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China will arm troops in exercise
ANNUAL LOGISTICS TEST: The PLA will bring fresh
ammunition to troops on the coast in an exercise
designed to be both for practice and practicality
By Brian Hsu
STAFF REPORTER
The Chinese military will stage a large-scale
logistics exercise before the Chinese New Year to
re-supply its coastline troops with ammunition,
intelligence sources said yesterday.
The ammunition has been
used up during numerous exercises China has held
over the past year.
Taiwan's intelligence
agents in China are now paying special attention
to the run-up to the exercise by the PLA, as well
as what is to follow, intelligence sources said.
The logistics exercise
is to be immediately followed by a 10-day
vacation, during which the PLA will keep half of
its troops on stand-by in camps."[The drill]
is necessary because the PLA's front-line troops
have almost run out of ammo."
A Taiwan intelligence official
What has aroused the
interest of Taiwan's intelligence officials is
the high percentage of stand-by troops the PLA
will keep during the vacation period. The PLA
usually maintains only one-third of its forces
during major holiday periods, which is also true
of Taiwan's military.
"It is reminiscent
of the 1996 Chinese New Year because the PLA also
kept half of its troops in camps during the
vacation. We were not sure at the time what they
were planning. But we later understood that they
would launch missile tests in the Taiwan
Strait," an intelligence official said.
"We hope this time
will be different. It may or may not be directly
connected with the upcoming logistics exercise.
The exercise will feature the re-supply of
ammunition of various sorts from inland to the
coast. This is necessary because the PLA's
front-line troops have almost run out of ammo due
to a string of live-fire drills over the past
year," he said.
"The PLA now is not
the same as it was five years ago. Their
battlefield command capabilities, for instance,
have been greatly improved over the past few
years," he said.
Last month, the PLA
tested its nationwide fiber-optic network. Taiwan
has yet to complete a similar network. Over the
past year, the PLA has conducted a number of
live-fire drills, including those directly across
the Taiwan Strait in Fujian Province.
Part of the drills are
aimed at testing the accuracy of new weapons such
as a laser-guided missiles that have been
purchased from Russia.
Tests of the
Russian-made laser-guided missiles were not as
successful as expected, causing the PLA
leadership to publicly criticize troops
responsible for the tests for their
"incompetence."
Tests of this kind
result in a heavy consumption of ammunition of
various kinds, prompting the PLA to make a
comprehensive re-supply of ammo by the end of the
year.
The ammunition re-supply
is to be staged in the style of an exercise for
the sake of efficiency and speed.
The re-supply is to be
carried out mainly through railways, which will
cut the time needed to reach front-line bases
along China's coast.
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