Yep, you’re not living on Earth. UAVs would make terrible air defence platforms. They’re great for bombing though.

I’m going to repeat it again: air defenses AND UAVs are cost effective deterrence assets ;).

UAVs for air defence? On which planet are we now?

No, air defenses and UAV, not both as the same but both at the same :p.

I was thinking of an strategy similar to the video showed at TADTE two years ago when Taiwanese officials acknowledged the development of one UAV and one UCAV, the first one was tested and photographed early this year but the status of the second one is unknown apart from a mockup similar to X-47 showed last year.

Almost the entire of Taiwans military strategy is geared towards the mainland.
If, and until unification, this is how it will be for the future, for obvious reasons.

Therefore, Taiwans airforce top brass will have to consider putting something in train now, to come to fruition in the next decade or so. This is their job, even if I agree with you that economically, no one wants a war.

And this is what the thread aims to discuss.

Air defenses and UAV are cheaper and more efficient deterring foes than manned aircrafts, specially in an island. There’s a two years old video about prospective designs but there’s not much information about their actual status.

A new manned fighter procurement is to be expected in the future if there’s no new design in the works, the question is what they are going to be offered in a few years from now with many legacy fighters out of production.

Taiwan’s armed forces exist to defend it from the mainland. Without that role, they don’t need high performance fighters. Japan isn’t going to invade.

Tunnel vision is a disease not a godsend gift. Both CCP and KMT know that invasion is out of the table, the question is when they’re going to normalize their relation.

The day the PRC sells fighters to Taiwan is the day the government of Taiwan becomes a mere provincial government, & the Taiwanese forces are absorbed into the PLA.

Just imagine J-11 airframes with Taiwanese avionics and smuggled Ukrainian engines :diablo:.

My post is assuming there will be no political union between Taiwan and the mainland in the next decade or two.

And who needs political union to cooperate? As economic and social ties between Taipei and Beijing get stronger the policy of military antagonism has little sense opening the door of cooperation.

Recently we have seen how Japanese didn’t pull a finger to stop the fishing flotilla stunt of mainland but when Taiwanese boats tried to emulate them aproaching to Diaoyu islands there was no shortage of water cannons from Japanese Coast Guard vessels. Even symbolic gestures between Beijing and Taipei like anti-piracy exercises in the strait could be used to boost the political

Airforce planners surely must have short, medium, and long term plans to induct a new fighter in the next decade or so. With developments on the mainland, at which Taiwans airforce is geared towards, certainly they must be looking at the fact that after 2020, only 7 years away, they will be operating a 20 year old, and older, fighter fleet.

The last Mirage 2000 was inducted almost 15 years ago, and the F-16 about 12 years ago.

The Ching-kuo entered service over a decade ago, and AIDC is approaching the ending of the MLU of the last Ching-kuo to be modified.

It would be interesting to know what they have in the pipeline thereafter.

After the F-16 upgrade drama over the last years the chances for a local stealthy design appearing on scene are quite small and with the risk of spionage and defection, specially if Beijing copies the strategy of money incentives offered in the past by US, F-35 becomes even less plausible.

Cooperation with South Korea or Japan on the basis of communist containment is doomed to fail as they are as much tied to Beijing as is Taipei.

Any deal with Europeans is going to become a political nightmare with endless strings attached and Russian equipment is not an option unless they plan to heavily invest there to compensate the political outrage from its neighbors.

Ok, then ask yourself the following question: If tourists can book adventure tours “without much trouble” to go and play around among these old JS-3 turrets, do you belive they are still a part of an active defenceline against the Japs?
If not I cant see the point of your stupid remark in the first place. The USSR built dummy fortifications in the area since the 1930s…

I don’t need to ask myself that question since my stupid remark, as you call it, was intended to note that if the Japanese or anyone else wants to know where are the islands defenses they just have tour the islands as they are not some type of Area 51 hiding mythical Soviet wunderwaffe so there’s no need to pay much attention to rusting metal.

Ever heard of dummy targets? Or Maskirovka?

Ever heard that you can book adventure tours to the islands to travel them by foot, boat or even helicopter so everyone interested in the real deal can have a look without much trouble?

There is actually quite a bit of artillery on the islands, and recently armored/AD/coastal defense assets were moved into the area.

The recent additions like T-80s are an improvement, although even Makarov recently ironized about the need of many tanks in an island covered by snow, but we are yet to see if all the promised systems finally reach the island by 2014.

One just have to look at those rusted IS-3 turrets scattered around to see that even today civilian ferries carrying JSDFs from Hokkaido to South Kurils could succeed in taking the archipielago virtually without opposition given the scarce of modern equipment and the small size of the military contingent and civilian population.

The question is not if Japan can take the islands by force but how could they defend them from retaliation and what would be the reparations and consequences of such move if they fail to reach a diplomatic agreement quickly after the seizure.

To force a japanese capitulation or a tactical retreat Russians only need to land one nuclear Kh-55 on the japanese detachment and unless civilian population is used as human shields there’s little to avoid the limited use of small yield nuclear weapons on their own soil to deescalate any foreign adventurism. After that Japanese economy would be severely harmed just by the fear of the population even without a direct threat to target population centers in Japan.

South Kuril islands are not covered by the US treaty so any involvement would be asking for trouble.