TADTE 2025: Taiwan reveals anti-ship role of new Mighty Hornet IV attack UAV

The Mighty Hornet IV was displayed at TADTE 2025. (Janes/Akhil Kadidal)

Taiwan is working with the US-based Kratos Defense & Security Solutions to develop the Mighty Hornet IV (Chien Feng IV) attack unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) for the Republic of China (RoC) military.

Janes understands that Taiwan's National Chung-Shan Institute of Science and Technology (NCSIST) partnered with Kratos earlier in 2025 to develop the Mighty Hornet IV from the US company's MQM-178 Firejet target drone.

The Mighty Hornet IV is being developed as a precise stand-off strike and high-speed anti-ship weapon, a member of the project within NCSIST told Janes at the biannual Taipei Aerospace & Defense Technology Exhibition (TADTE) 2025 held in Taipei from 18 to 20 September.

Since the UAV is being developed as a low-cost cruise missile, it will be capable of combining saturation attacks on adversarial targets while also acting as a decoy to draw adversarial attention from other allied attack forces or units, the project member said.

While NCSIST declined to comment on the speeds that the UAV is capable of achieving, Kratos said in a statement on 17 September that the capabilities of the modified MQM-178 include a speed of Mach 0.8, high- g manoeuvring, and a service ceiling of greater than 35,000 ft.

“In Taiwanese service, we see this munition as having three primary roles: high-speed anti-ship missile, decoy, and target drone (in peacetime) that can be used for training,” the project member said.

According to an NCSIST information board placed next to the weapon, the UAV has a modularised design. Janes