Foreign media: Japan plans to replace some attack helicopters with multi-purpose attack drones, triggering vigilance from Chinese media and analysts who view the move as potentially hostile.
The country's fiscal year 2026 defense budget came into effect on April 7, allocating 11.1 billion yen (approximately $70 million) to purchase five long-range drones, and another 280 billion yen for research and development of "unmanned asset defense capabilities."
According to Japanese media J-Defence News, this marks the first step in implementing the Defense Capability Reorganization Plan approved at the end of 2022, which will gradually retire AH-1S Cobra anti-tank helicopters and AH-64D Apache attack helicopters, transferring their fire support and reconnaissance missions to drones, with plans to establish a dedicated multi-purpose drone unit by 2032.
There are warnings that the new drones could be deployed near China’s coast in the Ryukyu Islands.
Original article: toutiao.com/article/1862465821431816/
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