Taiwan Refines FPV Drone Anti-Armor Tactics Against Vehicles Protected by Anti-Drone Cages.

Taiwan is using retired tanks and tracked armored vehicles as live-fire targets to sharpen FPV drone attacks against armor, according to Taiwanese reporting published on August 18, 2026. The training reflects lessons from Ukraine, where low-cost attack drones have become a persistent threat to armored forces and a key tool for striking vehicles at tactical depth.

The drills are moving Taiwan beyond basic FPV experimentation toward repeatable anti-armor tactics under realistic conditions. They also give Taiwanese forces direct experience with the threat their own armored units could face, strengthening both offensive drone capability and battlefield survivability.

Related Topic: Taiwan’s New U.S.-Made M1A2T Abrams Tanks Get Camouflaged Canopies to Counter Drone Threats

Taiwan is testing FPV attack drones armed with anti-armor warheads against retired tanks and armored vehicles as it applies battlefield lessons from the war in Ukraine to strengthen its island défenses (Picture Source: Taiwanese Army / Edited By Army Recognition Group)

On August 18, 2026, new reporting from Taiwan revealed another step in the Republic of China Armed Forces’ effort to operationalize first-person-view attack drones under increasingly realistic combat conditions. Retired CM12 tanks and CM24 tracked armored vehicles are now being used as live-fire targets as Taiwanese troops refine drone-delivered anti-armor strikes and absorb battlefield lessons emerging from the war in Ukraine. Liberty Times Defense, Taiwan’s Youth Daily and Military News Agency, together with imagery circulated by the Taiwan-focused New 27 Brigade account, show an armed force moving beyond basic drone experimentation toward standardized tactical employment. The significance extends beyond acquiring another unmanned strike capability: Taiwan is simultaneously learning how to employ FPV drones offensively and how to protect its own armored formations from the same threat.

FPV Drones Move From Experimentation to an Operational Strike Capability

Under training organized by the Army’s Unmanned Systems Training Command, Taiwanese personnel have progressed through standardized FPV instruction covering pre-flight checks, communications links, munition integration, target engagement and multi-aircraft coordination. Liberty Times reported that personnel from the 21st, 43rd and 58th Artillery Commands recently conducted FPV live-fire activity against CM12 tanks and CM24 armored vehicles, while Youth Daily described broader joint training involving multiple formations. Operators flew FPV drones carrying 3.5-inch high-explosive armor-piercing warheads, assessing the appropriate distance and attack angle before conducting single-drone and coordinated two-drone diving attacks. Taiwan’s Military News Agency has separately confirmed frontal and lateral FPV attack profiles and said operators were trained to execute strikes using an optimum attack geometry. This emphasis is operationally important: the effectiveness of an FPV attack is determined not only by the munition carried but also by the pilot’s ability to control the terminal approach against a protected and potentially moving military target.

The selection of genuine armored vehicles gives the exercise considerably greater training value than conventional target boards or lightly constructed mock-ups. The CM12, developed from the M48A3 and equipped with a 105 mm M68A1 cannon and fire-control equipment related to the CM11, served the ROC Army for more than three decades. Taiwan converted 100 vehicles to the CM12 configuration, and the fleet has now been withdrawn as newer M1A2T Abrams tanks enter service. The CM24, developed from the CM21 tracked chassis, served as an armored ammunition carrier transporting 155 mm and 203 mm artillery rounds to firing positions and is also being progressively retired. Using actual vehicles exposes FPV operators to realistic dimensions, armor structures, visual signatures and terminal engagement conditions while giving obsolete platforms one final role in strengthening Taiwan’s combat readiness. Liberty Times did not disclose the level of damage inflicted during the latest attacks, an important limitation when assessing the actual lethality achieved during the exercise.

Cage-Protected CM12 Raises the Difficulty of Taiwan’s FPV Training

The most revealing detail visible in imagery circulated by New 27 Brigade is the extensive cage and standoff protection fitted to the CM12 target. The additional structures appear to cover the side skirts, surround the turret, extend above the turret and protect the engine compartment, creating a vehicle configured to present a substantially more difficult anti-armor target. Taiwan’s Military News Agency had previously confirmed that a CM12 fitted with protective grating over its upper surface was used during attack-drone testing. The imagery suggests that Taiwanese troops are no longer simply training against an exposed legacy tank, but against a target intended to reproduce the enhanced passive protection increasingly encountered on drone-intensive battlefields. Similar arrangements have become particularly visible during the Russia-Ukraine war, where armored forces have adopted cage structures and other improvised defenses to complicate attacks by FPV drones and top-attack munitions.

For Taiwanese operators, this configuration creates a more demanding target-recognition and terminal-control problem. Rather than assuming that a strike anywhere on the vehicle will produce the intended effect, pilots must assess the protective layout, identify vulnerable or less-protected areas and refine their attack profile accordingly. With cage protection extending across the vehicle’s upper and lateral surfaces, troops appear to be practicing how to exploit exposed sections of an already well-protected target, adjust terminal dive angles and improve the probability of achieving a successful penetration. The exercise goes beyond basic drone marksmanship: it trains operators to defeat a target that has itself been adapted to counter anti-armor weapons and drone-delivered munitions, bringing the engagement problem closer to the conditions they could face in actual combat.

Ukraine’s Reconnaissance-Strike Lessons Are Entering Taiwan’s Doctrine

Taiwan’s approach is explicitly informed by the Russia-Ukraine war. The ROC Military News Agency stated that the Unmanned Systems Training Command was drawing on recent international combat experience, including Ukraine, and developing attack drones around low-cost, high-efficiency and modular principles. Training has included single-drone and coordinated two-drone strikes while requiring personnel to practice the complete sequence of reconnaissance, designation, tracking, acquisition, engagement and battle-damage assessment. This is strategically more important than simply producing proficient pilots. It points toward an effort to compress the tactical sensor-to-shooter cycle, allowing distributed units to identify targets and generate precision effects without automatically relying on expensive missiles or conventional artillery missions.

FPV drones also introduce an attrition-economic advantage: a comparatively inexpensive and replaceable unmanned aircraft can threaten vehicles, artillery pieces, logistics assets and other systems worth many times its own acquisition cost. For Taiwan, which could face sustained pressure on resupply routes during a high-intensity conflict, domestic production capacity, standardized components, batteries, communications equipment and expendable airframes could become critical elements of sustained drone operations. At the same time, the next level of operational maturity will depend on how effectively Taiwan’s drone formations can function inside a contested electromagnetic environment. Ukraine has demonstrated the disruptive potential of inexpensive FPV systems, but it has also highlighted the continuous competition between drone operators and electronic-warfare forces over command links, video feeds, navigation and spectrum access. In a confrontation with the People’s Liberation Army, Taiwanese unmanned systems would have to operate amid electronic attack, counter-UAS systems, persistent surveillance and attempts to locate operators through their electromagnetic signatures.

Taiwan’s M1A2T Abrams Shows the Other Side of the Drone Warfare Equation

Taiwan is simultaneously applying the Ukrainian experience defensively to its newest armored capability. During Han Kuang 42, M1A2T Abrams tanks belonging to the Army’s 584th Armored Brigade were observed operating with elevated rigid structures covered by camouflage material above the turret, following earlier use of irregular camouflage netting intended to disrupt recognition from overhead surveillance. Army Recognition assessed the configuration as combining signature reduction with an additional passive barrier against overhead threats, while stressing that such canopies should not be characterized as proven stand-alone counter-UAS systems. The same exercises included rapid field refueling and dispersion drills designed to reduce the period during which tanks, fuelers and supporting vehicles remain concentrated and observable.

The development illustrates one of Ukraine’s central armored-warfare lessons: protection now begins well before physical armor is struck. Avoiding detection, classification, geolocation and continuous tracking has become an integral component of vehicle survivability. Taiwan is consequently addressing both sides of the FPV equation, training its artillery formations to conduct drone-enabled strikes while teaching its most advanced tank units to survive inside the same reconnaissance-strike environment. Resilient communications, spectrum management, rapid tactical displacement, decentralized control, camouflage, deception and the ability to replace expendable platforms at scale will shape whether FPV units can sustain combat effectiveness. Taiwan is not simply copying Ukrainian tactics; it is institutionalizing lessons observed in Ukraine and adapting them to an island-defense environment characterized by dense urban terrain, restricted maneuver corridors, critical ports and airfields, coastal approaches and the possibility of intensive PLA air, missile and electronic-warfare operations. In this context, the transfer of Ukrainian battlefield experience is best understood as adaptation for the Taiwan Strait and the northern approaches to the South China Sea, rather than a direct reproduction of Ukrainian land warfare.

Taiwan’s decision to place real armored vehicles beneath armed FPV drones sends a broader signal about the direction of its military transformation. The CM12’s final contribution to Taiwan’s defense may no longer come from its 105 mm cannon, but from teaching a new generation of operators how to engage protected armored targets under conditions increasingly representative of contemporary warfare. At the same time, Taiwan’s newest M1A2T Abrams tanks are being prepared to operate under persistent aerial observation through camouflage, passive overhead protection, rapid refueling and tactical dispersion. Fielding the drone while learning to defeat the drone captures the deeper transformation underway inside the ROC Armed Forces. By turning lessons from Ukraine into training standards, reconnaissance-strike procedures, expendable precision-attack capabilities and new armored-survivability practices, Taiwan is building a more distributed, adaptive and difficult-to-target force designed to impose severe operational costs on any adversary attempting to establish and sustain a foothold on the island.

Written by Teoman S. Nicanci – Defense Analyst, Army Recognition Group

Teoman S. Nicanci holds degrees in Political Science, Comparative and International Politics, and International Relations and Diplomacy from leading Belgian universities, with research focused on Russian strategic behavior, defense technology, and modern warfare. He is a defense analyst at Army Recognition, specializing in the global defense industry, military armament, and emerging defense technologies.

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