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

IDonT said:

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.

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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.

SampanViking said:

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.

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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.

Norfolk said:

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.

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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".

IDonT said:

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.

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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.

Crobato,

I think you might be in error. Effective hit and fade partisan tactics do not equate with initive in and of themselves. Certainly the PLA and CVA showed themselves masters of infiltration with the experience of the Civil War But China itself does not lend itself to easy innovation. The traditional Chinese mindset towards family, obedience, and caste has only recently begun to be shed, and this after being re-inforced by flawed communist collectivism.

Western units, or pre-WW2 Heer units are trained to be adaptable and to accept command. And this is the critical difference. I don't think a PLA company commander finding himself as the senior battalion or brigade officer after a battlefield incident can cope, nor do I think small unit commanders have the discretion to act as they see fit to achieve the wider rather than the unit objective. A good example of this was the actions of the commander of the 2nd ACR at 73 Eastings. His own tactical acumen and a military culture that allowed deviation if it brought victory set the stage for a huge victory over the IRG.

Not only did he disregard higher directives, but when he did so the rest of the VII corps was able to conform to his actions on the fly at night deep behind enemy lines resulting in the destruction of 5 divisions in just a few hours.

Flawed collectivism? Are you still subscribing to pre-fed stereotypes? Chinese mindset towards family and traditions are actually quite very similar to Jewish, Eastern European, and Latin American cultures, and there are no lack of initiative there either.

Somehow, you have a country that is the most aggressively capitalistic in the world, and entrepreneurship is one of the main products of self initiative. With Chinese entrepreneurs striking out on their own to become the economic elite of Southeast Asia and everywhere around the world, there is certainly no lack of initiative with the Li Ka Shings of this world.

Communism as a whole is a failed experiment in China. It may have been thought, but it was never absorbed. I have never seen or met a mainland Chinese that actually remembers what Mao said. Once they got rid of Mao, note how fast the country shifted to an aggressive capitalistic mode. Even the PLA went capitalistic. What can be said about a military arm that actually owns businesses? Is that a reflection of a collectivist mindset? Sheer greed itself is a completely selfish act, and being selfish is a trait of being individualistic because you are concerned with yourself and not as a whole. It became so bad that one of the major reforms on the PLA was to get rid of its businesses.

The Chinese never had a caste system by the way.

The Chinese never had a caste system by the way.

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it's late and I am off to give my pillow some head but..

All societies have castes. The only difference is the amount of social mobility between the upper and lower echelons of soceity.

You gents know the rules..stay on topic and no politics!:nono: No need to start a;

The reorganization of at least two Group Armies along Soviet Unified Army Corps (Operational Maneouvre Group) lines with 2 Armoured Brigades and 2 Mechanized Brigades (themselves organized along US Army Stryker Brigade Combat Team lines) each and a brigade each of artilley, and engineers along with an air defence battalion, etc., indicates a very deliberate and concerted attempt by the PLA to reorganize for Combined Arms operations par excellence. The two Group Armies concerned would in effect each be the equivalent of a reinforced Western Armoured Division, potentially very powerful.

There are at least two questions that remain to be answered, however. The first is whether the PLA has achieved a basic maturity in combined arms operations at least the tactical and preferably, the operational level, as well. If not, and what information is coming out seems to suggest that the PLA is still shaky in combined arms warfare even at the tactical level (while these photos are probably just for show, what photos of Combined Arms exercises that do come out of China seem to show an unfamiliarity between the combat arms with each other), let alone the operational level, then the new Group Army structure may at least encourage greater Combined Arms training and familiarity.

Granted, many of these photos may just be for show, and tell us relatively little about the true capabilities of the PLA. But I tell you, if these photos do show, more or less, what the PLA is presently capable of in the realm of Combined Arms warfare, then someone ought to tell the Central Military Commission and the General Staff Department that whatever they are doing, this isn't the way to do it.If what the PLA is doing is copying foreign (and especially Western) and disparate concepts and then jumbling them together into a made-in-China whole, then it seems to be showing in the photos we're getting.

The second question is what models of Combined Arms operations is the PLA following? As the new Group Army concept seems to show, the PLA seems to be cobbling together different concepts from different sources into a new synthesis. The two most obvious models appear to be the Soviet Unified Army Corps concept and the US Army Stryker Brigade Combat Team concept.

The Soviet UAC (or Operational Manoeuvre Group as NATO called it) was purely offensive, designed to exploit (or even make if necessary, then exploit) a penetration of the enemy front lines and proceed to tear up the enemy's rear areas (headquarters, fire support, logistics trains, bases, lines-of-communication, etc.).

The US Army Stryker Brigade Combat Team epitomizes the "Netcentric Warfare" concept that has started in the US Army and been enthusiastically adopted by the PLA - the basic idea being that one can do more with less provided the proper digital informations systems, links, and procedures are in place - and thus discard traditional formation structures and reduce force sizes.

To the extent that I can perceive any other major foreign concept here, I discern a (sort of) return to an "ideal" WWII German Army Panzerkorps (rarely if ever achieved by the Germans themselves) with 2 Armoured formations and 2 Mechanized/Motorized Formations. In this concept, the Armoured Brigades (presumably) would spearhead the offensive and the Mechanized Brigades would follow in their wake to mop up bypassed centres of resistance, freeing up the Armoured Brigades for exploitation and pursuit.

Either the PLA does not recognize the incompatibilities, never mind the weaknesses, inherent in its amalgamation of these disparate concepts, or it is convinced that by copying and combining the most advanced Combined Arms concepts of other practitioners of Combined Arms warfare together with the adoption of the technologies that these require, it can both mitigate its own relative lack of experience in this area as well as get in on the cutting edge of Combined Arms warfare by doing so.

Aside from the photos that have been released by the PLA, and these seem to show a shaky mastery of Combined Arms warfare at the tactical level, there is another source of evidence that suggests that the PLA may not grasp the full import of problems at either the tactical or the operational levels. And that is from the organization of the Group Armies themselves. Unless the PLA intends to use them just as the Soviets intended to use their UAC's (that is, as specialized exploitation forces designed to wreak havoc in the enemy rear, rather than to physically destroy the enemy's main forces) in which case a proportion of several Group Armies structured in a more traditional configuration to each UAC-type Group Army would be required. As is, and especially with the Mechanized Brigades being reorganized somewhat along US Army Stryker Brigade Combat Team lines (thus lacking much of the sheer infantry manpower to mop up bypassed enemy centres of resistence and to hold ground won by the Armoured Brigades - A WWII German Panzerkorps concept), it would be doubly difficult to clear and hold ground given the overall organization of the Group Army along UAC lines.

As the Germans discovered in WWII (and their opponents later in the war as well), Heavy ground units must have a proportion of infantry units to armour units of 2 to 1, no more, no less, under almost any circumstances - fighting in open or close country, on steppes or in cities, on offense or defense - and Heavy units must not only be able to win ground in order to destroy the enemy, but also to hold it - and this proved to be the fly in the ointment for German Panzerdivisionen and Panzergrenadierdivisionen, the former could not hold the ground it had taken, and the latter could not be present in sufficient quantity due to the competition for resources between the two types of divisions, and subsequently much of the Soviet Army, even though defeated and surrounded, was still able to escape to fight another day. The Germans also discovered that the Panzergreandierdivisionen were incapable of mobile defensive operations (in order to free up the Panzerdivisionen for counter-attacks, in theory at least) withpout suffering crippling losses in the face of enemy armoured formations.

The German solution (and it worked to the extent that such divisions were available, and failed to the extent that there weren't enough of them) was to restructure the Armoured Division (Panzerdivision) with a ration of 2 Infantry Companies for each Armoured Company. 2 regiments of panzergrenadiers and 1 regiment of panzers, properly structured into ad hoc Battle Groups (Kampfgruppen) according to the tactical situation gave an almost perfectly balanced division fully capable of offensive and defensive operations in almost any terrain. The Mechanized/Motorized Divisions (Panzergrenadierdivision) that had been created to complement the Panzer Divisions were left in practice to wither away.

The PLA is in danger of making the same initial mistakes as the Germans, and adding to that errors or misunderstood or -applied concepts from other quarters to them. The PLA does not (so far as I can tell) seem to recognize this so far.