xinhui

No more ad hoc WZC command?




PLA kicks off first theatre-level joint training

english.chinamil.com.cn 2009-06-29

　　
Members of the joint directing team are giving operational orders. (Photo by Huang Chao)

　　The first theatre-level joint training of multiple services was unfolded several days ago in the Jinan Theatre. In the past few days, troops of the three forces in the Jinan Theatre have made close collaboration with local governments and above 1,000 commanding officers in 10-plus battle commanding organs scattered in Shandong and Henan Provinces participated in the training at the same time to steel the ability to command multi-service joint operations against a close-to-actual war background.

　　The integration of all operational commanding elements was practiced for the first time in this joint training in the Jinan Theatre and the combination of military and civilian forces, the combination of three services and the combination of combat and training have been realized.

　　In the warfare mobilization stage, the joint headquarters paid attention to the accurate availability of various combat forces and support forces in the theatre in order to get precise information about the combat potentials and support requirements.

　　The joint headquarters used for the first time the integrated commanding platform in the joint drill to enable the resources and intelligence to be shared among combat posts. With the help of this platform, the joint commanding can penetrate to all combat elements of different services.

　　The procedures of how to organize and carry out the joint training involving multiple services, how to evaluate training effectiveness and how to conduct achievement tests have been standardized for the first time in this joint training.

　　This joint training held in the Jinan Theatre marks that the multi-service joint training of the PLA has ushered into a new stage. It offers a model for the PLA to regularize, institutionalize and standardize its future multi-service joint training, a leading official from the Operation Department of the General Staff Headquarters of the PLA told the PLA Daily.

　　By Huang Chao and Fu Kaiqiang

　　(Jun 29, PLA Daily) Editor: Ouyang

xinhui

Army-dominated military moves to share command
By Peng Kuang and Cui Xiaohuo (China Daily)
Updated: 2009-06-30 08:21
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The traditionally army-dominated Chinese military in its latest drill introduced a joint command made up of chiefs from different armed forces.

Commanders in the Jinan Military Area, where the eight-day "Coalition 209" drill ended on Sunday, said the joint exercise is the first of its kind in the army's history to include the navy, the air force as well as the second artillery, the army's nuclear weaponry division, along with the land force during the operation command.

The armed police and local governments in Shandong and Henan also became part of the decision-making body for the first time.


Military observers have speculated for years that the People's Liberation Army (PLA), which marks its 82nd anniversary in a month, has been mulling over establishing a cross-sectional mechanism to replace the traditional decision-making procedure in which the stronger land force has a bigger say on military operations involving different armed forces.

If such a reform is made, the operations in different military areas will be decided by a joint command comprised of chiefs from different armed forces, which will be known as a war zone command, observers predicted.

The 2.3 million-strong PLA, under the top command of the Central Military Commission, oversees seven military areas nationwide.

The term "military area" is more widely referred to in media reports, and is used to refer to the administration of the land forces in a particular area. The term "war zone" is used when referring to all the different armed forces in one military area.

But military specialists contacted by China Daily yesterday declined to predict the prospect of the reform.

"The distinction of the military areas and the war zones has been noted for years," Wang Fa'an, a senior researcher on the construction of armed forces with the Academy of Military Science.

Zhao Lide, deputy chief of staff of the Jinan Military Area, told Xinhua that similar joint command and joint exercises will likely become common practice.

The Jinan Military Area, which set up the PLA's first joint command for military exercises in February, will mobilize forces to support any task on the Chinese mainland.
Army-dominated military moves to share command

xinhui

yeah, saying this stuff for years now...... Col, did we predicted this like 10 years ago? what took them so long to do a dog-and-pony show?

Officer of Engineers

I was somewhat perplexed about the 1000 CO comment. 1000 Officers I can see but 1000 COs? That lead me to believe that not everybody was on the same page until now.

__________________
Chimo

xinhui

The article is from Chinadaily, I am not sure they understand the difference between an officer and a CO.

Officer of Engineers

Still, Andy, 1000 Officers is a corps level action. This doesn't read like corps.

xinhui

It is a theater-level joint training which involves all other service arms and logistic train included.

Officer of Engineers

And usually that means corps, Air Force never control theatre, not even within the US Military.

Officer of Engineers

Andy,

Any idea who's the exercise CO?

xinhui

I would like to know too, no luck.