Developments in the last week could promise hope, or doom, for the Taiwanese air force.
The Republic of China Air Force once possessed more and better modern fighters and other aerial weapons than its rival, China’s People’s Liberation Army Air Force. But China’s rapid military modernization and Beijing’s growing ties with the United States and European powers have eroded Taiwan’s air-power advantage and limited prospects for the ROCAF’s own modernization.
Now Taiwan is mulling options for modernizing its aerial arsenal, in light of its increasingly powerful opponent and strained diplomatic standing. Homegrown robotic warplanes could offer a partial solution, but it’s unclear whether Taipei has the resources to design and build them.
It has been more than 15 years since Taipei was last able to procure foreign-produced jet fighters. Efforts since 2006 to secure 66 F-16C fighters from the United States have been stymied by Washington’s reluctance to anger Beijing. Washington had considered offering, as a consolation prize, sensor upgrades to Taiwan’s existing fleet of 144 F-16As, but last week a source told Taipei Times that now even these upgrades are ‘off the radar’ in Washington.
That means Taiwan might have to develop its own aircraft and weapons, or make do without.
It has been done before. Beginning in the 1990s, the ROCAF acquired 126 F-CK-1 lightweight fighters from Taiwan’s Aerospace Industrial Development Corporation. Displays at last week’s Taipei Aerospace & Defense Technology Exhibition illustrated several current Taiwanese initiatives that could represent a sort of spiritual successor to the F-CK-1.
At the exhibition, the official Chun-Shan Institute of Science and Technology showed off two UAV concepts that could form the basis of future, Taiwanese-built drone warplanes.
One appears to be a clone of the US MQ-9 Reaper, a propeller driven, unmanned attack plane that the US Air Force has used extensively in Iraq and Afghanistan. The exhibition display showed the Taiwanese Reaper clone spotting targets for an F-16.
More radically, another display depicted the Reaper-esque UAV directing a second drone as it fired an air-to-air missile at a Chinese fighter. The missile-firing robot appeared to be modelled on the US Navy’s experimental X-47B, a jet-powered, stealthy robot designed to fly off of carrier decks on ground-attack and reconnaissance missions.
While some analysts have proposed an air-to-air mission for the X-47B, the Navy hasn’t signalled any interest in such a capability.
The Reaper represents a fairly basic airframe integrated with sophisticated sensors and a global command-and-control network based on towers and satellites. With its more limited geographic scope, it shouldn’t be difficult for Taiwan to design and build a similar, albeit scaled-down, system.
But no nation – not even the United States – is developing dogfighting UAVs, as air-to-air combat remains one of the most complex air-power functions, still beyond the capacity of existing drones. If Taipei is truly expecting robotic warplanes to replace manned fighters in the air-to-air role in the near future, it will have to quickly become a world leader in military robotics.
In other words, dogfighting drones could represent a false hope for an air force doomed to gradually waste away as its existing fighters age out, and no new ones become available. Some projections see the ROCAF's current 400-strong fighter fleet declining by half by 2025, while China’s own fleet expands.
‘The fighter gap, if not bridged in a timely manner, could permanently solidify the already tilting cross-Strait air-power balance in favour of China,’ the US-Taiwan Business Council warned in a 2010 report. Drones are unlikely to reverse that tilt.
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yang zi
Taiwan is doing triangulation lately, which is fine by me.
I actually hope US sells advanced weapon to Taiwan, this will be a good kick at PLA, making it try harder and make better weapons than US. the mentality of PLA is that US military power can never be caught up. This is wrong. it should set the bar higher and go for the best. it might fail, but it might succeed.
Benjamin
The engineering actually doesn’t sound that difficult or complicated. Here’s my idea:
• Taiwan should design the best long-range fire-and-forget missile it can, (perhaps a “TC-4”?) along with cheap drones designed for endurance with many hardpoints each.
The idea is to have many of these drones loiter for extended periods of time, in the air, firing salvo after salvo at incoming Chinese aircraft, with a nearby E-2 Hawkeye AWACS or two providing mid-flight targeting updates to these “fire-and-forget” AAMs.
This would spare the lives of as many Taiwanese pilots as possible, and also many Taiwanese fighter jets. Obviously, an air war could not be won just by these drones alone, but they could absorb the brunt of an initial PLAAF fighter sweep wave and allow the ROCAF to regroup.
Paladin
There are many reasons that the US Navy, USMC, and USAF do not want to develop RPV fighter/Ground Attack aircraft. A major reason is the vast distances that RPVs would be opperating, even from a CVN. A more significant reason would be the political fallout from a Blue-on-Blue (“Friendly Fire”) engagement, and/or “Colatteral Damage” bombs or other ordance landing upon civilian targets. The US armed forces anticipate facing top of the line hostile aircraft, and even one “leaker” could result in the loss of a CVN.
The ROC faces a far less complex task. They are likely to face multiple waves of less advanced aircraft including fighters, ground attack aircraft, and possibly troop transports. RPVs (or any other fighter plane) defending the ROC would not be expected to elliminate every PRC aircraft. If ROC RPVs could achieve a favorable rate of attrition and prevent ROC forces from esablishing a sustainable beachhead/airhead on Taiwan; or if they present a Credible Deterance to potential advesaries then they will have succeeded.
The USA has the resources to maintain a large airforce (actually our Navy/Marines air arm have more tactical aircraft than the USAF). The ROC has more limited resources. A force of RPVs to supplement their manned F-16As, SAMS and other weapons systems. Isreal, Iran, and other nations have developed various RPVs, so too could the ROC. Rather the ROC has already devoped RPVs, and could well create a dedicated air-to-air or even naval attack version.
It may not be possible at this time to develop an RPV that could match up with an F-35 and a well trained pilot, or even an upgraded F-16A of the ROCAF. However, if the ROC is unable to aqquire suitable airfraft from foreign or domestic sources, then RPVs could be a viable alternative. It is said that “Neccesity Is the Mother of Invention!”