PLA Organization & Structure discussion

Broccoli

Senior Member
Is there anymore cuts incoming for PLA ground forces? They have less than a million soldiers right now, but I'd guess eventually as equipment gets better (expensive), increased training, pay increase, they are going to cut even more to around 600k troops.
 

Maikeru

Captain
Registered Member
XMD Orbat/ToE

I found this article detailing changes to XMD divisions, which appears to be somewhat different to the brigadization elsewhere across PLAGF (including Tibet MD):

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However, if anyone does have an up to date Orbat/ToE for XMD following this reorganisation, I'd be very happy to see it.
 

Bellum_Romanum

Brigadier
Registered Member
How decentralized is the PLA's command structure?

Is flexibility and initiative encouraged in the rank and file?

Or is there a lot of micromanaging by generals?
Can you please provide a description or descriptive battle where "Flexibility and Initiative" won it for the U.S. military against a peer military? And not against goat herders, peasant soldiers with no modern arms, Armour, artillery, navy etc..

It's far too easy for the U.S. military or any other western based militaries to spout these stuff when all the militaries they have fought against were technologically backwards and didn't have their own industrial industries to sustain and supply materiale both in men and items.
 

Mohsin77

Senior Member
Registered Member
Can you please provide a description or descriptive battle where "Flexibility and Initiative" won it for the U.S. military against a peer military? And not against goat herders, peasant soldiers with no modern arms, Armour, artillery, navy etc..

It's far too easy for the U.S. military or any other western based militaries to spout these stuff when all the militaries they have fought against were technologically backwards and didn't have their own industrial industries to sustain and supply materiale both in men and items.

... what the hell are you talking about? What does this have to do with the US? You need to chill your insecurities snowflake.

And by the way, the US Army is not a good example of decentralized command structures. Usually, the Mongols and Prussian/Germans etc. are used as examples historically. Regardless, this is always a good thing to aim for in a command structure, and many militaries aim for this (though for many, it's more of a stated goal with bad implementation, including the US Army.)
 
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Bellum_Romanum

Brigadier
Registered Member
... what the hell are you talking about? What does this have to do with the US? You need to chill your insecurities snowflake.

And by the way, the US Army is not a good example of decentralized command structures. Usually, the Mongols and Prussian/Germans etc. are used as examples historically. Regardless, this is always a good thing to aim for in a command structure, and many militaries aim for this (though for many, it's more of a stated goal with bad implementation, including the US Army.)
Lol my bad man. I jumped too quickly on the gun. I presumed you're going to cite US military numero uno etc..
 

wssth0306

Junior Member
Registered Member
So why such emphasis on tanks within PLA? Like the russian army, they seem to use tanks in every division, sans the very light infantry ones.

It's almost like the US organization back in the cold war, when even the infantry divisions had similar number of tank battallions to infantry batallions; doesn't matter if most were older m60 (some very few even had m48 back in 1989!).

PLA seems to follow similar logic - using old type59 wherever it can for fire support, even in most of its infantry divisions. Such heavy machinery surely impacts logistics quite a bit.

On the other hand, i get that PLAAF is nowhere near yet to being able to provide fire support as USAF is, nor does PLA have nearly enough combat helicopters. Still, with proliferation of javelin like personal weapons and NLOS precision fire support systems like hj-10 could one expect downsizing of the tank numbers within the PLA in the near future? (that's not counting any possible downsizing of number of PLA divisions overall)
Firstly:
Think of it this way , what land war USA is potentially gonna fight ? Not on it's own continent that for sure, the had the same problem back in ww2 , their army going to have operate an ocean away, so tank is a big problem logistically.
China on the other hand ,all of the potential threat are near.
So it makes sense for USA to have much more lighter formations compared to China , to have better deploy ability , an light infantry battalion on station in 24 hours is much better then a armored one in a week.
Just like you said ,back in cold war ,USA had more tank, the reason is as I stated ,you need a tank of your own , to a enemy tank.
After the Soviet union collapsed , near peer threat was a none factor anymore , the enemies they fought didn't have a lot of tanks, so they went for higher mobility.

Secondly:
Armored formation are still the core for any land assault or defense , an infantry formation, even with USA level of Air support ,cannot preform an assault against another entrenched enemy , even in a complete dominance like First Gulf War , the assault are performed by armored forces.
On the defense end the problem is ability to travel off road , a tracked vehicle will be able to move much faster then a wheeled one,
Say a local breakthrough at the line , the armored forces will be able to move and encircle the infantry fasted then the infantry be able to escape.
Consider this , all of the videos you see of successful use of Javlin and NLOS , did the missile came from the tank's front ?
Did the tanks spreads out in a line formation like the would be in an assault ?
Why the videos are showing them ambushing a tank convoy , and not stopping an assault ?
Infantry cannot stop a supported armored assault , even with the advancement in it's ability to kill a tank.

Thirdly:
A note about tanks and the role they fill , what tanks are , inherently ,are mobile , direct fire , armored platform.
The same reason we don't see axillary despite airplanes exists despite they both and get a bomb on target , the advancement of anti-tank weapons will not make it tank disappear.
A platoon of tanks, 4 tanks ,on the defense, will be able to hit and destroy 12 tanks , in a 30s period ,in a 3KM radius ,
In the same time frame 4 Javelin Squad will only be able to do 4.
And tanks don't need to be afraid of a artillery landing near them , the javelin squad do.
A tank can reverse back down the hill after firing before the enemy can answer with a shell of his own , a Javelin squad might not be so lucky , over 3 km distance , a sub sonic missile will take 10 seconds to reach the target , a tank shell will be there in 4 seconds , the target tank might be able to return fire.

Lastly:
War , are not a conflict that no people will die, yes , many tankers will die , but if they can accomplish the task better then any other force then it will be worth it.
 
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