Military happy with results of first stage of war games

The first-stage of the computerized war gaming part of the military's Hankuang No. 19 exercise has just been completed, defense sources said yesterday.

New data was added into the computer system that runs the simulation, some of which was provided by the US, in a bid to avert the kind of results achieved in last year's exercise.

In last year's games, four Kidd-class destroyers were sunk or severely damaged in saturation attacks by China's fighter planes in a scenario set at 2005. The Chinese military almost totally paralyzed Taiwan's air force and navy on the first day of the simulated war.

These results were very controversial and aroused vigorous discussions in the military and the media.

A defense official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said one controversial point about last year's computerized war gaming was that the Chinese military had an unlimited number of weapons it could use against Taiwan.

"In the first-wave attacks against the island, for instance, China seemed to have plenty of ballistic missiles ready for use. In a real war, China would not be able to have so many missiles to use at the same time," the official said.

The results of last year's war gaming was blamed on incorrect data that had been entered into the computer system.

On the first-day of this year's computer-simulated war, Taiwan's military (blue army) stopped the Chinese military (red army) from crossing the imaginary middle line of the Taiwan Strait, sources said.

The computerized war game is to run again between Monday and May 9, with government leaders observing. The round that was just been completed was considered a preview.

Following the computerized gaming, the military is to hold a live-fire demonstration in Ilan as the third part of this year's exercise. Preparations are already underway along the northeast coast.

Previous live-fire demonstrations have attracted the attention of several countries' navies, some of whom sent ships to monitor the exercises. The Coast Guard Administration has already identified one Chinese ship this year.