TAIPEI\u00a0\u2014 China has greatly increased the realism of its Army training, attempting to improve readiness and interoperability, and unearth operational weaknesses.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
These trends demonstrate the People\u2019s Liberation Army\u2019s (PLA) rising self-confidence in dealing with a variety of scenarios beyond its traditional focus of a conflict with\u00a0the traditional <\/span>Taiwan, analysts said. impulse.<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n Since 2006, the PLA has increased the number\u00a0of trans-regional exercises, particularly units moving from one military region (MR) to another for training, said Roy Kamphausen, senior vice president for research at the\u00a0National Bureau of Asian Research.<\/p>\n\n\n\n China has a total of <\/span>seven military regions, but is expected to reduce that\u00a0number to five in the near future.<\/p>\n\n\n\n While rail still serves as the predominant means of moving troops, more trans-regional exercises suggests higher priority is being placed on road mobility, Kamphausen said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The PLA has made three key improvements in land warfare exercises, said Li Xiaobing, author of the book “A History of the Modern Chinese Army.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n First, the PLA has moved the exercises out of their training fields like the one in the Beijing region\u00a0and moved <\/span>into actual the real <\/span>battlegrounds, including some remote, frontier areas like those in Tibet and Xinjiang.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Second, the exercises have become more practical and specific <\/span>in terms of real war conditions, such as command, communication\u00a0and long-distance logistics.<\/p>\n\n\n\n “They even traveled long distance to Russia for a joint land exercise,” he said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Third, the blue army or enemy force is now better prepared and stronger than the red army or PLA.<\/p>\n\n\n\n “The red army has to fight harder and smarter rather than expecting a guaranteed victory,” Li said. Li once served in the PLA and is now a professor at the University of Central Oklahoma.<\/p>\n\n\n\n To keep things interesting, units deploy in scenarios where China is already under attack and their movements to the training areas are\u00a0monitored by enemy intelligence and reconnaissance and are subject to attack by enemy <\/span>long-range air precision strike, including chemical and biological, and interdiction by special operations forces, said Dennis Blasko, author of the book\u00a0“The Chinese Army Today.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n Often,\u00a0He said that many times <\/span>last minute changes are given to units just before they deploy or while they are en route, he said. After arriving at their destination, they engage a blue army that simulates advanced enemies more effectively than in the past. Exercises include use of laser designators and umpires.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The PLA’s exercise regime is now reaping the benefits of nearly two decades of investment in “informationalization” and “mechanization,” said Richard Fisher, a senior fellow on\u00a0Asian military affairs with the\u00a0International Assessment and Strategy Center.<\/p>\n\n\n\n “Investments in new command\/control\/communication and information [C3I]\u00a0combined with investments in a third generation of tracked and wheeled armor, plus Army aviation, have allowed for a fuller exploitation of the building of military region-(MR) <\/span>level combined exercises, new tank and armor training centers, and the current trend of moving from MR to trans-MR exercises,” Fisher said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n These C3I advances have already flattened command chains and allowed consolidation of will better enable ambitions to consolidate <\/span>MRs to enable allow a far <\/span>more varied combination of units for real and virtual exercises, he said. in the future.<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n Blasko said there is\u00a0more emphasis on the use of complex electromagnetic environments, including electronic warfare and cyberwarfare, than in the past, which\u00a0has allowed them to discover\u00a0shortcomings in the level of <\/span>training of commanders in joint and combined arms operations.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Li said weaknesses of the recent land exercises remind people of the institutional problems of the PLA.<\/p>\n\n\n\n “Politics still has a role in the exercises, including site selection, commander appointments\u00a0and battle designs,” he said.\u00a0Problems include economic issues:\u00a0“Some units were asked to use old weapons before their retirement and ammunition before the expiration dates.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n Exercises also focused on forming modular, combined arms battalions, where standard infantry armored battalions temporarily are reinforced by artillery, engineers, air defense and\u00a0special operations forces, These exercises\u00a0discovered that battalion headquarters has not assigned enough personnel to control these operations, so they are experimenting with how many officers and noncommissioned officers to assign to a battalion staff, Blasko said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n “This problem is because under the old Soviet organizational system, regiment headquarters did all the planning and gave very specific orders to battalions; now, under brigades, there is no intermediate regimental headquarters between brigade headquarters and the infantry and armored battalions,” Blasko said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n “They are also attempting to improve techniques to conduct what we call ‘close air support,’ provided by Air Force planes or Army Aviation helicopters.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n