This will sound a bit crazy, but I have most of the resources required and a strong desire to make it happen, so please hear me out.
I am a Canadian-American cryptocurrency professional who has been helping Hong Kong people for a few years now. I provide cyber security to some well-known activists, help to secure fundraising, and sometimes assist in event organizing. Here’s me in the news about it.
Some of my crypto colleagues do similar things for Ukraine. In fact, one of them is behind a very amazing project called Adopt a Drone, which acquires drones internationally and delivers them to Ukraine for use in combat by its military. At some point we forged a partnership, and I helped the Hong Kong-Canadian community send Ukraine a drone through them.
We believe the support should go both ways, however. Chinese drones have been constantly harassing Taiwan’s coastal territory in an attempt to exhaust its air defense capabilities; the Taiwanese air force scrambles expensive fighter jets to ward off relatively inexpensive UAVs. By using drones capable of monitoring and attacking other drones, we could alleviate this burden for them. No human beings need to get hurt.
All we really need is helpers on the ground in Taiwan itself. In Ukraine, they have established a drone pilot school, which requires a host location. We could also use connections to military or government officials who might need to be aware of our operation; the drone cameras can provide them real-time video feeds enemy drones in their jurisdictions. They could greenlight (or not) interception via ramming or nets.
We could bring Ukrainian drone pilots as remote guest speakers to the drone school, but they have to finish defeating Russia, first. The number of drones we can secure will also be somewhat limited until then. But we should lay the foundation of this plan soon if we’re going to, because once the Chinese blockade of Taiwan begins, we might become unable to ship more supplies from overseas.
Thanks for your time, and please let me know if you can help. My colleagues are ready to provide significant financial support to this initiative.
Drones are very much needed in modern warfare. Reconnaissance and now also for taking out individual targets.
The difference to Ukraine is that when a conflict occurs, programs like ‘Adopt a drone’ will be difficult to achieve simply because Taiwan won’t have an easy way to import those drones. Ukraine still has an open border to other countries they can be supplied from.
Communist China will do a sea and air blockade of the island.
Taiwan can only rely on stockpiles that are already in the country.
The difference to Ukraine is that when a conflict occurs, programs like ‘Adopt a drone’ will be difficult to achieve simply because Taiwan won’t have an easy way to import those drones. Ukraine still has an open border to other countries they can be supplied from.
Communist China will do a sea and air blockade of the island.
Taiwan can only rely on stockpiles that are already in the country.
We could start sending drones now before conflict begins if we had a safe place to keep them
Already modified drones might be blocked from import if not approved by the government. And there might be legal implications modifying drones for ‘military use’. Taiwan has very strict gun laws for one.
Besides importing need some local people here who would set up a workshop to modify the civilian drones. 3D printing parts and assembly. Take some lessons learned from Ukrainian Magyar (jaga jaga). 3D printing would need to continue when the conflict occurs to supply shell casings.
I think that is a good cause, but many things need to be sorted out.
So when is this supposed to happen? China cannot block Taiwan as the east coast can also receive shipping in a time of war. China won’t want to venture out east, let along Japan would be storming through the Taiwan strait sinking Chinese Navy vessels.
In the end it will be China that suffers a blockade.
What I have seen from the government are mostly large types like US Reaper drones that can stay up long and survey the ocean around Taiwan. I think OP is thinking of smaller drones that can be provided to individual units on the ground. Three types; reconnaissance drones with very good optics (thermal); drones for dropping shells; suicide drones.
I have seen a couple of smaller Taiwanese companies that also produce smaller drones. Such were already posted before in the Ukraine threads.
Yes of course, we only use civilian technology. In the case of Adopt a Drone, Ukrainian units request civilian units and then modify them themselves upon arrival.
Since Taiwan is an island nation swarms of AUVs bearing Limpet mines targeting China’s blockade would be a better strategy. An AUVs payload would be greater than an aerial drone’s and could do significantly more damage.
Realistically surveillance is usually more important, I think. Attacking the drones is a higher level of escalation. But we are targeting any Chinese drones flying at altitudes which can be reached by drones available for purchase by regular consumers.
The thing is, more often than not, the Ukrainian army requests models made in China. Obviously we should not use these for Taiwan, so I have been trying to research options that exclude China from their manufacturing supply chain and ownership.
OK, but we’re not legally allowed to buy those and mail them to Taiwan. There are laws about putting guns on drones. Let’s start with cameras and work from there.
Limpet mines are hull penetrating explosives which are delivered to a target underwater and attached using magnetsThe remotely operated underwater “Lamprey” drones I envision could be deployed en masse for surveillance or rapidly armed during war. Since the battle fir Taiwan will be a naval battle it’s inportant to adjust the Ukraine model to suit Taiwan’s conditions.
Well I suppose if we find a manufacturer of underwater drones that excludes China from its supply and ownership chain, we can get some civilian models of those. Sometimes the Ukrainians put explosives on the consumer drones they receive; the Taiwanese forces can do the same, if they wish.
China will mine the waters around Taiwan as a key element of its blockade. A cuvilian corps of ROV operators who locate and disable these mine barricades would be a game changer.
So small DJI class drones? This doesn’t seem like it’d be much of an issue in Taiwan given 1) Taiwan makes these, 2) where is China going to launch these from? These are limited range / endurance, and primarily used in Ukraine for.operatiomal awareness on the ground… And attacking these things with other small drones is non trivial. Even spotting them is non trivial.
You really need to get companies to produce something like these:
Even Chinese civilians have launched drones from the Mainland to Taiwanese islands in the Strait, so I assume their military can do the same. To counter this, we would probably require a volunteer who lives on one of those islands.
Military drones can be fired from boats, however, and I do not think it is safe to say that all of them will fly at altitudes unreachable by consumer drones, particularly if they are intended for attacking ground targets.
The thing you have to understand, however, is that once conflict starts, everybody who is capable of producing military drones will already be doing so at max capacity. Obviously the Ukrainian’s also make their own drones, but they still request donations of consumer models; this is because it is impossible for anybody to produce as many as the military desires.
The purpose of consumer drones is to fill in gaps and alleviate the burden upon allied forces and suppliers. They are not expected to have a high success rate at intercepting enemy drones; they are expected to distract the enemy pilots from their missions by forcing them to continuously engage in evasive maneuvers. Enemy pilots may not immediately know if a drone approaching theirs is armed or not, and they will waste time figuring it out.
Are you talking about Kinmen? Yea, sure, but c’mon.
The reason drones are successful in Ukraine is that they’re used for situational awareness of nearby ground troops. I’m not understanding the use case you’re envisioning of consumer drones, which have a max transmission range of ~10 miles and ~45 min flight time in a China scenario.
Who’s thinking a small consumer sized drone is armed? Yea, there’s been a couple.whacky demos, but doesn’t feel like.aomething a remote stone operator is going to vaguely be worried about. No, guys on the ground worrying about loitering munitions, that’s another thing.
C’mon, what, exactly? That’s a pretty vapid reply. It makes it sounds like you are approaching this idea from a place of immediate and unwarranted skepticism.
The situation has been evolving over time. Most drone use is for surveillance, but there have been multiple documented instances of drone-on-drone combat over the sky in Ukraine. The pilots try to interfere with each other. It would be more prevalent in a Taiwan conflict.
Consumer drones often are armed; this doesn’t just happen in wacky demos. The Ukrainian army often puts bombs on them after receiving them, which the Taiwanese could also do. To the extent that they can be used to attack ships, any civilian drone could appear as a threat to Chinese vessels at least briefly.
Are you legally allowed to solicit civilian money to buy these drones?
Who are you again? The guy who got 20 people to wave flags in Canada? And you what to do what here? Get expat civilians in Taiwan to buy a drone and train to be what? Some weird civilian paramilitary group? Last I knew we couldn’t even be part of a political protest, much less a quasi military one.
