The annual Han Kuang military exercise in Taiwan will kick off on Wednesday (August 5), and this year’s exercise will expand the scale of drone offense and defense drills.
According to reports from Taiwan’s Liberty Times and United Daily News, Taiwan’s military will conduct the Han Kuang live-force exercise from August 5 to 14, lasting for 10 days and 9 nights. This Han Kuang exercise will continue to adopt the approach of live-force but no live ammunition on the main island, with some live-fire exercises on outlying islands.
According to government and military sources in Taiwan, this year will also continue the practice from the past two years, adopting an "informed scenario, no spoiler" approach to test how soldiers appropriately respond to rapidly changing battlefield situations. The Taiwan military will also introduce the "reverse briefing" concept, meaning that after superiors give orders, both sides must refocus on the task-specific aspects to reduce errors caused by misunderstandings during operations.
The above-mentioned sources further stated that considering the development trend of drone technology and its use in actual combat, the military will expand the scale of drone offense and defense drills this year, and may even include “swarm attacks and countermeasures” as part of the training courses.
This Han Kuang exercise will also include the Army’s Taipei City Reserve Brigade and Infantry 137th Brigade carrying out full-brigade mobilization, involving 5,000 personnel, to validate the performance of joint operations between regular and reserve units.
According to photos released by the military, this time during the 137th Brigade call-up training, soldiers have been specially issued M4A1 rifles recently supplied by the US as military aid, replacing the previously domestically-made T65K2 rifles, and these are expected to become a focus for inspections by senior military and government officials during the exercise.
The long-running air defense drill, which was renamed the Urban Resilience Exercise starting last year, will still be conducted across all five zones in Taiwan this year. Among them, in the afternoon of August 10 for the central counties and cities, and the afternoon of August 13 for the northern counties and cities, in addition to the usual air defense sheltering drills, there will also be tests of slowing down internet connections. Mobile 4G and 5G networks will be unavailable, but voice calls, text messaging, and fixed-line services will not be affected.
One of the features of this year’s Han Kuang exercise is that it is the first time under Lai’s administration that civilian media will be trialed to accompany the military. The Taiwan military explained that this move is a simulation of how to handle media interview requests in wartime. Reporters are allowed to follow designated units and observe soldiers performing their duties on the front line. However, before publication, the military has the right to review the content for leaks and news cannot be released instantly.