funded via a special program or as part of the ministry’s recurring budget, they added.
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