Taiwan is planning to deploy missile boats in the South China Sea and tanks on disputed islands as regional tensions mount over territorial differences, a military spokesman said Sunday.
The missile boats make sense. As would anti-ship and anti-aircraft missiles based on the islands.
The tanks don't make sense. How much land is there? Can't be much. Too little for any type of mobile warfare, no doubt. The only way this makes sense is that the tanks will be dug in or set in concrete to function as armored gun emplacements taking advantage of the 360 degree traverse that the turret provides to fight invaders approaching the islands and shoot at them when they land.
Of course, the Taiwanese should never forget that losing the home island to China makes any outlying islands dead meat no matter what their level of defenses.
UPDATE: I stand corrected. I figured I should go look rather than rely on my guess. Mobile tanks would make sense--the biggest island has roads. We're not talking about enough room for maneuver warfare but with roads the tanks could certainly be used for mobile firepower. I wouldn't put the most modern tanks out there, but some of the rather old refurbished tanks that Taiwan owns would be useful against landing craft and also infantry and light armor coming ashore.
