Taiwan's M1A2T tanks will join the Lien Yung joint drill for the first time

Taiwan's American-made M1A2T Abrams tanks will take part in a major domestic military exercise for the second time when the Lien Yung joint-service drills open next month, a military source told Central News Agency's Focus Taiwan on Monday, Oct. 19. The army's 584th Armored Brigade, which operates the tanks, has already moved them to the Joint Operations Training Base in Pingtung County for the exercise, scheduled from late November through December, the English-language report said.

United Daily News carried the same Central News Agency account on Monday and said the brigade completed loading, securing and safety checks on the tanks in early October before heavy transporters carried them south. During the month-long southern Taiwan exercise the tanks are meant to test combat coordination across services, both reports said.

Focus Taiwan said the M1A2T first appeared in a major Taiwan drill during the annual Han Kuang exercises in August. Han Kuang is the island's largest exercise and includes live fire; Lien Yung is the next largest and is run in southern Taiwan as a joint test of how the army, navy and air force work together to repel an invading force.

One-year conscripts will also take part in this year's Lien Yung drills, the military source told Focus Taiwan. Su Tzu-yun, who directs defence strategy and resources research at the Institute for National Defense and Security Research, told the agency that Abrams crews today are volunteer soldiers, not conscripts, but that putting conscripts into large live-fire exercises still matters for advanced training. United Daily News relayed Su's further point that tank commanders and gunners are usually volunteers, while loaders and drivers could later include conscripts, and that this Lien Yung run will keep the M1A2T crews all-volunteer.

The Central News Agency Chinese report, also dated Monday, said the 584th will work through joint-operations checks, organic-weapons certification, battalion and brigade combined training, and live-fire assessments while it is at the Pingtung base. Su told the agency that after Taiwan restored one-year service, conscript training moves from basic entry courses into advanced tactical training and then into multi-branch exercises, so Lien Yung is a key step for conscripts in armour, artillery and drone units alike.

Under a 2019 US deal Taiwan bought 108 M1A2T tanks for about US$1.45 billion, or NT$40.5 billion, Focus Taiwan reported. Of those, 38 were commissioned with the 584th in late October 2025 and 42 in April 2026, with the remaining 28 still under test and preparation for service, the report said.

Focus Taiwan said Lien Yung will run for about a month in southern Taiwan and is designed to test how the three services coordinate against an invading enemy. The Monday reports did not give a start day inside the late-November window, a tank count for the Pingtung deployment, or say whether navy or air force live-fire events will share the same weeks as the Abrams training blocks.

Liberty Times reported on Sept. 30 that M1A2T tanks made their first large southbound move to the same Pingtung joint training base for live-fire work on the Hengchun peninsula, so the Monday reports mark the first confirmed plan to put the type into the Lien Yung joint-service series rather than the first time the tanks have trained in the south.