This year’s Han Kuang exercise concluded today with the final set of urban resilience drills taking place in eastern Taiwan and the outlying islands.
Continuing the exercise’s third stage, personnel executed defense-in-depth tactics and simulated urban combat scenarios, while garrison troops conducted live-fire exercises near the Taipei MRT Red line.
The ten days of the drills were split into three stages — simulating a grey-zone conflict, which expanded into a full-scale attempt to invade the country, with troops repelling beach landings, building blockades, displaying new weaponry and doing other tasks.
Photo courtesy of Military News Agency
This year’s drills saw the largest-ever mobilization of reservists to participate in the exercises with 22,000 soldiers, including mobilizing the entire 206th Infantry Brigade.
The 206th Infantry Brigade regained full combat effectiveness and were immediately put into defensive operations, the Military News Agency said today.
This confirmed the effectiveness of the brigade’s training and mobilization capabilities, it added.
This morning at 10am, Hualien County, Taitung County and the outlying Penghu, Kinmen and Lienchiang counties all held their urban resilience drill.
In Lienchiang, the ROC Army Matsu Defense Command cooperated with the county government to hold the drill and evacuate civilians to shelters.
In Hualien, police cleared the roads and directed people to shelters, while at Jian Township’s (吉安) train station, a simulation was held of a missile strike resulting in a fire which required emergency services.
In Penghu, nearly 300 tourists took shelter in the Pier 3 shopping mall and the fire department launched fire-fighting robots to a Magong power plant for disaster relief efforts.
Separately, the Ministry of National Defense announced today that from 6am yesterday to 6am today, 11 Chinese People’s Liberation Army (PLA) aircraft were detected around Taiwan, with seven crossing the Taiwan Strait’s median line.
Eleven Chinese vessels were also spotted in the strait.
The ministry said that the armed forces were continuing to monitor the situation and remain ready to respond appropriately.
Additional reporting by Yu Chao-fu, Hua Meng-ching and Fang Wei-li
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