Deploying frames used in oyster farming during the military’s Han Kuang live-fire exercises last week demonstrated the complete dedication that Taiwanese have toward defending the nation, an academic specializing in strategic affairs said yesterday.
The army, during a drill on Wednesday to stop an enemy landing force, recruited the help of oyster farmers in central Taiwan and deployed their bamboo frames, which are used in cultivating oysters, said Lin Ying-yu (林穎佑), an adjunct assistant professor at National Chung Cheng University’s Institute of Strategic and International Affairs.
The farmers participated in the drill by setting up the frames in an estuary in Changhua County to slow down a simulated enemy advance, Lin said.
The farmers’ efforts combined with the deployed frames — both the first of their kind in the 35-year history of the Han Kuang exercises — showed Taiwan’s all-out national defense, in which civilians support the military, in a time of war or in peacetime, Lin said.
However, using the frames to halt a hostile landing craft might not be effective, Lin said, adding that military hovercraft can easily cross the barriers without being damaged and that airborne assaults by the Chinese People’s Liberation Army would bypass such obstacles.
Military Link editor-in-chief Chen Wei-hao (陳維浩) held a different view, saying that deploying the frames was a practical way to block an enemy advance.
With numerous bamboo frames congesting the estuary, it would take hostile forces some time to clear their way through, he said, adding that the nylon ropes attached to the frames could damage landing craft.
Because an airborne landing is only viable for light infantry and the weapons they carry, obstacles deployed along the coastline can still play a role in slowing down enemy watercraft carrying heavy military units, he added.
“Setting up the bamboo frames used in oyster farming might be a small move, but it would have repercussions in a combat situation,” Chen said.
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