A Chinese invasion fleet crossing the Taiwan Strait would face four consecutive killing zones - each designed to compound the damage of the last - under a new defense concept that envisions tens of thousands of cheap autonomous drones grinding the assault to a halt at the water's edge.
Stacie Pettyjohn and Molly Campbell of the Center for a New American Security described the operational layers in a report published by War on the Rocks, "Hvylya" reports.
The outermost layer begins roughly 80 kilometers from Taiwan's coast. As the Chinese fleet enters this zone, Taiwan would flood it with long-range kamikaze drones, decoys, cruise missiles, armed drone boats, and unmanned underwater vehicles. "Because the electromagnetic spectrum will be heavily degraded, Taiwan shouldn't depend on fragile long-range kill chains," Pettyjohn and Campbell wrote. The goal is not surgical precision but chaos - saturation attacks designed to deplete Chinese warships' defensive missile stocks and shatter the invasion timetable.
The second layer, spanning from 40 to five kilometers offshore, targets landing craft directly. Dense minefields laid by unmanned systems and continuously reseeded would channel ships into killing lanes. Medium-range attack drones would strike in coordinated salvos from multiple directions. Overhead, loitering surface-to-air missiles - similar to the Iranian 358 missile - would create aerial minefields to intercept helicopters and force Chinese fighters into cautious standoff orbits.
In the third layer, the fight enters visual range during the final five kilometers to shore. Taiwanese strike teams armed with first-person-view drones and laser-guided rockets would hammer incoming landing craft during the roughly 10 minutes it takes them to cover this distance. Pixel-lock technology, already proven in Ukraine, would allow drones to strike even if communications are severed.
The fourth layer is the beach itself. Chinese troops who survive the three-ring gauntlet would arrive "scattered, disorganized, and without critical equipment," the report said. Dense minefields at beach exits would pin them while attack drones and drone bombers circle above. Wrecked landing craft would create additional obstacles, choking the beach and depriving the Chinese of sealift capacity for follow-on waves.
"Hvylya" earlier examined why the U.S. military's rush to deploy autonomous targeting technology has outpaced its doctrine and training.