Taiwan's drone troops "brighten their family background" were ridiculed

[Global Time Depth] Taiwan's drone troops "brighten their family background" were ridiculed

　　[Global Times Special Correspondent Chen Shan] The experience of the Russia-Uzbekistan conflict and the instigation of the United States have led the Taiwan military to try every means to vigorously promote the development of drone troops.

Taiwan's "Ministry of National Defense" held a press conference on the 7th, rarely introducing the entire family of drones currently equipped and under development by the Taiwan military, and also announced that it will purchase as many as 3,000 "military commercial" drones.

However, in view of Taiwan's weak drone technology foundation, even the media on the island does not recognize these seemingly grand drone projects of the Taiwan military.

The latest "Tengyun" is not as good as the mainland express delivery drone

　　Taiwan's "United Daily News" said on the 8th that Taiwan's "Ministry of National Defense" introduced the drone project of Taiwan's "Zhongshan Academy of Sciences ("Chinese Academy of Sciences" for short)" at a press conference.

Qi Liping, director of the Institute of Aeronautical Research of the "Chinese Academy of Sciences", said that under the impetus of learning from the application experience of UAVs in the Russian-Ukrainian conflict and the development of the so-called "asymmetric combat power of UAVs", the Taiwan military has accelerated the development of multi-type UAVs. Through "military-civilian cooperation" to quickly establish a new combat capability of the Taiwan military's drones.

　　The "Chinese Academy of Sciences" revealed that the Taiwan military has currently installed the "Red Sparrow 2" micro-UAV, the "Sharp Kite 1" medium-sized UAV, the "Army Tactical Short-range UAV" and the "Jianxiang" anti-radiation attack Four types of UAVs, and at the same time announced the "Tengyun" large-scale UAVs, "Ruiyuan 2" UAVs, "Red Sparrow 3" UAVs and loitering bombs under development; in addition, the Taiwan military also clearly listed It needs 3,000 "military commercial standard" UAVs, including ship-based surveillance UAVs, land surveillance UAVs, eye-catching UAVs, surveillance UAVs, and micro-UAVs. The prototype design will be completed before August, and batch purchase will be carried out after the Taiwan military accepts it.

　　Among them, the "Tengyun" large-scale UAV, which is known as the most advanced performance and the strongest battery life in Taiwan, has attracted the most attention.

Taiwan's "Chinese Academy of Sciences" revealed that the drone is undergoing combat evaluation and will soon be mass-produced. As for the future mass production quantity, it will be "listed as confidential."

　　According to reports, the "Tengyun" UAV debuted at the Taipei Aerospace Exhibition in 2015. The main design indicators are that the fuselage is 8 meters long, the wingspan is about 18 meters, it is equipped with a turboprop engine, and it can stay in the air for more than 24 hours.

The Taiwan military first built two "Tengyun" UAVs, which claim to have functions such as day and night air image surveillance and reconnaissance, electronic parameter reconnaissance, electronic interference, weather observation, and communication relay. Not happy with its performance.

In September 2021, a "Tengyun" UAV crashed due to a guidance system failure during training in Taitung, which further deepened the doubts of the Taiwan military.

In the background, the "Chinese Academy of Sciences" no longer dispatched the UAV to take off for testing, but started the development of a new generation of "Tengyun" UAV.

It is said that the aircraft has been replaced with an engine with stronger thrust, the load capacity, resolution and air time have been further strengthened, and the body also uses a large number of composite materials.

Taiwan military officials said that the engine used by the new generation of "Tengyun" UAV is the same model as the MQ-9B "Reaper" UAV that Taiwan bought from the United States. It can stay in the air for 24 hours, and the flight distance exceeds 1,000 kilometers. It can be equipped with an armed model, and can be equipped with cannons, missiles and other weapons according to the needs.

Its appearance is also very similar to the "Reaper" UAV. It is a large-scale all-composite UAV with medium and high altitudes, long endurance, and multiple loads. It has the functions of autonomous take-off and landing, multi-machine control, network guidance and real-time image transmission. , It can perform intelligence search, surveillance and investigation tasks day and night.

　　According to media reports on the island, after the outbreak of the conflict between Russia and Ukraine, the Taiwan military accelerated the testing of the new "Tengyun" drone.

In mid-May last year, the aircraft was tested at sea for the first time. The flight time was 3 hours, and then began to test 5 hours, 7 hours and night flight training.

In June last year, the aircraft completed a 10-hour continuous flight test and attempted to circumnavigate Taiwan's "Air Defense Identification Zone", "confirming that it has the capability of medium and long-range surveillance and reconnaissance, and the range will cover the surrounding waters of Taiwan."

According to the vision of the Taiwan military, in the future, the aircraft will be matched with four US-made MQ-9B "Reaper" UAVs, and has the ability to perform long-term surveillance and reconnaissance in the waters surrounding Taiwan.

　　However, experts on the island admit that the Taiwan military has weak technical reserves in the field of drones. Not only do most of the core equipment need to be imported, but the integration capabilities are also far behind.

Some media ridiculed that the performance indicators of Taiwan's "Tengyun" drones are not as good as the cargo drones used by SF Express in mainland China.

In 2017, SF Express announced the introduction of the "Twin-Tailed Scorpion" large-scale UAV to undertake air transportation tasks. The aircraft has a wingspan of 20 meters, a fuselage length of 10 meters, a take-off weight of about 3 tons, a load of 1.2 tons, and a cruising time of 35 hours. Up to 3,000 kilometers, the main performance exceeds the "Tengyun" UAV.

Taiwan's mass-produced drone crashes continue

　　In addition to the crash of the "Tengyun" UAV during development, other UAVs in active service in the Taiwan military have frequent failures and crashes many times.

　　Take the "Ruiyuan 1" UAV currently in service in the Taiwan military as an example. This UAV is a medium-sized UAV designed and produced by the "Chinese Academy of Sciences". The body is made of composite materials and a modular design. ; In addition to using the traditional runway to take off and land, it can also use catapults and interception nets on ships to launch and recover; it has rapid deployment and long-term air reconnaissance capabilities.

The "Ruiyuan 2" currently being developed by the "Chinese Academy of Sciences" is an upgraded model of it, which has been upgraded from a simple reconnaissance drone to a rocket launcher and other attack equipment.

According to the Taiwan military, it is more advanced than the Turkish-made "standard bearer" TB-2 UAV that performed well in the Russia-Ukraine conflict.

　　However, the history of frequent crashes of the "Sharp Kite" series of drones makes it hard to believe the self-boasting of the Taiwan military.

It is said that the "Ruiyuan 1" UAV has been secretly developed since the 1990s, and it was not known to the outside world until 2008 when the prototype crashed in Taimali, Taitung.

In 2010, the Taiwan Army purchased 8 sets of 32 drones of this type under the name of "Sharp Kite Project".

Subsequently, because the first batch of 4 planes received all crashed, it was not officially put into service until 2013.

Due to the high price, inconvenient use, and frequent accidents of the "Ruiyuan 1" UAV, it was rejected by the Taiwan Army. In September 2017, it was all transferred to the Taiwan Navy. Tactical Reconnaissance Brigade".

According to statistics, at least 11 "Ruiyuan 1" drones have crashed due to different reasons since they entered service.

　　Another "Cardinal 2" micro-drone equipped by the Taiwan military also has frequent accidents.

This aircraft is an individual handheld mini-UAV developed by the "Chinese Academy of Sciences" with reference to the U.S. military's RQ-11 "Raven" unmanned reconnaissance aircraft.

In the background, the Marine Corps purchased its improved model "Cardinal 2", which weighs 5.5 kilograms and can be thrown or ejected by hand. It is equipped with a flight control computer, navigator, data link, photoelectric camera, and can be loaded with a CCD camera. , Night vision goggles, can monitor the range of 8 kilometers; it can fly for 1 hour when fully charged, and the maximum flight speed is 63 kilometers per hour.

The Taiwan Marine Corps has equipped a total of 30 "Cardinal 2" drones, but in 2017 alone, 3 of them crashed.

According to the feedback from the Taiwan military, the failure rate of the aircraft is quite high, and it can only be reconnaissance and photographed at a height below 300 meters. It is very easy to be countered by opponents, so the actual usage rate is very low.

　　Taiwan's "Maritime Patrol Administration" originally planned to purchase a batch of "Cardinal 2" drones, but the test found that their endurance was insufficient, the cruising distance was only within the visual range of the personnel on board, and they could not take off in slightly bad weather. When recovering, another small boat must be dispatched, and the operation is difficult. In the end, the procurement plan was abandoned because "the performance does not meet the requirements".

Even though the "Cardinal" drone is unreliable, the "Chinese Academy of Sciences" has announced in recent years that it will develop an artificial intelligence-controlled "Flame" suicide drone based on it. strike".

　　In addition to these two models, Taiwan's "Army Tactical Short-Range UAV" and "Jianxiang" anti-radiation attack UAV have just begun mass production, and the number of equipment is very small.

　　Regarding the numerous failures of these mass-produced drones equipped by the Taiwan military, analysts on the island generally believe that it is related to Taiwan's weak drone technology foundation.

Jie Zhong, an adjunct assistant professor at Taiwan's "Tamkang Institute of Strategy", said that Taiwan's self-produced drones should not have the problem of insufficient equipment maintenance. is insufficient".

There are also experts on the island who believe that "the current situation of Taiwan's drone forces can only be described as 'congenitally defective, acquired disorder', just like the drone technology of the 'Chinese Academy of Sciences', which is obviously far behind the mainland. Taiwan There is only the UAV application industry, but there is no technical foundation, and it is far from being able to integrate with the current combat application situation."

　　The internal investigation of the Taiwan military also shows that another main reason for the high number of drone crashes is that due to the strong professionalism of drones, the Taiwan military has problems such as insufficient personnel training, irregular operation, and improper maintenance.

In particular, "unmanned aerial vehicle systems are expensive, so when Taiwan military personnel are faced with the problem of excessive compensation pressure when drones or equipment are damaged, no personnel are willing to stay for long-term service.

The foundation of Taiwan's civilian drone industry is weak

　　In order to solve the lack of combat power of the Taiwan military's drones, the Taiwan military also has high hopes for the "military-civilian cooperation" of Taiwan's civilian drone companies.

The Taiwan military claims that a large number of consumer-grade drones and civilian drones have played an important role in the Russia-Ukraine conflict. Therefore, the Taiwan military plans to purchase 3,000 "military commercial" drones. The relevant prototypes are scheduled to be released on July 30. Delivery, improvement or performance improvement must be completed in August-September of this year. "After passing the acceptance inspection, it will be mass-produced next year, and the military investment budget will be compiled for procurement."

　　Taiwan's "United Daily News" commented on the 8th that the Taiwan authorities are "optimistic" about the level of Taiwan's civilian drones, and believe that the "military commercial standard" drones are simple in structure and have no problems in production, so they must be used by the Taiwan military.

But "maybe things are not as easy as imagined."

　　The report mentioned that last year the mainland's civilian drones "frequently harassed the outer island defense areas."

However, in the actual test conducted by the Taiwan military in Xiaojinmen, various private manufacturers brought in various equipment developed by themselves, and as a result, none of the systems passed the test.

"Some manufacturers thought that the local coastal terrain in Kinmen was rugged, and requested another test at another location. As a result, the test results at the Yilan Dafu Weapons Proving Ground were still the same."

It is said that the UAV early warning system developed by Taiwan's private company has no response at all to the small UAV approaching from a height of 30 meters on the sea surface due to the influence of sea clutter until the threat target's flying height is increased to 70 meters. Only some manufacturers' systems can find the target.

　　Some analysts believe that Taiwan has a well-developed electronics industry and has a certain industrial foundation in the mass production of drones. However, the relevant technology accumulation of the drone industry on the island is weak, and the overall level is still very insufficient.

Last year, after the news that "800 Taiwanese drones participated in the war in Ukraine" was reported on the island, some analysts noticed that the main performance of Taiwan's civilian drones mentioned in the rumors was significantly behind the world's mainstream level.

　　Taiwan media also mentioned that although the performance of the military drones produced by the "Chinese Academy of Sciences" has been "unsatisfactory for many years", from the software system to the hardware, they are all self-structured research and development, and the manufacturers have also done a "background review" to exclude "red drones". "Supply chain"; while Taiwan's civilian drone companies want to save money, most of them use internationally accepted open source software, many of which are developed by mainland China. Does this count as a "red supply chain"?

How to rule it out?

According to the report, "Before the military commercial prototypes are available, matters related to the budget submission are now planned. It seems that after the improvement, it will definitely be scheduled for mass production, which makes many people in the Taiwan military dumbfounded."

　　(Global Times)