US Navy confirms drone ‘hellscape’ for use against PLA in Taiwan Strait is on track

Drones set to form the first part of America’s Replicator initiative are expected to meet their deadline, a US official says

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The first drones to form part of the Pentagon’s “unmanned hellscape” military strategy in the Taiwan Strait are on track for their August 2025 deadline. Photo: Reuters

Published: 6:00pm, 30 Jan 2025Updated: 6:54pm, 30 Jan 2025

The first iteration of drones, set to form part of America’s “unmanned hellscape” strategy to be used against China in a potential war in the Taiwan Strait, is on track to meet its August 2025 deadline, according to a US Navy official.

Speaking on Tuesday at the West 2025 conference hosted by the US Naval Institute and AFCEA, Alex Campbell, maritime portfolio director of the US military’s Defence Innovation Unit (DIU), said the Replicator initiative would meet the goal set by former deputy defence secretary Kathleen Hicks.

“It’s not another [science and technology] project. It is meant to get to production, meant to field systems, in this case, in support of [US Indo-Pacific Command],” Campbell said, according to the US Naval Institute’s news portal USNI News.

“It’s a lot of taking … a pretty wide and diverse set of systems and a wide and diverse set of software, and smashing them all together at a pace that is really more akin to commercial software tempos.”

First unveiled by Hicks in August 2023, Replicator is an initiative overseen by the DIU that focuses on fielding thousands of what the Pentagon calls “all-domain attritable autonomous” (ADA2) systems to create swarms of small, low-cost drone systems – including unmanned surface vehicles, unmanned aerial systems and counter-unmanned aerial systems.

Former US deputy secretary of defence Kathleen Hicks set the August 2025 goal for the first part of the Replicator initiative. Photo: AP

The first part of the initiative is intended to link surface, subsurface drones and loitering munitions to create a “hellscape” aimed at preventing possible military aggression by the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) across the Taiwan Strait. The second part, announced last year, will be focused on countering hostile drones.