By Lyle Goldstein and Nathan Waechter
Over the last 20 years China has invested in building up a massive force of modern military helicopters. Chinese sources explicitly state such forces “were largely designed around cross-sea flight operations”–namely for the Taiwan scenario.
China’s ambitious rotary-wing revolution includes multiple designs of transport, anti-submarine, scout, and attack helicopters. The buildup has touched all branches of the People’s Liberation Army (PLA), as well as the People’s Armed Police (PAP) and the Chinese Coast Guard. The PLA created the Army Aviation Corps in 1988. This force now has many hundreds of attack helicopters, including at least 250 Z-10s. There is little doubt that this force is squarely aimed at Taiwan, with Chinese army aviation now exercising for coastal attack on a very regular basis.
With this large expansion of capabilities in mind, the PLA has been closely observing Russian attack helicopter operations in the war in Ukraine to better understand how helicopters perform in a “high intensity war of attrition.” This article will review a special issue of the Chinese-language defense magazine “Shipborne Weapons” (舰载武器, published by the Zhengzhou Institute of Mechanical and Electrical Engineering) that examines the future prospects for Chinese helicopters in light of the Ukraine War and, in doing so, asks some hard questions of Chinese military planners.
This piece was originally published in The Diplomat on May 15, 2023. Read more HERE.