Taiwan's latest live-fire exercise highlights expanding drone capabilities

Taiwan held its 10-day Han Kuang 42 live-fire exercise from Aug. 5 to 14, integrating drone training across multiple theaters to sharpen the armed forces' combat readiness. 

Drone drills

Ahead of the exercise, the Fourth Combat Theater Command, responsible for southern Taiwan's defense, held drone operations training for reservists on Aug. 3, covering drone capabilities, procedures, safety rules and tactical applications before hands-on flight practice.

On Aug. 7, the Matsu Defense Command, stationed on Taiwan's frontline islands, said it had conducted coastal strike-validation drills as part of the exercises, using drones for maritime target reconnaissance, intelligence relay and target monitoring.

President Lai Ching-te (賴清德) visited Kaohsiung on Aug. 8 to observe exercises focused on coastal strikes and nearshore defense operations, where a Marine Corps exercise commander briefed him on the drill and drone employment concepts, using a tablet to show aerial footage captured by a drone.

On Aug. 10, as the exercise entered its joint counter-landing and coastal strike phase, the Army's 584th Armored Brigade conducted a fuel resupply drill for its M1A2T tanks at a tactical position in Taoyuan.

The drill marked the first public field-resupply exercise since the tanks entered service and also featured the public debut of locally made metal anti-drone protective cages mounted on the vehicles.

Military Police and Marine Corps units conducted counter-airborne landing drills on the Guandu Plain on Aug. 12, during which Military Police personnel practiced drone bomb drops and suicide dive attacks.

The following day, on Aug. 13, the armed forces conducted defensive operations drills at Guangfu Bridge on the border between Taipei and New Taipei City, deploying obstacle systems while incorporating drones into urban-area defensive operations training for the first time.

Key developments

Shen Ming-shih (沈明室), a research fellow at Taiwan’s Institute for National Defense and Security Research (INDSR), told TCN that drone employment and validation drills had increased markedly during this year’s Han Kuang exercise.

The development showed that Taiwan’s armed forces were gradually integrating drones into a broad range of missions, including reserve mobilization, urban defense, offshore-island operations, port defense and troop maneuver, he said. Shen added that the trend warrants international attention.

The addition of drone operations training to reservist education and mobilization programs reflects efforts to address a capability gap among reservists, many of whom previously received little training in drone employment, Shen said.

He noted that the Military Police have established a drone company and used drones during Taipei garrison defense exercises to conduct reconnaissance and maintain battlefield awareness. During roadblock and area-denial drills, drones can also help forces monitor surrounding conditions and identify potential threats.

At present, Shen said, Taiwan’s military mainly uses drones for intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance; target acquisition; and battle damage assessment. 

However, this does not mean Taiwan lacks the ability to employ armed unmanned systems, he said. 

He noted that some drills have demonstrated small drones dropping 60mm mortar rounds, indicating that the use of small and first-person-view drones for both strike and ISR missions is becoming increasingly common. Taiwan is expected to keep pace with international operational trends in this area, he added.

Assessing effectiveness

Kuo Yu-jen (郭育仁), director of the Institute of China and Asia-Pacific Studies at National Sun Yat-sen University, told TCN that the effectiveness of large-scale drone deployment in this year's Han Kuang exercise could be assessed in three areas: the battlefield management system, the performance and quality of domestically produced drones, and the military's tactical employment and operational proficiency.

Han Kuang is not a series of isolated drills conducted by individual units in separate locations, but a test of Taiwan’s overall combat system, he said. How drones are integrated into battlefield management systems and coordinated with other forces is therefore a key point of observation.

Kuo said Taiwan's military doctrine and training have historically devoted limited attention to drone warfare, so individual personnel and units must build experience through repeated exercises in operating and employing drones.

Battlefield management and tactical employment still have considerable room for improvement, largely because the military remains in the early stages of integration and experimentation, Kuo said. 

However, he added, this is precisely the value of military exercises: identifying weaknesses in system integration and tactical employment, and using those findings to guide future improvements.

Regarding the quality and performance of Taiwan-made drones, Kuo said Taiwanese companies have long lacked legal test sites for realistic trials, prompting many firms to travel to Ukraine at an early stage to test their self-developed drones in an actual battlefield environment.

Many Taiwanese drone products have already been validated through combat experience, he said, adding that platform performance itself is not currently the most significant issue.

Problems identified in battlefield management and tactical employment during exercises can be fed back to developers and manufacturers, enabling companies to adjust their products and system designs to meet operational requirements, he added.

Counter-drone systems

Shen said the protective cage-like systems installed on the M1A2T main battle tanks reflected Taiwan’s growing recognition of the drone threat to major combat platforms and represented another notable aspect of the exercise.

Yet, he said Taiwan still needs to strengthen its procurement, research and development, and operational employment of counter-drone systems, adding that although the military has established drone-related command structures and units, its current focus remains largely on small ISR-oriented drones.

Long-range attack drones

The wars in Ukraine and the Middle East have shown that long-range attack drones are becoming an increasingly important trend in modern warfare, Shen said.

Such systems are relatively low-cost and can conduct long-range precision strikes, allowing them in some missions to supplement or partially replace long-range rockets and missiles, he said, adding that Taiwan's deterrence capability would be strengthened if it could develop large, long-range attack drones with precision-strike capabilities.

In the event of a Chinese military assault on Taiwan, small drones could inflict sustained attrition on concentrated armored and infantry forces during ground combat, Shen said. 

However, large attack drones capable of conducting long-range strikes would produce a greater strategic deterrent effect, Shen added.

Numbers matter

Kuo said Taiwan's greatest challenge in drone warfare remains the number of systems it can field, noting that based on US assessments, Taiwan may need to deploy roughly 400,000 to 500,000 drones — a scale it remains far from reaching.

Drones have increasingly become high-consumption battlefield assets, similar to conventional munitions, he said, so Taiwan must maintain substantial inventories to sustain tactical employment and battlefield-management training.

Without sufficient funding for procurement and mass production, Taiwan’s armed forces will struggle to accumulate enough experience in drone operation, coordination and command, Kuo said.