chankya

And what are they angry about?

__________________
"Of all the manifestations of power, restraint impresses men the most." - Thucydides

zraver

what types of ops are they planning? You can tell as much by what they do not do as what they do. Case in point if you see the PRC practicing an over the Horizon amphib exercise the message is aimed at Taiwan.

Officer of Engineers

An amphib and an air drop are planned.

__________________
Chimo

Tigeranger

31st army is the one that stationed across the strait and believed to be one of units that will be involved if China decide to unify the country by force.

Officer of Engineers

I would not read too much in the 31GA. These are showcase exercises. Nothing is allowed to go wrong. And the PLA will want to show what they can do best; not come up embarrassing short when compared to their Russian counterparts and both the 38 and 39GAs do come up short when compared to their Russian Guards Divisions.

Essentially these are infantry shows with a few high tech toys thrown in. Air drops and amphib landings don't need that much high tech and co-ordination. Just be at the right place at the right time. I note the Russian praise of the last exercise. "Iron discipline" does not denote flexibility and the TW scenario will demand flexibility like no other.

zraver

But has China developed any real over the horizon amphib capability? I have sene pics of a new surfing IFV (may have been photoshopped) similar to the USMC EFV, China is also a world leader in WiGV technology. So China has the technological base to build an invasion force, but is she to any real degree?

Officer of Engineers

Nothing in numbers beyond brigade/regiment level. The PLA always had the over the horizon capability in the 15th Airborne Corps. It's not the initial entry force that's the show stopper. It's the follow on that's the problem.

zraver

well I avoided mentoning the airborne for a reason. With out a true OTH ampib force China cannot clear the missile firing shores of Taiwan enough to allow heavier follow forces in older style "LCA/LST" type craft to operate.

Last I knew the PLA/PLAN amphib capability was almost ideal for power projection in the Spratly Islands (Vietnam Phillipnes etc) but vs the RoC would be sittign ducks.

Unless China can build a corps sized formation capable of rapid transport across the straits with OTH landing capability Taiwan is safe from anything but bombardment.

Officer of Engineers

Do you think a corps is enough? Every scenario I came across suggests a minimum of 3 corps.

zraver

A corps sized formation would change the defensive equasion for Taiwan. it might not be enough to take the Island, but its enough to take part of it. The RoCA is woefully under equipped with modern weapons. Thier Brave Tiger tank is a rebuilt M-48/M-60 Patton clone.

I know China has civillian WiG viehicles, has developed a surfing IFV and is working on an improved attack helo capability, but all are still in small numbers. I wont claim to be a PLA watcher by any means. But I am kinda keeping an eye on China's amphib technology. and the peaces are there but not the numbers.

However if China starts practcing OTH ampib ops it could signal oprational testing of a new doctrine prior to investment in force construction.

entropy

Are we going to see the entire array of Russian airdroppable vehicles (BMD, Nona, Sprut, ...) being used?

__________________
If memory serves...

tphuang

except that they didn't buy anything unless you count the ill-fated IL-76 affair.

This is an interesting report

Tigeranger

Found some scary articles while researching the military training ground:

Article One-"During the Soviet industrialization of the 1930s, Chelyabinsk experienced a fast growth. Several industrial establishments, including the Chelyabinsk Tractor Plant and the Chelyabinsk Metallurgical Plant, were built at this time. During World War II, Joseph Stalin decided to move a large part of Soviet factory production to places out of the way of the advancing German armies in late 1941. This brought new industries and thousands of workers to Chelyabinsk—still essentially a small city. Several enormous facilities for the production of T-34 tanks and Katyusha rocket launchers existed in Chelyabinsk, which became known as "Tankograd" (Tank City). Chelyabinsk was built essentially from scratch at this time. A small town existed before this, signs of which can be found in the centre of the city. The S.M. Kirov Factory no. 185 moved here from Leningrad to produce heavy tanks—it was transferred to Omsk after 1962.


One of the Chelyabinsk theatresA serious nuclear accident in 1957 at the Mayak nuclear fuel reprocessing plant, 150 km north-west of the city, caused deaths in Chelyabinsk Oblast but not in the city...The Mayak plant is associated with two other major nuclear accidents. The first occurred as a result of heavy rains causing a lake polluted with radioactive wastes to overflow into the Techa river, the second occurred when wind spread dust from the bottom of Lake Karachay, a dried-up radioactively polluted lake, over parts of Ozersk."

Article Two- A movie review about a documantary. see the follwing link
CHELYABINSK "The Most Contaminated Spot on the Planet" - a documentary film by Slawomir Grunberg - Log In Productions - distributed by LogTV LTD.

I am wondering if the Chinese troop should bring their NBC equipments with them.

xinhui

random muse...........

If one asks me what is PLA's weakness, I can't tell them, there are too many to count! At the same time, there are many things the Russians are very good at, few examples are:

Mechicanized Airborne Operation, Attack Chopper Operation, CAP

If the glass half full, PLA is sending their youngest service arms to Russia and in the progress embarrassing themselves in public but they might learn a thing or two.


Attack Chopper Operation:
They are sending 38th GA LH, with its regiment commander Sun Fengyang, the leading figure in Attack chopper operations and a strong voice for a greater role for the LH, PLAdaily gave him an entire special session to vent. Ken Allen told me that he is very impressed with this guy.



Mech Airborne operation:
This new PLAAF service arm only come to light 3 years ago before that all they had was buggies. those airborne jeep entered service in 2002, still very new to PLAAF.


CAP:
Many argue PLAAF still don't get it. But, they are sending their JH-7 and unlike its PLANAF counter part, those JH-7a are not loaded with ASCM like that of K-802, they are armed with rockets, iron bombs, and PGM.




If PLA wants to show off, they would do a few Kungfu matches instead.

tphuang

This is interesting, this was from HKB in April
to prepare JH-7A for peace mission 2007, a lot of the institutes involved in the development/production of JH-7A went to talk/inspect the 28th regiment before the mission. Apparently, they just conducted some exercises slightly before this and had some suggestions to the avionics suppliers. Anyhow, it looks like since this is the first time JH-7A participates outside of China, they are trying to make it look good to maybe get some exports.