The first two F-16 Block 70 (F-16V) fighters (numbers 6727 and 6728) successfully landed at Taitung Zhihang Base on October 2. (File photo)
[Reporter Chen Yufu/Reporting from Taipei] Taiwan has allocated approximately NT$247.2 billion to promote the "Fengzhan Project" to purchase 66 F-16V Block70 fighter jets from the United States. The first batch of 2 aircraft successfully arrived at Taitung Zhihang Base a few days ago. Liao Hongxiang, a strategic expert who served as McDonnell Douglas Aerospace Representative in Taiwan and an honorary lecturer at the National Defense University War College, warned in an interview that while celebrating the return of new fighter jets to Taiwan, the government and the public must face serious national security issues. There are four major weaknesses in air force bases across Taiwan. If the physical protection mechanisms of the bases are not upgraded simultaneously, they may become living targets for the enemy's precision strikes at the beginning of the war.
Liao Hongxiang pointed out that two days after the first batch of F-16Vs arrived in Taiwan, more than 10 B-1B strategic bombers deployed by the U.S. Air Force at Fairford Base in the United Kingdom hurriedly evacuated and returned to the United States over the weekend because they were worried about encountering close-range raids by drones similar to Ukraine's "Operation Spider Web".
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Liao Hongxiang mentioned that these bombers were densely parked on the open-air tarmac in satellite images. If they were destroyed, they would severely damage the strategic deterrence capability of the US military. As foreign media comments said, more than a dozen expensive bombers of the US military were forced to withdraw from their forward bases, but the opponent did not even fire a bullet. It is obvious that the drone threat itself is enough to paralyze air combat capabilities.
"This is not groundless speculation, but a bloody lesson from actual combat!" Liao Hongxiang analyzed that earlier this year, Iran used drones and missiles to attack the Saudi Arabian air base, destroying an E-3 early warning aircraft and multiple KC-135 tanker aircraft parked on the ground by the US military. It was also reported that fighter jets in fortified aircraft forts were also affected.
Liao Hongxiang said that Ukraine had also launched "Operation Spiderweb" in the past, transporting four-copter drones hidden with explosives into Russia and destroying 10 Russian bombers parked in the open at many bases. These combat cases jointly confirm the fact that when the aircraft is parked on the ground, it is always the most vulnerable target on the battlefield.
Liao Hongxiang cited the classic report "Snake in the Eagle's Nest: The History of Ground Attacks on Air Force Bases" published by the American Rand Corporation 30 years ago, pointing out that the Italian air rights theorist Duhet made it clear a hundred years ago: to destroy enemy air power, it is better to destroy the "nest and eggs" directly on the ground than to hunt birds in the air.
According to analysis, with the popularization of modern precision-guided weapons and drones, missions that used to require special forces infiltration or blind bombardment can now accurately destroy billions of dollars worth of fighter jets at long distances with just a few cheap commercial drones combined with satellite coordinates. The threat scope has also expanded to include civilian containers, fishing boats and houses around the base.
Analysis of the four major weaknesses of the Taiwan base: geography, troop strength and bunkers facing limits
Reviewing the current situation of Taiwan's air force bases, Liao Hongxiang bluntly said that the situation is even more dangerous, with four main innate defense weaknesses: The first is the "geographic environment and extremely short warning time": most air force bases in Taiwan are close to the coastal plains, with densely populated areas and developed transportation. If the CCP pre-positions drones at civilian facilities around the base through maritime smuggling, fishing boats or hidden agents before the war begins, "Operation Spider Web" will be more likely to be staged in Taiwan, and the defenders will have little warning time.
The second is that "the ground defense force is relatively weak": Current base guards tend to rely on traditional access defense at camp gates and fence posts. They are faced with traditional personnel infiltration through walls and lack the ground surveillance and defense assets needed to deal with small drones flying at low altitudes several kilometers away.
The third is "a serious shortage of physical bunker capacity": Although Huadong has underground cave hangars and some bases have reinforced aircraft forts, the total capacity is far from enough to accommodate all fighter aircraft. As 66 F-16Vs return to Taiwan one after another, if the bunkers are not expanded simultaneously, a large number of fighter aircraft will inevitably have to be parked on open-air aprons or simple open shed factories.
The fourth is the "protection blind spot of traditional aircraft forts": Old aircraft forts are designed to withstand explosive fragments from bombs and missiles, but micro-drone can easily penetrate into vents, exhaust holes or gaps in doors; once detonated inside the aircraft fort, the thick concrete structure will restrict the detonation energy, causing more serious internal damage. The aircraft fort structure itself needs to be redesigned for protection.
Dispelling the myth of "pure interception", experts propose six defense solutions
In this regard, Liao Hongxiang proposed six specific action suggestions to the Ministry of National Defense: 1. Establish a layered protection system: comprehensively combine active means such as radar, photoelectric, soft-kill jamming, and hard-kill fire nets, with passive protection such as protective nets, camouflage, false targets, and evacuation configurations to weaken the attack effect layer by layer.
2. Comprehensively review and strengthen the protection of the aircraft castle: Install protective nets, micro-porous fences or shielding devices on the ventilation holes and door gaps of the existing aircraft castle to block the holes drilled by drones; for new aircraft castles, the threat of drones should be included in the initial design specifications.
3. Control the threat range around the base: Break the old mentality of only guarding the fence, push the defense line to several kilometers around the base, integrate the national army, police, coast guard and local government to establish a normalized low-altitude monitoring and patrol mechanism, and strictly inspect suspicious containers, vehicles and unannounced drones.
4. Clarify the ownership of base defense rights and responsibilities: Base defense must establish a dedicated unit responsible for the base defense, allocate exclusive high-quality garrison forces and independent budgets, and avoid being marginalized by various units on a temporary basis.
5. Deploy additional troops to prevent special operations raids: In response to the Communist Army's airborne, airborne, and special forces infiltration tactics, allocate sufficient standing garrison troops with anti-special operations training to each base, and combine the military police and local reserve police forces to establish an immediate rescue mechanism to prevent being paralyzed by a surprise attack by a small enemy force at the beginning of the war.
6. Prepare the physical protection budget in equal proportions: The country has invested nearly 250 billion yuan in purchasing advanced fighter aircraft. The investment in protective facilities is only a fraction of the cost of the fighter aircraft, but it determines whether the fighter aircraft can take off smoothly on the first day of the war. The Ministry of National Defense should include the bunker protection budget in the same construction project.
Liao Hongxiang emphasized that the Ministry of National Defense must face up to "whether there is a poisonous snake lurking in the eagle's nest." Strengthening the physical defense of bases is a prerequisite for preserving combat power. This is a task that Taiwan can neither afford to wait nor lose.
