Taiwan's military police rehearse clearing enemy saboteurs from Taipei infrastructure at night

Taiwan's 202nd Military Police Command staged its Lianzhen exercise in Taipei late on the night of 11 November, sending armoured vehicles along city roads to rehearse defending critical infrastructure against infiltrating enemy special operatives, China Times reported on 13 November. The drill was meant to test how quickly the unit can react and how well it works with the police when key sites in the capital garrison area are threatened.

For the exercise the command formed a unit it calls the Garrison First Combat Team from its 239th and 261st armoured infantry battalions and a rapid reaction company, according to the report. The troops used CM33 and CM34 armoured infantry fighting vehicles, Indian Challenger heavy motorcycles and military police patrol vehicles. The scenario assumed that enemy special operatives had slipped into the city to attack and harass critical infrastructure.

The drill began after dark. Once the troops had assembled and prepared their vehicles, the standby force commander received an order to reinforce the threatened site. A military police platoon on the heavy motorcycles went ahead to scout the area around the target and locate likely enemy positions, and the main force then drove out of its base in tactical vehicles to seize favourable positions nearby.

On arrival, the commander set up a joint defence arrangement with the police and planned how to deploy his forces. Vehicles were placed around the site to create interlocking fields of fire and seal off the outer area. The CM33 and CM34 vehicles then lowered their rear ramps, and assault squads dismounted and cleared the building room by room, covering one another as they moved, to flush out the simulated infiltrators. The report did not identify the facility used.

The command has run the same drill before. In March, the military's Youth Daily News reported that a Lianzhen exercise in Taipei used the same combat team, CM33 and CM34 vehicles and motorcycle scouts, and that troops practised close-quarters battle inside buildings. On that occasion the soldiers used the Team Awareness Kit, a networked battlefield app, to send live updates back to commanders.

In July, during the armed forces' annual joint defence exercise, the public broadcaster PTS reported that the 202nd command moved at night from the area around the Presidential Office to the Defence Ministry's Boai camp at Dazhi to guard critical infrastructure and important military sites. Other units in that exercise practised passing orders through the Team Awareness Kit when communications were cut, and setting up road obstacles to slow a landing force.

Taken together, the drills show Taiwan's military treating sabotage by enemy special forces in the capital as a threat that calls for a fast armoured response coordinated with civilian police, rather than one left to static guards. The latest exercise put that response through a full night-time sequence, from scouting and cordoning to clearing a building.