US satellite has crossed the Taiwan Strait and found that the PLA drone group appeared at five front-line airports on the front line of Taiwan. US think tank claims that these drones can undertake the first batch of air strike tasks in cross-sea landing operations, completely paralyzing the Taiwan military's air defense network.
Recently, according to a China military analysis report released by the Mitchell Institute of Aeronautics and Aerospace (MIAS), the People's Liberation Army has deployed a large number of drone groups in 5 military airports near Taiwan Strait , including many years of exposure, including J-6, J-7, and J-8, which were modified from human fighter .
0 MIAS report PLA airport satellite map
According to MIAS's prediction, these drones will serve as the first fleet of unmanned attack aircraft to carry out combat missions to destroy the Taiwan military's air defense network and reduce their air defense capabilities before the PLA landing forces cross the strait.
Looking at the world, it is not rare to convert human fighter jets into drones. Because it is different from traditional drones that require fuselage design and manufacturing from scratch, and have poor ammunition load and flight performance. The J-7 drone in the test
This drone modified from manned aircraft can maximize the ammunition load and flight performance of the original organism after modification. In theory, it can carry more and larger ammunition and perform some combat tasks that traditional detection and strike integrated drones cannot perform.
And since the scope of this unmanned transformation is usually limited to the inside of the body, the radar signal of the body after the transformation is often the same as before the transformation.
This leads to the fact that unless a pilot is sent for close-range visual identification, ground or fighter pilots have no way to distinguish whether these modified fuselages are manned or drones based on radar signals.
drone based on J-6 transformation
Therefore, many countries have the habit of converting manned aircraft into drones to test air defense system or simulate fighter air combat. The most typical example of
is the US QF-16 drone. This type of drone is transformed based on the old-fashioned F-16A/C fighter jet. It is usually used for damage performance testing of the US military's air-to-air missile . It occasionally plays imaginary enemy targets in exercises to test the combat level of the US Air Force.
US military's QF-16 drone
At this time, some viewers should have noticed that compared with traditional drones, the biggest advantage of this drone modified from manned aircraft is not hard indicators such as flight performance or bomb load, but can perfectly "imitate" the body radar signal of a manned fighter.
This is also the main reason why MIAS believes that the People's Liberation Army will transform a large number of J-6, J-7 and J-8 fighters into drones.
Because from a military perspective, today's Taiwan Province has become the region with the largest air defense system density in the world under the Taiwan military's "three steps, one sentry, five steps, one post" air defense system deployment model.
air defense positions on Taiwan Island
According to MIAS's assessment, even if the PLA fighter jets have reached world-class performance, it is difficult to ensure that there will be no large-scale casualties when facing such a high-density air defense early warning network and air defense weapon .
Therefore, it is necessary for the People's Liberation Army to paralyze the Taiwan Army's air defense network through various means to ensure the safety of the Air Force fleet's operations when supporting landing operations.
. In addition to traditional anti-radiation combat, these response methods are to use a large number of modified drones to create dense aircraft signals over the straits to carry out "DDoS attack " on the radar of the Taiwan Army, making it impossible for them to distinguish the PLA's real combat aircraft from the dense radar signals.
, and MIAS also believes that in addition to creating radar signals, these drones' missions will also destroy some important facilities of the Taiwan military by suicide attacks, just like the Russian Witness-136 drone on the Russian-Ukrainian battlefield, thus putting the Taiwan military in the dilemma of wasting ammunition and being bombed if they do not attack.
In other words, in MIAS's view, the main purpose of the PLA's conversion of old aircraft such as J-6 into drones is to serve as "meat shields" for manned fighters, and to destroy important facilities of the Taiwan military as much as possible while consuming Taiwan military air defense ammunition.
Theoretically, this tactic is indeed very feasible. But it should be noted that this feasibility is the same as the analytical conclusions drawn by MIAS, and is based on the premise that the People's Liberation Army will only use the Air Force to paralyze the Taiwan military's air defense network.
In fact, for the People's Liberation Army, no matter how dense the air defense system deployed by the Taiwan Army is, no matter how high the threat, it is finally deployed in this acre of three-point land in Taiwan Province. The geographical limitations of
have led to the PLA not sending out the air force, and relying solely on the army's long-range rocket launchers can remove these "threats" one by one.
PLA equipped 191 rocket launcher range is 370 kilometers
In this case, even if the air force fleet participates in the battle against the Taiwan military's air defense system, it often only needs to assume the responsibility of cleaning up the fish that misses the net.
What's more, compared with regular anti-radiation operations, this tactical efficiency of using drones to conduct "DDoS attacks" is too low, and it is not applicable to military conflicts like the Taiwan Strait with short time and high intensity.
As for why the PLA deployed such drones to frontier airports near the Taiwan Strait when they were not suitable for the Taiwan Strait issue?
Considering that Americans can use F-16 as drone target aircraft for practical training, it is reasonable for the PLA to change several old aircraft to practice their skills for pilots.
