Taiwan's Military Eyes Blackhawk Helicopter Purchase, Upgrades

TaiwanPlus News

Taiwan’s military is looking to buy 30 more Blackhawk helicopters from the U.S. and upgrade some of its existing fleet to better carry out attack missions. TaiwanPlus News speaks to security analyst Raymond Kuo about what the investment would entail, and whether it's the best move for Taiwan's defense.

Transcript

00:00Taiwan's military is looking to buy 30 more Black Hawk helicopters from the U.S. and upgrade

00:05the ones it has on hand to better carry out attack missions. This would involve buying

00:09and converting more missiles and rockets. But is this the best move for Taiwan's defense?

00:14To find out, I spoke to Raymond Guo, a security analyst at the RAND Corporation.

00:19So Taiwan wants to upgrade and purchase new Black Hawk helicopters for the Army.

00:24How would this help Taiwan's military?

00:26The Black Hawk helicopters, especially these attack variants, could be useful.

00:32So you can think of them as very mobile, highly mobile attack platforms carrying

00:40air-to-ground missiles, rockets. These can be very effective in sort of a counter-lodgement

00:46mission. So if the Chinese were to land on Taiwan, you can send the flight of these Black Hawks through

00:52and kind of wipe out either the ships or the landing vehicles. You know, if there's an invasion,

00:57China's going to be launching a whole bunch of missiles. They're going to be trying to take

01:00out infrastructure. They're going to try to take out responding Taiwanese units. These Black Hawks

01:05could potentially fill that kind of gap that, you know, tanks or wheeled vehicles are having difficulty

01:11getting to the beachhead. When we talk about a conflict over Taiwan, one concern is that Taiwan

01:17would have a difficult time protecting its air space. Would that also mean that these helicopters

01:22are vulnerable to that? The problem is that helicopters can be relatively easy to shoot down.

01:28So even though they're, you know, the Chinese will be attacking infrastructure, they're also going to

01:33have up a whole bunch of missiles to take out any kind of aircraft, fixed-wing or rotary. And so

01:39what you need to do is that if you want to have this kind of, you know, not just a system,

01:44but like a whole unit devoted to this sort of counter-lodgement mission using these Black Hawks,

01:49they also have to be well protected. So they're going to need, the Taiwanese will need to establish

01:54at least air superiority so that these helicopters can navigate and operate more freely. You'll need

02:02anti-aircraft missiles so they can shoot down any sort of intercepting Chinese jets. It's, you know,

02:09it adds certain capabilities, sure, but it will also add a whole bunch of requirements to make

02:15sure that these helicopters can actually carry out the missions that the Taiwanese seem to be aiming

02:20for. The Taiwanese military has also put an emphasis into this capability to respond quickly to whatever

02:26threats it faces. Do these helicopters help with that strategy? Obviously, if the Chinese are landing

02:33special forces, then you're going to want to have these Black Hawks on hand to be able to really rapidly

02:38respond. But, you know, is the juice worth the squeeze? Is it, is, you know, the maintenance,

02:45the upkeep, the training that's all involved in these helicopters, is that worth it? I mean,

02:53you can get some of that by just pre-positioning Taiwanese forces around the major landing beaches.

02:58That was RAND Corporation Analyst Raymond Kuo.

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