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Now the Chinese troop is finally arrived at the exercise ground. Could anyone give an assessment on this troop movement operation? My own assessment is this:
1. The railway transportation part went pretty well. Although it is completely under a peace time condition, since this is the first time that China projects its force outside its border after the Sino-Vietnam in 1979, I guess that we shouldn’t be too critical. At least, they have shown us that they are cable of bring a battalion size, light armor force to a foreign location nearly 10,000 km away. Still can’t tell how well the railway system will perform under war time condition and time restriction. I think this part of exercise is still not realistic; the PLA should at least impose some time limits on it. Which we know it is not case, because the troop that will join the exercise has been in XingJiang for a while to conduct pre-exercise crash course training( I have a problem with that kind training as well).
2. The JH-7s also have arrived the exercise site successfully with a “minor” problem with the Russian Customer. They had to disarm themselves before being allowed to fly into the Russian Sky. What does everyone here think of this incident? Just a little communication problem, or something else?
3. Second helicopter team arrived ahead of schedule. Good or Bad? I have watched a report by the Phoenix TV(that is a Chinese language Satellite TV program). During the program, the PLAAF general brag about this by saying that the second helicopter team has discovered that they had enough fuel during the flight, so they speed up and arrived at airfield ahead of schedule. The PLAAF general thought that was good. I personally think it is bad. Because it tells me after receiving the MI-17 for so many year, the PLA still don’t know the try capability of the helicopter they flying. Well, I guess this is what the training and exercise for. Now the PLA will have the long range flying experience, which is good for them.
4. The airlift operation is seems pretty successful as well. But some report has said IL-76 only flew 2900 km, which means that the IL-76 airlifted the soldier from 15th airborne Corp in Xingjiang, not their permanent bases in HuBei and HeNan. My question is Why Not???? IL-76 is obliviously capable of flying the troop from their permanent to the exercise site non-stop. Maybe the PLA thinks that the distance of 2900 km is enough to demonstrate its capability to Taiwan which is only 900-1000 km away from 15th airborne corp’s bases.
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