Peculiar Chinese military installation: Scale Model Landscape

Can anyone provide any information or discussion on the following? We have what appears to be a military installation near the remote Chinese village of Huangyangtan with a large, very detailed scale model of mountanous landscape next to it...abut 900m by 700m. Here's two pictures of the installation and the a close up of the scale model.





Now here's close up of a part of the scale model terrain, followed by the actual terrain that it represents as seen from Google Earth:



Any idea what this represents and is about. Is it purely a a geographic, geologic thing for the PRC or are their military implications. They went to a lot of trouble and expense to create this for some reason.

Perhaps the PLA is planning to set up a base underneath these mountains, or will use the area as a special training ground to train mountain fighting troops.

Or perhaps the model itself is supposed to be sort of a training device for officers, familiarize them with a landscape they may face in the future.

Player 0 said:

Perhaps the PLA is planning to set up a base underneath these mountains, or will use the area as a special training ground to train mountain fighting troops.

Or perhaps the model itself is supposed to be sort of a training device for officers, familiarize them with a landscape they may face in the future.

Click to expand...

It's way to small for a base, people say that it is a scale picture of the border between China and India

Player 0 said:

Or perhaps the model itself is supposed to be sort of a training device for officers, familiarize them with a landscape they may face in the future.

Click to expand...

If this is the case, then India better pa special attention to that particular border area.

Very interesting observations and thoughts...perhaps they are looking at building a "Cheyenne Mountain" there, but I would expect such an underground base would be much further in the interior and not near a border area.

My guess is that it is some type of training model, whether geared towards a specific, future operation in that particular area or not is unknown.

It maps out an area about 350 miles north of New Dehli near the India / Kashmir area. I snapshot & rotated my Google earth image 90 CCW and it is a dead ringer...

Interesting

Back in college I used to major in environmental science (before swtiching to business). That looks like a giant model for water/soil erosion study, though I don't think anyone ever built one THAT big.

It doesn't make much sense as a military model either. You wouldn't spend that much $ just to have infantry and vehicles roll over the fake mountains and destroy them. For the air force, I think it's a lot cheaper to use simulators. Also, this huge scale-model is not concealed, so any activity on it is open for everyone to see via sat photos.

Seacraft said:

It maps out an area about 350 miles north of New Dehli near the India / Kashmir area. I snapshot & rotated my Google earth image 90 CCW and it is a dead ringer...Interesting

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Great find and thanks! I had heard it was near or along the Indian border...and you have just verified it. Very interesting indeed.

adeptitus said:

Back in college I used to major in environmental science (before swtiching to business). That looks like a giant model for water/soil erosion study, though I don't think anyone ever built one THAT big.

It doesn't make much sense as a military model either. You wouldn't spend that much $ just to have infantry and vehicles roll over the fake mountains and destroy them. For the air force, I think it's a lot cheaper to use simulators. Also, this huge scale-model is not concealed, so any activity on it is open for everyone to see via sat photos.

Click to expand...

Those are possibilities. They could also be using it for training (and I do not mean putting troops into the model). They could be ranging, establishing fire zones, etc. They could also be doing things like calibrating spy satellite images, etc. Could also be water/soil/erosion. Hard to say.

What's this?
Chinese website says "解放军某训练中心卫星图"

swimmerXC said:

What's this?
Chinese website says "解放军某训练中心卫星图"
[qimg]http://img82.imageshack.us/img82/592/13507574200608011313174971720080106xd2.jpg[/qimg]

Click to expand...

Well, that appears to be a land-based training deck for an LPD.

What does the Chinese say?

Where is the location?

The lift arrangement looks like a Taraw class...but the island and the forward part of the deck are clearly not the same.

Jeff Head said:

Well, that appears to be a land-based training deck for an LPD.
What does the Chinese say?
Where is the location?
The lift arrangement looks like a Taraw class...but the island and the forward part of the deck are clearly not the same.

Click to expand...

The Chinese description reads "Peoples Liberation Army training center satellite map (photo)".

The "drawing" seems to be temporary. If you look at the other fading images on the ground, it looks like they had something else drawn there before, then replaced it with a newer drawing. I'm thinking of the chalk powder we use to draw baseball diamonds? Except this is on much larger scale, and prolly done with spray-on material.

If you look at the other silver-ish box, it looks a bit like a concrete pad with drawings that resemble the helicopter landing pad on back of a ship. I think this is prolly a training facility.