Taiwan has unveiled its first domestically-made submarine as it bolsters its defences against a possible Chinese attack.

President Tsai Ing-wen presided over the launch ceremony in the port city of Kaohsiung on Thursday.

US officials have warned that China could be militarily capable of mounting an invasion within the next few years.

Taiwan is a self-governing island which China regards as a renegade province and has vowed to reclaim one day.

  • Aurenkin@sh.itjust.works
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    1 year ago

    To be honest I’m more interested in hearing about how drones could come into it given the success they’ve seen in Ukraine with both naval and air drones. It seems like investing in huge amounts of those could be a very cost effective way to make crossing the straight an absolute nightmare.

      • Shard@lemmy.world
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        1 year ago

        I’m sorry, you seem to be trivializing how much a difference drone warfare is making right now.

        It is not through the incompetence of Russians that the drones are so effective. They are effective because they can pop up at the least expected of times. Can easily be deployed near or even on the frontline. They are much much cheaper than the intended target. So you can send dozens of drones to destroy one parked plane or docked ship.

        How do you propose your raspberry pi deals with said drone? Lets somehow assume it has a 100% detection rate, what are you going to do about it? Those tiny $2000 drones dropping grenades may only injure a handful of troops but it is enough to stall an advance or pin down enemy movement. Shooting a tiny target 60m in the air is harder than it looks.

        How do you protect from multiple low profile unmanned boats laden with explosives coming at your warship in the dead of night on a moonless night?

        Make no mistake drones are a game changer. They will not outright win the war, but they bring many advantages to a battlefield. Even just the live feed updates that can allow commanders a birds eye view of the battlefield in real time will change maneuver warfare. I haven’t even started on 6th Gen fighters with fighter drone integration

        • Anonbal185@aussie.zone
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          1 year ago

          Through drones we are seeing a first hand view of the war. First time I’ve seen a person shot, someone blown up. It’s not like the Hollywood films that’s for sure.

          No bleeding, missing arms like every war film in Hollywood. You don’t see anything, they get shot and just become lifeless. No visible blood or anything. Similarly the drone dropped grenades, I would have thought they would be missing body parts.

          But on the outside you wouldn’t even know it’s terminal injuries. And there was another one where the tank commander landed on the roof due to a cook off in what seemed to be in one piece. But then someone calculated the G force as 300gs.

          Thanks to drones I now know people mostly go out on a whimper and not a bang.

    • noride@lemm.ee
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      1 year ago

      I agree, for the cost of a single cruise missile, you could deploy literally thousands of expendable drones upon a target. Death by a thousand booms.