The military has finalized a plan to extend the length of reservist training from next year in the hope of improving the combat readiness of reserve forces, a military official said yesterday.
Reservists are to undergo two weeks of training, instead of five to seven days, and they can be asked to train two years in a row rather than every other year, said Ma Chia-lung (馬家龍), deputy head of the Ministry of National Defense’s All-out Defense Mobilization Office.
The military is also to scale up reservist training by doubling the time spent on required combat training, such as rifle shooting, to maintain basic combat skills, he said.
Photo courtesy of the Ministry of National Defense
For example, reservists now undergo 12 hours of rifle training, firing 86 rounds, but next year, they would be required to train for 28 hours and fire 183 rounds, Ma said.
The plan, to be implemented on a trial basis, was devised after the military last year said that it wanted to ensure that the nation’s reserve forces could reliably back up regular soldiers amid an escalation of Chinese military maneuvers near Taiwan.
Reservist training includes specialty retraining, firearms training, combat training, combined training, and disaster prevention and relief training, which are necessary for combat operations and disaster relief, the ministry said.
While the training periods for reservists would be longer and more intense under the new guidelines, they would, over time, not require much more training than is currently required.
Presently, former soldiers undergo five days of reservist training every two years, while former officers undergo seven days of training.
The training, which takes place at a military base near the reservist’s residence, aims to maintain their basic combat skills.
They are requried to report for up to four training sessions in the eight years after they are discharged from active duty.
However, under the new rules, they would only need to report for two training sessions, which could be fulfilled in consecutive years.
A trial of the new rules is to take place in the first three quarters of next year at 25 military camps, where about 15,000 reservists discharged from the military within the past eight years would be trained, Ma said.
The military would review the outcomes in the fourth quarter before fully commiting to the program, he said.
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