The Navy plans to lease civilian aircraft to carry "Light Radar (Light Radar)" from the air to conduct large-scale beach environmental information searches. It can complete "above and underwater integrated" three-dimensional terrain modeling in a very short time to prevent the Communist Army from carrying out amphibious landings on us. On the other hand, it can also provide the Navy with the basis for defensive mine-laying measures. The picture shows a naval fast minelayer conducting mine laying operations. (File photo)
[Reporter Luo Tianbin/Reporting from Taipei] Taiwan Strait defense has ushered in an unprecedented tactical breakthrough! In order to seize the opportunity in potential cross-strait conflicts, the Ministry of National Defense has recently decided to break the decades-old traditional rule that "military hydrology is all handled by warships themselves." Through the innovative means of the Defense Innovation Office (DIO), the Navy will commission a private surveying and mapping company for the first time, mobilize private fishing boats and civilian aircraft, and conduct high-precision hydrographic and beach topography surveys on the "Red Beach" in Taiwan where there is a high probability of being landed by the Communist Army. This bold military-civilian cooperation plan will not only allow the national army to master the codes of near-shore operations dozens of times faster, but also lay the most solid data foundation for future defensive mine-laying and anti-landing operations.
The so-called "red beach" refers to the place where the Communist Army is most likely to dispatch amphibious troops to carry out large-scale formal beach grabbing when a conflict breaks out in the Taiwan Strait. In the past, based on assessments by the Ministry of National Defense, U.S. think tanks and the National Defense Academy, there were approximately 4 to 20 potential landing sites across Taiwan, including Zhuwei in Taoyuan, Balihuiziwei, and Xishu in Tainan. In recent years, a "complex red beach" that combines port and airborne environments has been extended. In the past, this type of critical hydrology was mostly explored by the Navy's 192 Fleet and 151 Fleet during exercises. However, in the face of the uncertainty of coastal terrain that changes dramatically with seasons and typhoons, the frequency and flexibility of traditional warship surveying and mapping are obviously not enough for the fast pace of modern warfare.
Please read on...
Through the innovative means of the Defense Innovation Office (DIO), the Navy will commission a private surveying and mapping company for the first time, mobilize private fishing boats and civilian aircraft, and conduct high-precision hydrographic and beach topography surveys on the "Red Beach" in Taiwan where there is a high probability of being landed by the Communist Army. The picture shows the distribution map of red beaches in Taiwan previously released by Black Bear College. (Picture: taken from Black Bear Academy post)
In order to make up for the last mile of coastal tactical awareness, the national army has introduced mature civilian-military common technology (COTS) this time. The first step of the plan is to commission a private surveying and mapping company to use highly flexible private fishing boats to transform into asymmetric sea surveyors, equipped with advanced "multi-beam depth sounders" to penetrate deep into the 0 to 3-meter "surf zone" where large ships cannot enter and small boats can measure slowly, to carry out sea sweeping and surveying, and produce high-density water depth point information. The second step in the plan is to rent a civil aircraft and carry a "light radar" from the air to conduct a large-scale beach environmental information search. It uses light beams to penetrate the water and complete "water and underwater integration" three-dimensional terrain modeling in a very short time. This will prevent the Communist army from carrying out amphibious landings on us. On the other hand, it can also provide the navy with the basis for defensive mine-laying measures.
As for handing over such core military information to civilians for processing, will there be any national security risk of leaking it to the other side? Senior military officials pointed out today that this innovative mechanism has already had confidentiality supporting measures in place. Civilian fishing boats and civil aircraft are actually only responsible for collecting purely physical raw data on the front end, which is like collecting meaningless cryptographic fragments; the back-end data includes denoising, integration, and the core "military tactical links" and "anti-landing coordinate planning", which will still be integrated, processed and used by core secret military units such as the Navy's Atmospheric and Oceanographic Bureau. This "decentralized" information search method can not only give full play to the high efficiency of the private sector, but also ensure that national security is leak-proof.
Senior officials said that this historic and innovative attempt fully demonstrates Taiwan's determination to follow the U.S. military's DIU in developing asymmetric combat capabilities. When the Chinese military accurately grasps the dynamic topography of Taiwan's red beaches through civilian technology, when the navy implements defensive near-shore mines in the future, it will know where to place mines in deep grooves and where to set up obstacles on the reefs, and arrange the mines to be as invisible as ghosts, completely blocking the landing channels of the Communist field assault boats and hovercrafts. This time, the Navy lets go of its alliance with civilians and uses asymmetric thinking to protect the Taiwan Strait Coast Defense Line, which has written a new milestone for asymmetric warfare.
