Taiwan reveals that the Chien Hsiang loitering munition will be produced in ‘attack’ and ‘decoy’ variants
If China decides to invade Taiwan, the skies over the Taiwan Strait would quickly be filled with very dangerous weapons flying at hypersonic, supersonic and subsonic speeds. One of these weapons will be Taiwan’s Chien Hsiang (劍翔, “Rising Sword”) kamikaze drone.
In stark contrast to the fast missiles and jets that will be heading to faraway targets at high speed, the Chien Hsiang is a compact system that will be cruising at a relatively slow speed — and it won’t be heading anywhere in particular.
The Chien Hsiang is a kamikaze drone that’s also called a “loitering munition.” It’s basically a flying smart bomb with radiation-detection systems, wings and a small propeller that cruises at 185 kilometers per hour on a pre-programmed flight pattern.
Fitted with radar-homing technology, its role is to loiter over the warzone and look for targets. Once it senses radar energy coming from the right kind of target — like a Chinese warship, radar installation or Russian-made S-400 anti-aircraft battery — it locks on and drops down on to the target, detonating its sizable warhead on impact.
The drone has previously been displayed together with its launch vehicle — a medium-sized truck that holds 12 drones in 12 ready-to-fire launchers. Videos of the drones in action show them using small, short-burn rocket engines to shoot out of their launchers and gain altitude. Once the drone reaches the correct speed and altitude, the rocket stops firing and a small propeller at the rear of the drone unfolds and starts to propel the weapon at speeds of up to 185 kilometers per hour.
In a combat scenario, Taiwan could launch dozens of these from its frontline islands and from Taiwan itself. While the ones fired from Taiwan would look for warship targets over the Taiwan Strait, the ones fired from the frontline islands would be able to cover most of China’s southeastern coastline. These would search out and attack China’s radar units and missile batteries stationed on or near the Chinese coastline. In this way they would seek to punch holes in China’s air defense network, through which Taiwan’s attack jets and land-attack cruise missiles would be able to penetrate toward inland targets.
In a recent budget report to Taiwan’s Legislative Yuan, it was revealed that two variants of the Chien Hsiang kamikaze drone will be produced. One version would be the loitering attack drone described above. The other version would be a “decoy” platform.
The decoy version would be designed to loiter in the same way as the attack version, but instead of destroying radiation sources, these drones would trick enemy ships and missile batteries to switch on their radars and thereby make their positions known. It is assumed that such decoys would work in tandem with their attack variants, or other weapon systems, which would then lock onto the radiation source and destroy it.
The budget report also revealed that four construction projects related to the Chien Hsiang kamikaze drone are already underway. These facilities would be used to produce, store and maintain the weapon systems. Taiwan’s Central News Agency (CNA) reports that Taiwan aims to produce 104 of these drones by 2025.
Image: Kenchen945
Taiwan will have to start producing its own missiles asap!