Joint-Arms Combat Operation ability, is China up tio date ??

China simply does not have significant experience in mechanized warfare, and I think that this is key to to its lagging behing, so far, in combined arms operations, never mind modern battlefield communications. The Germans demonstrated in the first year of the Second World War the both the potential and the realities of combined arms operations, and mechanization and radio communications were critical to this.

But it is most important to point out that the Germans already possessed a long standing and thoroughly thought-out and tested body of doctrine that was based upon real past war experience - especially the First World War and rigorous analysis of the lessons of that and other wars - combined with a professional military system that produced officers and soldiers of superb professional quality who also were very much inclined and trained to think about things, making them open to seeking both better ways of doing things and to innovation.

When mechanization and radio communications had sufficiently matured, the Germans were ready, willing, and able to exploit their potential to the full (though not without some internal resistance), whilst other countries were caught out in a state of flux. The early part of the Second World War is in many ways a story of how a professionally gifted German military was able to identify and formulate using technology and concepts already widely available a military machine that, until her enemies learned (partially at least) their lessons the hard way, was able to prevail with more or less ease over all other who were stilled bogged down in the problems of modern combined arms warfare.

The Chinese are open to such concepts and technology, but not only do they lack experience in them, particularly as they have had little history of mechanized warfare, but they also seem to lack both the level of professional military acumen and genius of the Wehrmacht (but so does almost everyone else, including those who learned hard lessons 60 years ago - and still haven't completely learned all those lessons - at the hands of the Germans, so that's hardly a slight to China) as well as the same culture of bold curiousity and the conditions that foster such a culture. There are built-in inhibitions and hindrances to the Chinese perfecting the art of combined arms warfare and these are at least as important as the possession of the requisite technologies for doing so. China, both for reasons of her own history and because of the type of regime that it is governed by, lack in somes way the sort of individual initiative that is found in the West and conditions of freedom of thought and information, amongst others, that can be exploited to the full by individual initiative (the German practice of mechanized warfare was also inherently decentralized, and required both great individual initiative from top to bottom, and great responsibility - little or no passing of the buck - which is one of the reasons German military leaders were almost universally respected, even admired, by their subordinates - unlike many of their Allied counterparts). Consequently, access to the same technology and even sources of doctrine does not necessarily yield the same results in different hands. After all, the Allies had the same (and in some cases, superior) technology as the Germans had in the early years of WWII (and the Germans had relied heavily upon foreign and especially British military thinkers in their own formulation of operational concepts and doctrine), but the Germans were able see how to put it all together and how to make it all work to advantage. It is one thing to develop and possess state-of-the art technology, is quite another to know how best to use it, and where.

The Chinese army has certainly made great strides in recent years, and it has come along way from the day when "fire and movement" in the Chinese Army meant that heavy weapons and/or artillery fired (that is, if they had any available), then human waves of infantry swarmed the enemy positions. But I do not think that more or less imitating English-speaking or European trends in equipment and especially communications is necessarily the way to go, especially if the Chinese lack a solid grasp of German-style combined arms doctrine and operations and the thinking professionals to make it all happen.

Giving every infantryman a portable radio set is not necessarily the best way (it could in fact simply overload the whole net with too much information and cause disruption and confusion without very well thought out priorities and executed procedures) to promote seamless command, control, and communications. This would almost certainly be these case if a solid grounding in the basics of mechanized warfare (whether or not the units in question are in fact mechanized or not) and subsequently combined arms operations is lacking, and given the seeming Chinese hesitance to routinely mix units of the different combat arms in operations at least with the same frequency of Western armies, this would appear at least, to be the case.

I have heard the following from a ex-pilot about 3 years ago that when he flew ops out of japan that china had the following issues.
1. hated flying at night over open ocean
2. was frighted of its own Air defence even when "squawking IF" and this forced them to flying using "in and out" corridors near the straits of Taiwan.
3. does not like to use BVR missiles as it seems he had heard they had no faith in them but liked getting in close with heat seeking short range missiles and guns.
4. with out BVR the Chinese Jets would turn off radars which they think wrongly made them harder to ID by U.S,Japan and Tawian fighters. The minute they were painted at 50km they would turn tail back toward their "in and out corridor"

In closing he did say during the day and closer to the main land inside of a "corridor" they were very aggressive. would use Their J-8 and do a mach 2.3run right at you. coming down from 40,000 feet using no radar. heard rumors that PRC pilots would get vision correction from western doc which in some cases gave them 20/10 vision. but that's no help when a high quality BVR nails you at 50km.

But let me say he heard that the PRC AD was wicked and could pop you at 100km if you werent looking. They would fire dumb and go active at 80km. They think it was S-300 testing.

Originally Posted by utelore

In closing he did say during the day and closer to the main land inside of a "corridor" they were very aggressive. would use Their J-8 and do a mach 2.3run right at you. coming down from 40,000 feet using no radar. heard rumors that PRC pilots would get vision correction from western doc which in some cases gave them 20/10 vision. but that's no help when a high quality BVR nails you at 50km.

But let me say he heard that the PRC AD was wicked and could pop you at 100km if you werent looking. They would fire dumb and go active at 80km. They think it was S-300 testing.

The Chinese would actually "paint" Western fighters with S-300 tracking radars, and not just search radar? And Chinese jets would actually attempt 12 o'clock high "Out of the Blue" dives at them? I'm not sure whether to consider this justing showing off or trying to compensate for the apparent inability to coordinate their own operations.

I mean, the Chinese weren't obviously intending to do any harm, and Western pilots at times haven't always been on their best behaviour (either in Asia or elsewhere), but these sorts of stunts seem to smack as much of an inferiority complex as simple flyboy exuberance. This is the sort of behaviour you would expect from amateurs, not professionals.

China, both for reasons of her own history and because of the type of regime that it is governed by, lack in somes way the sort of individual initiative that is found in the West and conditions of freedom of thought and information, amongst others, that can be exploited to the full by individual initiative (the German practice of mechanized warfare was also inherently decentralized, and required both great individual initiative from top to bottom, and great responsibility - little or no passing of the buck - which is one of the reasons German military leaders were almost universally respected, even admired, by their subordinates - unlike many of their Allied counterparts).

This is certainly not correct, and not correct by far. In fact what you are saying is the very opposite of Maoist warfare. The very principle of asymmetric or guerrilla warfare in land stresses a lot of individual and squad level initiative. A guerrilla army does not have the communication and radio resources conventional armies have, and for that reason, actually requires much greater autonomy on the troop and squad level compared to conventional armies. A good example is the guerrilla warfare in Vietnam. You think every Charlie there can afford to have a radio on his own?

Now for the so called German "decentralization" that's another myth. Look at North Africa. Once the command core of the Afrika Korps was broken, the Germans simply gave up and surrendered. In Europe the same thing. Once the central command is dismembered, the Germans simply gave up and surrendered. This is in contrast to the martial cultures of the East, where individually, even without a central command structure, they kept fighting to the death.

Individual initiative is always stressed in Mao's own doctrines, and in fact he goes on to even say that the individual would make the difference against a technologically superior enemy.

As for culture, this culture also invented the concept of squad formations in the first place in its ancient history.

Originally Posted by utelore

I have heard the following from a ex-pilot about 3 years ago that when he flew ops out of japan that china had the following issues.
1. hated flying at night over open ocean
2. was frighted of its own Air defence even when "squawking IF" and this forced them to flying using "in and out" corridors near the straits of Taiwan.
3. does not like to use BVR missiles as it seems he had heard they had no faith in them but liked getting in close with heat seeking short range missiles and guns.
4. with out BVR the Chinese Jets would turn off radars which they think wrongly made them harder to ID by U.S,Japan and Tawian fighters. The minute they were painted at 50km they would turn tail back toward their "in and out corridor"

In closing he did say during the day and closer to the main land inside of a "corridor" they were very aggressive. would use Their J-8 and do a mach 2.3run right at you. coming down from 40,000 feet using no radar. heard rumors that PRC pilots would get vision correction from western doc which in some cases gave them 20/10 vision. but that's no help when a high quality BVR nails you at 50km.

But let me say he heard that the PRC AD was wicked and could pop you at 100km if you werent looking. They would fire dumb and go active at 80km. They think it was S-300 testing.

Turning off their radars means your plane cannot use its RWR to detect the other plane. If you have to paint the other guy to see the other guy, he would also be notified of your presence.

They may also be under instructions not to turn on their radars so that their signals would not be recorded. Actually it sounds its they were actually trying to bait fighters to paint them with radars so they can record the signals of your radars, all of ELINT value.

Last December, J-10s tried to "alarm" ROC AD assets for the same reason, to get the AD assets to paint the J-10s with their radars, and of course, record them. The ROC AD troops did not oblige however, at least this time around.

What you described is consistent with what I know about the J-8II, or at least the early ones. These ones have radars that are less than perfected, and have problems in their BVR. So they don't trust their radars and BVR quite frankly and prefer to use their guns and short ranged AAMs. And yes, the J-8II pilots are very aggressive. That's not a particularly easy bucket to fly and yet they push it to their limits like they know it like the back of their hands.

The radar situation is not going to be true of the J-8F variant however that is currently equipping units now which also has a credible BVR option.

On the other hand, the Su-27s and Su-30MKKs don't play this same game. They will try to paint and lock onto the fighter, like a Mirage 2000-5, and one incident that I heard of, the ROCAF fighter went into spiral in an attempt to shake that lock.

Originally Posted by crobato

This is certainly not correct, and not correct by far. In fact what you are saying is the very opposite of Maoist warfare. The very principle of asymmetric or guerrilla warfare in land stresses a lot of individual and squad level initiative. A guerrilla army does not have the communication and radio resources conventional armies have, and for that reason, actually requires much greater autonomy on the troop and squad level compared to conventional armies. A good example is the guerrilla warfare in Vietnam. You think every Charlie there can afford to have a radio on his own?

Now for the so called German "decentralization" that's another myth. Look at North Africa. Once the command core of the Afrika Korps was broken, the Germans simply gave up and surrendered. In Europe the same thing. Once the central command is dismembered, the Germans simply gave up and surrendered. This is in contrast to the martial cultures of the East, where individually, even without a central command structure, they kept fighting to the death.

Individual initiative is always stressed in Mao's own doctrines, and in fact he goes on to even say that the individual would make the difference against a technologically superior enemy.

As for culture, this culture also invented the concept of squad formations in the first place in its ancient history.

Maoist doctrine never had to contend with mechanized warfare, which is a very different animal from straight-foot infantry, let alone guerilla, warfare. Command, control, and communications that relies upon face-to-face orders, visible signals, human couriers, and rigidly predetermined actions are not suited to mechanized warfare - the French and Soviets attempted much the same early in WWII and it didn't work out very well. It requires not only an understanding and anticipation of the problems of mechanization and combined arms operations (of which the Chinese have little practical wartime experience), but also a thorough grasp of command, control, and communications in high-speed, high-intensity conditions of often very imperfect, even critically flawed information about the enemy and simply having to get on the with job whilst operating in what sometimes amounts to an information-vaccuum so to speak.

As for Vietnam, the VC especially, and the NVA typically conducted extensive long-term reconnaissance and intelligence-gathering about the forces they faced and the objects they were assigned to attack. They then engaged in lengthy preparations for set-piece operations which featured much in the way of pre-planned fires (if available) and pre-determined "coordination" of units and support to the extent that operations were usually forced to either be cancelled outright, or to simply go ahead and take additional losses when conditions had substantially changed and there was no time to adapt plans to those changes. Few major VC and NVA operations were battlefield successes - the US may have suffered a great political defeat in Vietnam, but it is true that it never lost so much as a single major battle - and the VC were practically marginalized after the defeat of the Tet Offensive in 1968. The VC and NVA attacked in human waves, without fire-and-movement (in the Western sense) to really speak of, and despite their usual quantitative superiority over their intended victims, they almost invariably failed, not least because those victims had superior command and control and communications and could rapidly and easily coordinate their forces to defeat the relatively cumbersome VC and NVA.

Set-piece plans with more pre-determination standing in for more the more spontaneous coordination that mechanized warfare requires (and that said, many armies are still very much influenced or locked into mindsets and operational concepts that feature such things as phase lines even when conducting mechanized oeprations!) are suited to attrition warfare, not combined arms maneouver warfare (in most cirumstances).

Guerrilla, warfare tends to be even more reliant upon predetermined planning (and especially lengthy prior information and intelligence-gathering about targets and forces to be struck or avoided, luxuries that simply do exist most of the time for mechanized operations) that it is very difficult to rapidly changing situations (and rapidly increasing distances).

And in that same vein, a simple straight-foot infantry rifle company may find itself, for example operating on a frontage of perhaps a quarter-mile to half-a-mile; its mechanized equivalent may find itself doing so on a frontage of up to nearly 3 miles! (why I that is so , I won't get into right now) thus requiring not only each armoured vehicle to carry at least one radio, but even each rifle squad/section to carry at least two radios (and in some armies each man now carries some sort of radio).

Another thing, the infantry of the PLA in Mao's time did not typically use Western style fire-and-movement; if you have been in the infantry of a Western country or at least received some infantry familiariztion training you will know what I am talking about and how difficult it is to truly master; if you do not, it will require a great deal more time and space than can easily be accomodated on this forum. Even at present, Western type fire-and-manoeuver is a relatively recent innovation in China, and though it has probably had time to master it successfully by now, it remains unclear that it is now able to combine the separate combat arms with the experience, custom, and familiarity that is common to many Western armies. At present, the Chinese do not appear to combine the separate combat arms with the same frequency and familiarity that Western armies do.

If one may think that proper command, control, and communications or air operations is fraught with potential difficulty (and I refer you to Utelore's recent post on the PLAAF on same), accomplishing the same thing in mechanized warfare often breaks down into a vertiable nightmare on exercises, even for armies experienced in mechanized and combined arms operations.

And finally, as for the Germans giving up when their command structures broke down, well, this requires a little more qualification. Typically, most forces do give up when the command structure breaks down, because in most of those cases the physical damage that has been done that leads to command breakdown has also inflicted crippling losses upon the fighting forces. The Germans in most cases were no different, though they tended to continue fighting on longer than other countries troops in similar situations.

In WWII the Germans performed military feats under conditions of supreme adversity that remain unmatched, such as the moving-pockets, break-outs and the defenses of Courland, East Prussia and Silesia (where the German forces were physically and permanently cut off from overland routes to Germany itslef, and still fought on for months) - on the Eastern front in the face of overwhelming Soviet strength and partisan campaigns behind their own main lines, the extraction of the German armies from the Falaise Gap in Normandy and the rapid reorganization of the German defenses that not only halted the Allied drive into Germany and the Low Countries for several months, but also defeated the Market-Garden offensive despite considerable Allied quantitative superiority.

Yes, there were serious, even grave faults in German command, control, and communications during the Second World War, but even in the midst of mass surrenders, the German army never completely broke down, but only stopped fighting when its poltical leadership surrended - the military leadsership largely remained in control throughout - and rapidly re-established control whenever temporarily lost.

I am not sure that I can entirely contest your argument, and you make a good point at the beginning about Maoist guerrilla warfare emphasizing, inded requiring individual initiative at the lowest levels. Where I begin to contest this is when Maoist guerrilla warfare moves from partisan warfare and its attendent raids and constant close surveillance of enemy troop movements amidst the population and the attacking of minor units when they expose themselves, to combined arms mechanized warfare, which is fundamentally different in both its capabilities and its requirements.

Where I begin to contest this is when Maoist guerrilla warfare moves from partisan warfare and its attendent raids and constant close surveillance of enemy troop movements amidst the population and the attacking of minor units when they expose themselves, to combined arms mechanized warfare, which is fundamentally different in both its capabilities and its requirements.

And this is where it was tested in the latter phase of the Sino Civil War that led to the Communist takeover, the Korean War, Sino-Indian and Amur clashes. By the way Maoist doctrines does mention the escalation of peasant warfare into conventional warfare as necessary for the takeover of the country.

All your argumentation above is never about individual and local squad level initiative. I was never arguing about the experience of joint operations. I was pointing out that I have a disagreement about your idea that somehow because of culture, the Chinese armies do not have individual or local squad level initiative, when in fact, the historical circumstances would have sheerly relied on these.

What you are pointing out here, and what is necessary with joint operations is the opposite, and that is centralized command, which the Chinese for a long while didn't enjoy much of a modern equivalent of.

Actually the PLA shifted into the mechanized army concepts just about the seventies, but not after having its educated and trained officer corps getting decimated by the Cultural Revolution. Nonetheless, with Mao on the decline, and the Soviet Army massing in the northern borders, the PLA turned from a peasant army into a massive tank army. This is not to say they will gather the experience of joint operations overnight. But since the seventies till today, they should have picked up some considerable experience in paper with exercises, no differently from any Western army. In fact the PLA is backing this up with some fundamental changes in the way they operate.

There are lots of papers and posts on this in the CDF. We have seen many recent changes in the PLA, just for examples. The PLA is now organized more along the lines of brigades (smaller units) other than divisions. The War Zone campaign. Another is the much more rapid growth of mechanized infantry units and vehicles compared to tanks. Its a progressive story, never a finished one, as you can see articles that call for more command decentralization.

History shows that most modern armies never really contended with joint warfare other than the US, Russians, Israelis and the Germans. With regards to anyone else but these, how much is show and how much is go is something to be decided.


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You point out a very good question. I've always wonder how the separate services of the PLA operate. How severe is the inter-service rivalry between the airforce, army and navy? I've read undocumented reports that on occassion an army general, who never had experience in naval matters, may be given command of a naval fleet. It must be hard to be an airman or a seaman and be part of the People's Liberation ARMY navy/airforce.

Inter-service rivalry kills. In 1982, a US army commander had to call his wife, who called his base, who called the Pentagon, who called the Navy, who called the circling naval fighter where to bomb his target. Its humorous but it is true.

In world war II, the Japanese navy and army refused to worked together that they had separate set up on their airplanes. One, I think it was the Army, had you pushing on the throttle to increase power and one had you pulling back on the throttle to decrease power. Imagine the surprise of an army pilot in a navy plane.

Originally Posted by crobato

All your argumentation above is never about individual and local squad level initiative. I was never arguing about the experience of joint operations. I was pointing out that I have a disagreement about your idea that somehow because of culture, the Chinese armies do not have individual or local squad level initiative, when in fact, the historical circumstances would have sheerly relied on these.

I apologize Crobato, I misunderstood and thought you were applying this directly to mechanized operations. I certainly have no argument with individual- and minor-unit initiative and decentralization. I do maintain doubts though, about initiative being allowed in a broader sense in China, particularly both in military-intellectual thought and innovation (and operational concepts) and in the ability of junior and field grade officers to make decisions on their own that deviate (especially substantially) from their superior's plans or orders when circumstances justify such personal inititative.

Originally Posted by IDonT

Inter-service rivalry kills. In 1982, a US army commander had to call his wife, who called his base, who called the Pentagon, who called the Navy, who called the circling naval fighter where to bomb his target. Its humorous but it is true.

I seem to recall that this individual had to use a local telephone and his credit card to do so. American Express, don't go to war without it!

Grenada wasn't exactly a glowing model of joint operations success. It seemed everyone except the Marines spent as much time chasing their own tails so to speak (or ducking for cover and calling in air support) as actually getting anywhere. It seemed that whenever it finally became clear that the Army wasn't getting anywhere fast, the Marines would be given the order to advance; eventually, the Marines ended advancing over most of the island, even though they had only one battalion compared to around half a dozen for the Army.

Practice is going to make perfect, so I think it safe to assume that if the PRC Political and PLA military leadership appreciate the importance of this that a lot of time and money is being spent in developing these skills.

I would also guess that much of the exercises conducted with its SCO partners are about bolstering these abilities too.

The other side of the coin of this issue is surely professionalism and again we have seen a process in the last 20 years where the PLA has moved from being a conscript to Volunteer Army. Each year we hear that more money is being spent improving pay and conditions. These surely are the very preconditions that you would expect to see in order to build on the above complex military capabilities.

Originally Posted by SampanViking

Practice is going to make perfect, so I think it safe to assume that if the PRC Political and PLA military leadership appreciate the importance of this that a lot of time and money is being spent in developing these skills.

I would also guess that much of the exercises conducted with its SCO partners are about bolstering these abilities too.

The other side of the coin of this issue is surely professionalism and again we have seen a process in the last 20 years where the PLA has moved from being a conscript to Volunteer Army. Each year we hear that more money is being spent improving pay and conditions. These surely are the very preconditions that you would expect to see in order to build on the above complex military capabilities.

Agreed SampanViking,

Provided China has been diligent in developing such capabilities in tandem with providing sufficient opportunity for the professional development of its officer and NCO corps (and also to shed Soviet-style centralization of command at the tactical and even operational levels and move to a German-style decentralization system allowing for individual initiative to exploit battlefield opportunities), then something equivalent to what the West has may emerge in the near future. I doubt though, that it is there yet.

Even in the West, there are serious lapses at times in this regard. In GW1, the U.S. Third Army was caught unprepared by the success of 1 MEF's offensive into Kuwait, thus forcing 3rd Army to launch its flanking attacking sooner than it had planned to do. Some of the blame for this, however, lay with the command echelon above 3rd Army, and it didn't help that 3rd Army's commander had just had gall bladder surgery only a few weeks before the Coalition attack. He was a very ill man, and should not have had to carry on the way he did.

To add to this, the US VII Corps operated in a manner suited to more positional-type warfare with a high centralization of command and holding troops back in order to form nice clean lines more suited to phased, methodical straight-foot infantry attacks than dynamic, spontaneous, take-advantage-of-opportunities mechanized warfare. After 1st Infantry Division breached the Iraqi front lines, VII Corps proceeded to hold back to draw its armoured divisions into an extended line before proceeding to exploit the break-through. Ironically, in doing so, VII Corps exposed its right flank and possibly its logistics trains to a potentially disabling counter-attack by Iraqi armour stationed behind the front line. It's a good thing that the Iraqis were more incompetent than the Americans, and failed themselves to take advantage of the opportunity offered them.

The result of the Iraqi failure to attack the VII Corps' right flank when it was inadvertently offered them of course was their subsequent destruction later as the VII Corps formed up and then attacked the Iraqis in their own positions. The result of the American failure to properly coordinate I MEF and US Third Army (especially due to the latter's and higher command's failure to make any provisions for deviation from the set plan) was the escape of substantial portions of the Iraqi Army ahead of the Third Army and especially the bulk of the Republican Guard, with which the Iraqi Government soon used to put down revolts and re-establish its control over most of the country, thus perpetuating the regime in power. The VII Corps' performance, whilst it met with battlefield success vis-a-vis the Iraqi units that it encountered,was nevertheless a failure, as its orders were to destroy the Republican Guard, which, of course mostly got away. VII Corps formed up in a manner worthy of the First World War, could not adjust quickly enough to take advantage of changes to the battle plan (even cancelling a night attack because it had never trained for passage-of-lines at night) and generally gave the Iraqi's the day or two's head start they needed to mostly get away.

This is just a more recent and better-known example of even experienced powers flubbing mechanized combined arms warfare.

Originally Posted by Norfolk

I apologize Crobato, I misunderstood and thought you were applying this directly to mechanized operations. I certainly have no argument with individual- and minor-unit initiative and decentralization. I do maintain doubts though, about initiative being allowed in a broader sense in China, particularly both in military-intellectual thought and innovation (and operational concepts) and in the ability of junior and field grade officers to make decisions on their own that deviate (especially substantially) from their superior's plans or orders when circumstances justify such personal inititative.

Actually there is plenty of initiative. I won't go to that in detail. There are many writings from junior officers themselves and there certainly plenty of fervent discussion. Don't mistake that the Soviet system still applies here at least with modern PLA. In order to understand the modern operations of the PLA, its advisable to study these writings, many not available in public but the US Army and Navy colleges should have some of them, as well as some of the broader underlying concepts that stretches from Sun Tzu, the Seven Military Classics all the way to Mao.

Right from the ancient history from Sun Tze to Mao, Chinese military doctrine had always emphasized mobility and coordination. They are tied with Alexander the Great in forming the ancient world's first joint armies. The modern junior PLA officer is well steeped studying these traditions.

In the Korean War for example, the PVA units had their own local initiative to always try to outflank enemy positions, raid and attack at the most inconvenient times for the enemy, use terrain judiciously and fade when faced with superior opposition. The phrase described by one scholar to them is "strategy bred to the bone".

Originally Posted by IDonT

You point out a very good question. I've always wonder how the separate services of the PLA operate. How severe is the inter-service rivalry between the airforce, army and navy? I've read undocumented reports that on occassion an army general, who never had experience in naval matters, may be given command of a naval fleet. It must be hard to be an airman or a seaman and be part of the People's Liberation ARMY navy/airforce.

Inter-service rivalry kills. In 1982, a US army commander had to call his wife, who called his base, who called the Pentagon, who called the Navy, who called the circling naval fighter where to bomb his target. Its humorous but it is true.

In world war II, the Japanese navy and army refused to worked together that they had separate set up on their airplanes. One, I think it was the Army, had you pushing on the throttle to increase power and one had you pulling back on the throttle to decrease power. Imagine the surprise of an army pilot in a navy plane.

Traditionally, there is not much interservice rivalry. Rivalry is moot, when the Army dominates things. Circumstances then, when the Soviets appeared to be the main enemy, with no less than 17 divisions poised at the northern borders ready to run down to Beijing. So there is much emphasis on the Army, especially building a huge mechanized tank army. South of China is difficult for tank operations, but the north, with flat plains and deserts, is going to be tank territory.

When the shift moves to the east, towards retaking Taiwan and confronting the US and Japan, the Navy and the Air Force also finally began their serious rise as autonomous players with obvious and noticeable results. The Army on the other hand, took some steps back. The first is the elimination of corruption. Not that its still there, but a major move against it began in 1997 when PLA owned businesses were disallowed. Then the Army is reduced in size, and the policing duties moved to a new branch, a civil militia or national police called the PAP. With that, it reduced the Army's political and potential coercive power over the government and the population.

Since then, the top officials often visit the Navy and the Air Force bases, giving speech about the Navy and Air Force being the vanguard, the spearhead and the first line of defense. The Navy and the Air Force's rise is capped in 2004, when each finally gets their own seat on the Central Military Commission.

And this year, instead of the usual Army marching down Tianammen Square in Beijing, the 80th Anniversary of the PLA is conducted in a naval base.

As for joint operations with the Army, Navy and Airforce, the PLA are seriously learning to grip on that, but being late on this issue, there are many things that have to be polished like recently banning the use of celphones during exercises. There are writings, self criticisms, and quotes from their own officers that stresses the need to still improve on this issue.