China has stationed hundreds of obsolete supersonic fighters converted into attack drones at six air bases near the Taiwan Strait. A recent report by the Mitchell Institute for Aerospace Studies identifies these aircraft through recent satellite imagery of the Fujian and Guangdong provinces.
These “jets-turned-drones” primarily serve as high-speed decoys to overwhelm local defenses during the opening phase of a potential assault. J. Michael Dahm, a senior fellow at the Mitchell Institute, estimates that the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) has deployed over 200 of these converted J-6 fighters.
“They will attack Taiwan, US or allied targets in large numbers, effectively overwhelming air defenses,” Dahm told Reuters. These aircraft function more like cruise missiles than standard remote-controlled UAVs. Because they fly at supersonic speeds, they present a much greater challenge than the slower drones currently seen in other global conflicts.
The Cost of Defense
Taiwanese officials expressed concern regarding the economic asymmetry of this tactic. To prevent China from “striking high-value targets, we will inevitably face the cost-efficiency issue of using expensive missiles to intercept them at a distance,” a senior security official noted.
Consequently, Taiwan’s defense ministry is now moving to rapidly acquire a new generation of sophisticated counter-drone systems. Their own think tank previously labeled these converted J-6W drones as “a form of asymmetric warfare that cannot be ignored.”
An Air Defense Nightmare
Military analysts suggest that China would use these drones as part of a diverse, simultaneous strike involving bombers and missiles. Peter Layton, a retired Australian air force group captain, believes this would create a significant tactical crisis for defenders.
“There would be a lot of diverse things all coming at the same time,” Layton said. “It would be an air defense nightmare.” Furthermore, he noted that cheap interceptors used in Ukraine would fail against these J-6s; they require “a proper expensive missile.”
The J-6 drone is a modified version of a 1950s-era Soviet Mig-19 fighter, originally the core of China’s fleet. Engineers removed the cannons and fitted the airframes with automatic flight control systems and modern terrain-matching navigation technology. While these bases remain vulnerable to counter-attacks, the PLA intends to launch the entire fleet within the first hours of an operation.
