HSINCHU, TAIWAN — Taiwan showcased rapid runway repair drills on Friday at its closest airbase to mainland China, where the island keeps its main fleet of interceptor fighter jets.
The island’s air force practiced its response to a scenario where Chinese long-range missiles or rockets had already damaged facilities at Hsinchu Air Base.
The drills, part of the annual Han Kuang exercises, included rearming Dassault Mirage 2000-5s, performing emergency takeoffs, and restoring runways.
Ground teams used bulldozers and graders to clear debris and fill a crater in the concrete, after which troops practiced deploying and securing a heavy fiberglass mat as an Antelope short-range mobile surface-to-air missile system stood guard.
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Hsinchu Air Base, about 90 miles from mainland China, is home to Taiwan’s 53-strong fleet of Mirages, fourth-generation aircraft it began receiving in 1997.
The French aircraft are designated as Taiwan’s primary interceptor fighters, with the island also fielding over 130 F-16 Fighting Falcons and 129 of its homegrown fighter jet, the F-CK-1 Ching-Kuo.
US runway repair operations also employ fiberglass mats, which are more suited for allowing smaller aircraft, such as fighter jets, to land and take off in a pinch.
Friday’s drills particularly emphasized sustained air-to-air combat. Air force personnel practiced rapidly rearming Mirages with the Magic Missile II short-range missile and the MICA medium-range air-to-air missile system, while pilots and crews performed an emergency scramble of two Mirages.
Hsinchu Air Base is one of Taiwan’s first military bases to be targeted, destroyed, or incapacitated by Chinese forces in the event of a full-scale assault, said Benjamin Blandin, a research fellow at the Institute for National Defense and Security Research, a Taipei think-tank backed by the Taiwanese government.
The base, which is about 2.3 square miles, is well-equipped but “very exposed to the first wave of ground, sea-born, and air-launched missiles” that the People’s Liberation Army would likely pummel Taiwan with in the early stages of an invasion, Blandin said.
“Realistically, Hsinchu Air Base could be rendered inoperable after just the first missile wave, or at least in the first 24 hours,” Blandin added.
This year’s Han Kuang, Taiwan’s annual rehearsal of a Chinese invasion, began on Wednesday and will last 10 days and 9 nights.
Taipei said this year’s exercises would depart from the island’s traditional, choreographed drill style to an unscripted format in which units are tested on their reactions.
The first few days of the exercises focused on “gray-zone tactics,” coercive or hostile actions that don’t necessarily constitute an outright declaration of war.
