Everything Drones

March 26, 2013

Game of Drones China stepping up drone deployment

Filed under: Uncategorized — admin @ 9:24 pm

BY: 

http://freebeacon.com/game-of-drones/

China’s military is expanding its unmanned aerial vehicle forces with a new Predator-like armed drone and a new unmanned combat aircraft amid growing tensions with neighbors in Asia, according to U.S. intelligence officials.

New unarmed drone deployments include the recent stationing of reconnaissance and ocean surveillance drones in Northeast Asia near Japan and the Senkaku islands and along China’s southern coast. Drones also are planned for the South China Sea where China has been encroaching on international waters and bullying nations of that region in asserting control over international waters, said officials familiar with intelligence reports.

China's CH-4 armed drone disclosed for the first time in November / Source: Reuben Johnson

“Unmanned aerial vehicles are emerging as critical enablers for PLA long range precision strike operations,” said Mark Stokes, a former military intelligence official now with the Project 2049 Institute. “A general operational PLA requirement appears to be persistent surveillance of fixed and moving targets out to 3,000 kilometers of Chinese shores.”

1 Comment

  1. I hear you, P. I’m still concerned about the telncohogy question. The weaponry we acquire in effect defines the sort of future military role we foresee.Armed UAVs may be an integral component of future warfighting. The success of America’s Predator has already got other nations, including Russia and China, going for the same toys. Conventional weapons proliferate just as nuclear weapons do. We can no longer ignore the ripple effects of embracing enhanced lethality.

    Comment by Amos — May 9, 2013 @ 11:19 am

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