Expert Analysis

Drones, Drones…and More Drones: The Department of Defense’s Replicator Initiative

BY Reader Submission

China’s ambitions to subjugate Taiwan are increasingly clear, but the Replicator Initiative stands as a formidable line of defense, potentially turning the tide against Beijing’s looming threat.

Swarming drones approach a fortified Taiwanese coastline as a Chinese fleet looms in the distance, highlighting the imminent threat and advanced military preparations. Original image by SOFREP.

Introduction

China views Taiwan as a despicable, rogue, and secessionist province that must be brought back into the fold. It has been this way since the Communist Party under Mao Zedong secured the Chinese mainland under its rule in 1949, and the defeated forces of Chiang Kai-Shek fled to the island of Taiwan.

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Seeking glory for the Communist party (and no doubt for himself, seeking to be remembered as one of the greatest leaders of China), dictator Xi Jinping seeks to complete the elusive reunification of Taiwan with the mainland either by diplomacy or by the barrel of a gun. With the election of Lai Ching-te as the new president of Taiwan and his pro-independence Democratic Progressive Party, the Taiwanese people’s democracy and freedom will be maintained. Of course, this infuriates Beijing and makes an attempted forced unification all but certain, with dictator Xi Jinping ordering his military to be ready to launch an invasion as early as 2027.

To buttress the Taiwanese against a potential Chinese invasion, the U.S. has been busy. The Marine Corps has been retooled, specifically to engage the Chinese military. Green Berets and contractors have been sent to build up the combat capacity and proficiency of the Taiwanese military. Additionally, there are continual approvals of arms transfers to Taiwan (although delivery must be expedited). One of the Department of Defense’s newest drone programs, designed to make an invasion of Taiwan more difficult and deadly, is known as the “Replicator Initiative.”

Invasion of the Drones…In Modern Warfare

Drones are now a ubiquitous feature of warfare, and the war in Ukraine is but one case in point. They are deployed for reconnaissance, target acquisition and correction for artillery, damage assessment and lethal direct action. They have been used to disable tanks and other armored vehicles. Tactical drones also routinely attack small units and individual soldiers, altering the calculations of Ukrainian and Russian field commanders at the tactical level.

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Modern drones are so deadly and ever present, that by “some accounts, as many as 90 percent of the wounded Ukrainian solders who have made it to a stabilization point have been hit by an FPV drone or by explosives dropped by a drone” (Kirichenko, 2024). Citing analysis by the Royal United Services Institute, Scharre (Obstacles, 2023) provides the following evidence of the Ukrainian military’s massive use and reliance on drones: It loses approximately 10,000 drones per month. However, it is able to replenish its stocks with relative ease, by purchasing inexpensive and widely available drones on the commercial market.

Aside from a drone’s great utility as a force multiplier, one of the primary aspects driving the use of drones is their price and (as mentioned above) the ability to mass produce them. The smaller drones used on the battlefield can cost a few hundred dollars. Yet they destroy equipment not easily replaced, worth millions of dollars, simply by attaching a mortar to it. Their outsized effects, compared to their relative size and price tag has led the DoD to initiate what is known as the “Replicator Initiative.”

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The Replicator Initiative

On August 28, 2023, Deputy Secretary of Defense Kathleen Hicks announced the Replicator Initiative. The primary purpose of this program is to mass produce multiple thousands of drones within 18 to 24 months (DOD’s Replicator Program, 2023). The program is already well underway with the DoD having secured $500 million for the fiscal year defense budget (U.S. Department of Defense, 2024). This funding is to be used to help procure “uncrewed surface vehicles…, uncrewed aerial systems…and counter-uncrewed aerial systems…of various sizes and payloads from several traditional and non-traditional vendors” (U.S. Department of Defense, 2024).

The daunting task for the Replicator Initiative, is to blunt an all-out amphibious assault by the Chinese armed forces utilizing surface, subsurface and aerial drones. Ideally this would buy the needed time (about one month) to gather additional forces to buttress the defense of Taiwan and beat back the invasion, in similar fashion to the initial influx of drones and TOW missiles on Ukraine’s battlefields.

Going into further detail, Colonel Joshua Glonek (U.S. Army), states the initiative is intended to offset the Chinese People’s Liberation Army’s (PLA) “… conventional advantage in mass, Replicator seeks to complement U.S. conventional capabilities with large concentrations of AI-enabled systems that can effectively operate in highly contested environments” (Glonek, 2024, p. 95).

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What Replicator Will Be Up Against

For the Replicator Initiative to be effective, it would have to damage and destroy an enormous amount of military equipment and wipe-out a vast number of Chinese assaulting infantry while they attempt their amphibious landing. To complicate matters, Replicator would have to spring into action following what would certainly be one of the largest aerial, naval, land-based rocket, missile and bombing barrages in recent history.

Currently, the Chinese military is the largest in the world with 2,035,000 active personnel. Of this, its army has 965,000 soldiers, its navy has 260,000 sailors and its air force has 395,000 airmen (Giegerich, 2024). As has been reported across numerous publications, the Chinese navy has 355 vessels. While not all of these are blue-water capable, it is nonetheless formidable. Many of these vessels, as well as civilian ships, particularly the Roll-on-Roll-off (vessels designed to carry vehicles) variety, will be pressed into service. Chinese military and maritime authorities have already been busy retrofitting some of these vessels for an anticipated invasion of Taiwan.

Captain Tangredi (U.S. Navy retired), states that Replicator would have its greatest effect by launching swarms of kamikaze drones at both Chinese landing craft and amphibious vehicles, and at aircraft used for close-in air support for beach-assault parties (Tangredi, 2024). If as planned, drones are in significant numbers, they would overwhelm the capabilities of the defensive weapons systems deployed by the attacking elements of the Chinese military.

Additionally, in the hours and days following a Chinese invasion, drones would play a crucial role as communication nodes. China will attack and it will severely reduce, if not destroy, the effectiveness of Taiwan’s communications networks and satellites. “Expensive high-altitude UAVs may be part of the answer, but large quantities of low-altitude communication relay UAVs could provide the best means of connecting distributed forces in the absence of satellite communications” (Tangredi, 2024).

An Initial Installment of Kamikaze Drones and Taiwanese Innovation

Under what may be considered the lead deployment of the Replicator Initiative, the Department of State has approved the sale of 720 Switchblade-300 and 291 ALTIUS 600M-V loitering munitions worth a combined value of $360.2 million (Madjar & Chung, 2024).

For its part, Taiwan has an operational prototype of a drone-boat that could be mass produced in the event of a Chinese invasion. The unmanned vessel is 55-feet long, has a draft of approximately three feet, and it has a top speed of 30 knots with a range of over 300 miles. Additionally, due to its advanced onboard computer, this vessel has a non-GPS aided, autonomous navigation capability (Peck, 2024).

When compared to the Ukrainian Magura drone-boat, which is 18-feet long and can carry a 400-pound warhead (Peck, 2024), one can expect the Taiwanese vessel, which is a bit over three times the length, to pack a much bigger punch. It is within the realm of possibility that the Taiwanese vessel could carry a warhead in the vicinity of 1,000 pounds, greater than that of the U.S. Navy’s Mk-48 torpedo, armed with a 647-pound warhead.

Taiwan is in a similar situation as Ukraine. Yet is has the advantage of 100 miles of water between it and China, and it will be able to harass and destroy Chinese naval vessels, as Ukraine did to Russia. Largely through the expert of naval suicide drone-boats, the Ukrainian military was able to effectively render the Russian Black Sea Fleet combat-ineffective by forcing it to stay in port to avoid further Losses.

Evidence of this occurred in November of 2023, when “Magura sea drones sank or damaged two Russian landing craft and a missile corvette docked in Crimean ports and shipyards (Peck, 2024). While the Chinese Navy is vastly larger than Russia’s, if produced in great quantity, Taiwanese drone boats could have a great impact on the calculations of Chinese military planners.

Conclusion

The defense of Taiwan truly is the defense of freedom and democracy in its purest and distilled form. As a fellow democracy, Taiwan is under daily psychological and physical harassment by the brutal communist regime based in Beijing. This repugnant regime is laser-focused on the destruction of freedom and subjugation of the Taiwanese people. The ability to aid and defend Taiwan will be a referendum on the trust in, and reliability of, American security commitments and American military power.

Additionally, if China invades and assimilates Taiwan, it would display to the world that there is a powerful, capable and confident alternative to Western democracy. If Chinese influence spreads, it would usher in an era of authoritarian growth, strength and influence, and its acceptance as a global norm.

To head this off, the Replicator Initiative is designed to be the first line of defense if China decides to move on Taiwan. The evidence points to this possibility becoming a reality. China has set the date of 2027 as the deadline for its military to be prepared to invade Taiwan. Additionally, China has embarked on a military build-up unseen since World War II.

To be clear, in and of itself, Replicator cannot defeat the raw power of the Chinese military. However, it will slow its momentum, destroy valuable weapon systems (such as naval vessels, aircraft and amphibious vehicles) and possibly inflict thousands of casualties. If China sustained massive casualties and suffered defeat in its invasion attempt, it could weaken and cripple its communist regime.

We stand at the precipice of a major war. China is clearly emboldened due to its ability to bully into submission its militarily weaker neighbors, its assimilation of Hong Kong, and the stretched arms of the U.S. military (in places such as Ukraine, Israel, the Red Sea and, to some extent, the Philippines). The U.S. must ensure that China blinks with its invasion plans for Taiwan, or ensure that it sustains massive casualties trying.

References

DOD’s Replicator Program: Challenges and opportunities, House Committee on Armed Services Subcommittee on Cyber, Innovative Technologies, and Information Systems, 118th Cong. (2023) (testimony of William C. Greenwalt). https://www.aei.org/research-products/testimony/dods-replicator-program-challenges-and-opportunities/

Giegerich, B. (2024). The military balance: The annual assessment of global military capabilities and defence economics. Routledge: Taylor & Francis Group.

Glonek, J. (2024). The coming military AI revolution. Military Review, 104(3), 88–99. https://www.armyupress.army.mil/Portals/7/military-review/Archivesf/English/MJ-24/MR-MayJune-2024-UA1.pdf

Kirichenko, D. (2024, May 30). Drones filling the skies over Ukraine battlefields: The Ukraine war is the first that could be decided by the use of unmanned aerial vehicles in huge numbers. Asia Times. https://asiatimes.com/2024/05/drones-filling-the-skies-over-ukraine-battlefields/

Madjar K., & Chung J. (2024, June 20). US approves sale of drones and missiles to Taiwan. Taipei Times. https://www.taipeitimes.com/News/front/archives/2024/06/20/2003819616

Obstacles and opportunities for transformative change, House Committee on Armed Services Subcommittee on Cyber, Information Technologies, and Innovation, 118th Cong. (2023) (testimony of Paul Scharre) https://armedservices.house.gov/sites/republicans.armedservices.house.gov/files/Paul Scharre Testimony_HASC-CITI_10.19.23.pdf

Peck, M. (2024, June 15). Taiwan is one-upping Ukraine’s navy to defeat a Chinese invasion. Business Insider. https://www.businessinsider.com/taiwan-is-one-upping-ukraines-navy-to-defeat-a-chinese-invasion-2024-6?op=1

Tangredi, S. (2024). Replicate ordnance, not cheap drones. Proceedings, 150(3/1, 453). https://www.usni.org/magazines/proceedings/2024/march/replicate-ordnance-not-cheap-drones

U.S. Department of Defense. (2024, May 6). Deputy Secretary of Defense Hicks announces first tranche of Replicator capabilities focused on all domain attritable autonomous systems. https://www.pacom.mil/Media/News/News-Article-View/Article/3766349/deputy-secretary-of-defense-hicks-announces-first-tranche-of-replicator-capabil/.

Author’s Bio

Chris MartinAuthor Pic

Christian P. Martin is a Michigan-based military researcher and writer. He lived and worked in Vietnam for seven years, giving him a deep understanding of regional dynamics and Vietnamese culture. Additionally, he earned a Master’s degree in Defense & Strategic Studies from the University of Texas at El Paso. His professional interests are history, land and naval warfare and a keen interest in an emergent China.

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Disclaimer: SOFREP utilizes AI for image generation and article research. Occasionally, it’s like handing a chimpanzee the keys to your liquor cabinet. It’s not always perfect and if a mistake is made, we own up to it full stop. In a world where information comes at us in tidal waves, it is an important tool that helps us sift through the brass for live rounds.

 

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