Heavy armored military vehicles are drawing attention in Taoyuan and Taipei, rolling on public roadways as part of the Defense Ministry’s five-day joint defense exercise launched on Monday, July 13. M1A2T and CM11 tanks, and CM21 and CM32 armored vehicles were sighted conducting tactical maneuvers and attracting many curious onlookers.

As previously reported, the drills will run until July 17, and focus on improving various joint operational tasks under a decentralized command-and-control mechanism, as well as strengthening coordination among service branches.

The Defense Ministry detailed that, following the operational scenarios conducted in June, the July exercises will be as close to real-time live-fire as possible to verify troop coordination capabilities.

In response, Institute for National Defense and Security Research researcher Ming-Shih Shen (沈明室) assured that neither the previous month’s tests nor the current exercises are new concepts. He said that previously, during former General Yen Teh-fa's (嚴德發) tenure as Defense Minister, a “Combat Readiness Training Month" took place every year to strengthen the troops' peacetime-wartime conversion capabilities.