《TAIPEI TIMES》 Army planning to upgrade training facilities

By Lo Tien-pin and Jonathan Chin / Staff reporter, with staff writer and CNA

The army is planning to substantially upgrade its combat stress resistance training facilities, including the incorporation of gunpowder odors and corpses in training scenarios, a defense official said yesterday.

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The army’s regional training and evaluation centers in the north and south each operate a facility to simulate close-quarters combat, and units routinely conduct drills in those complexes for psychological conditioning, said the official, who declined to be named.

The service believes the facilities are due for an upgrade, which is planned to be done between next year and 2025, the official said.

To build up soldiers’ mental resilience, new installations and equipment are to focus on smells, disorienting sounds, blasts of cold or hot air and improved audio-visual media, the official said.

The facilities are to incorporate technology that simulates the effect of being shot, the official said, in a likely reference to non-lethal training ammunition.

Renovations and upgrades are planned for large parts of the facilities, including the assembly area, poison gas room, tunnel and trench area, jungle combat zone, jungle house, beach combat zone, urban operations area, urban house, enemy headquarters and debriefing areas, the official said, adding that the facilities also host civil defense camps organized by the Ministry of National Defense.

In other news, Minister of National Defense Yen De-fa （嚴德發） on Friday said that the satellite imagery on Google Maps that raised public concern because it exposed important military locations have been removed from the Web mapping service’s platform.

After his ministry talked with Google staff, the company removed the 3D images earlier in the day, Yen said at an interpellation session in the Legislative Yuan.

He was responding to Chinese Nationalist Party （KMT） Legislator Lai Shyh-bao’s （賴士葆） questions about the satellite images.

The online mapping service had given away the nation’s military secrets, Lai said.

Google has not only removed the images in the cities and counties north of Taichung that had been put online, but also agreed to leave out 3D images of places south of Taichung, Yen said.

Google promised that such an incident would not happen again, Yen added.

新聞來源：TAIPEI TIMES

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