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Taiwan’s Night Combat Drill Tests Island Defense Against Gray-Zone Threats.
Taiwan’s Matsu Defense Command carried out a live nighttime combat drill on Nangan Island, integrating drones, armored units, and precision fires to simulate rapid incursions. The exercise underscores Taipei’s push to ready frontline forces for gray-zone confrontations along its most exposed maritime edges.
On 4 November 2025, Taiwan’s Matsu Defense Command turned Nangan Island into a live, nighttime proving ground, linking drone reconnaissance with mechanized movements and layered fires. Conducted as the fourth-quarter Yuntai exercise, the event reflects a shift from set-piece displays to combat-oriented training on the outlying islands facing the Fujian coast. The scenario speaks directly to short-notice incursions and multi-axis probes that could seek a quick lodgment on Taiwan’s periphery. Its relevance lies in rehearsing the full kill chain under darkness, when real crises are most likely to test command agility. The activity and its sequencing were disclosed as reported by Taiwan’s Military News Agency.
Taiwan’s military staged a nighttime live-fire drill on Nangan Island to rehearse rapid counter-infiltration and counter-landing tactics, signaling readiness against potential gray-zone incursions near the Chinese coast (Picture Source: Taiwan MoD)
Troops began with small uncrewed aerial systems to canvas approaches and cue maneuver. Mechanized infantry in CM-21 and CM-23 tracked carriers raced to occupy firing positions and prepare ammunition under blackout discipline. Artillery and mortars, 105 mm howitzers and 81 mm tubes, then lofted illumination rounds, turning the littoral into temporary daylight and stripping cover from notional infiltrators. The final act concentrated fires from 20 mm cannon and .50-caliber machine guns against sea and air threats, validating battle drills that privilege rapid detection, decisive positioning, and disciplined, short-burst lethality rather than long firepower shows.
In capability terms, the exercise knitted together familiar yet adaptable “tools of the island fight.” The CM-21 family is a Taiwanese evolution of the M113 lineage, simple, amphibious, and maintainable, while the CM-23 mortar carrier variant brings organic indirect fire to small units, a combination that remains potent in narrow, road-scarce terrain like Nangan. That lineage matters: platforms derived from the M113 endure globally because they trade heavy protection for mobility, low signature and quick dismounts; paired with illumination from 105 mm howitzers and 81 mm mortars, they deny an attacker concealment at the critical moment of landing.
The scenarios rehearsed here are not abstract. In recent years Nangan has experienced drone incursions that disrupted civil aviation, reminding planners that coercion can begin below the threshold of open conflict. Yuntai’s emphasis on night reconnaissance, rapid occupation of firing points and concentrated, short-duration fires is the military answer to that pattern: see first, blind the intruder with light and steel, and impose dilemmas before a foothold forms. Coming on the heels of the week-long Lu Sheng force-on-force event, where brigades practiced decentralized command, small-unit initiative, and real-time data sharing, the Nangan drills signal that lessons learned at scale are being translated to the exact coves, airstrips and approaches where they would count first.
Strategically, this kind of rehearsal complicates any calculus that the outlying islands are “easy wins.” Geopolitically it telegraphs resolve to defend populated territory a short sail from the mainland, without inviting escalation through maximal force displays. Geostrategically it hardens the tripwire at the edge of the Strait by compressing the sensor-to-shooter loop and distributing decisions down to platoons that can act in minutes. Militarily it blends legacy, proven carriers with uncrewed sensing and modular indirect fires, an affordable mix that raises the cost and risk of gray-zone probes or sudden raids across narrow waters.
The message from Nangan is unambiguous: the outer defenses intend to detect first, decide faster and hit back under flares before an incursion can breathe. By pairing drones with veteran tracked carriers and illumination-led fires, the Matsu Defense Command has shown a playbook tailored to its shoreline, one that turns the island’s constraints into timing advantages and forces any adversary to plan for a fight they cannot control.
Written by Teoman S. Nicanci – Defense Analyst, Army Recognition Group
Teoman S. Nicanci holds degrees in Political Science, Comparative and International Politics, and International Relations and Diplomacy from leading Belgian universities, with research focused on Russian strategic behavior, defense technology, and modern warfare. He is a defense analyst at Army Recognition, specializing in the global defense industry, military armament, and emerging defense technologies.