Apache and Black Hawk drill in Taiwan shows the impact of Ukraine’s drone war

TAIPEI — A helicopter hot-refueling drill in Taiwan’s landmark military exercise shows how the island is preparing for drone threats when its choppers fly in and out of vulnerable forward positions, a danger repeatedly demonstrated in Ukraine.

Counter-drone ground teams, crouching amid the grass and on a nearby road, watched the skies on the seventh day of the 10-day Han Kuang exercise, as the 601st Air Cavalry Brigade of Taiwan’s army refueled three choppers by a lake in Taoyuan.

Armed with 5.56mm assault rifles and bulky anti-drone guns, the infantry provided cover for the three rotorcraft swooping in at low altitude for a top-up: an AH-64E Apache Guardian attack helicopter, a UH-60M Black Hawk transport chopper, and an OH-58D Kiowa Warrior recon helicopter.

They were arriving at a forward arming and refueling point, or FARP, a field or clearing serving as a temporary facility where ground crews can quickly replenish a helicopter’s ammunition and fuel to keep it in the fight. FARPs are temporary, mobile, and near the front lines, with the assumption of enemy aerial threats looming nearby.

Troops there were preparing for a scenario in which roads were cut off, and ground supply was unavailable.

The choppers, rotors still spinning, sat for about 15 minutes at the makeshift site as crews connected them to a collapsible fuel bladder, sling-loaded there moments ago by another Black Hawk. Several troops rearmed the Kiowa Warrior with AGM-114 Hellfire missiles.

Soon after, the helicopters lifted off one by one, hurtling over the treeline.

The presence of counter-drone teams at the scene was particularly notable. Despite Taiwan’s growing emphasis on drone warfare, the anti-drone gun at the scene hasn’t featured prominently in other areas of the island’s 42nd Han Kuang drills.

An electronic anti-drone jamming gun, the weapon was developed locally by the state-affiliated National Chung-Shan Institute of Science and Technology, which prototypes the vast majority of Taiwan’s homegrown military tech.

It’s a sign that Taiwan is thinking about the threat of small drone attacks as the helicopters approach and refuel — when they’re at their slowest and most vulnerable.

Ukraine’s war has shown how quickly such missions can turn dangerous. At forward refueling sites like these, helicopters and ground crews are exposed in the open, making easy pickings for small quadcopters carrying explosives that can travel deep beyond the front lines to hunt down important assets.

Kyiv’s troops have recorded several instances of their drone pilots catching Russian helicopters refueling or taking off, using small drones to destroy or strike their rotors. Reconnaissance drones can also spot choppers for a precision missile or artillery attack.

In Ukraine, both sides of the war have responded by dispersing their rotorcraft as much as possible and rapidly resupplying at FARPs, much like the one in Taiwan’s drill.

Taiwan’s military seems to be watching Russia’s losses, and now “rarely conducts missions using large helicopter formations,” said Chung Chieh, a veteran Taiwanese analyst at the government-backed Institute of National Defense and Security Research.

“Instead, helicopters are dispersed and concealed in locations such as industrial parks, forests, clearings near wooded areas, riverbanks, and even schools,” Chung told Business Insider.

But the research fellow, who attended many of the Han Kuang drills this year, raised concerns that Taiwan is lagging behind in anti-drone warfare, with frontline units having “only short-range jammer guns during combat.” Better counter-drone systems seem to be deployed only at airfields or fixed installations, he said.

“Taiwan still lacks effective mobile, field-deployable counter-drone weapon systems, and progress in this area needs to be accelerated,” Chung added.

The drone threat against helicopters has emerged in other war zones, such as Myanmar, where there have now been at least two claims of resistance fighters using first-person-view drones to down or damage Soviet-made Mi-17 helicopters flown by the local junta forces.

Taiwan’s Han Kuang exercises, held this year in early to mid-August, are the island’s simulation of a Chinese attack, featuring scores of drills across its territory involving land, sea, and air forces, as well as civilian and police institutions.