Armored brigade carries out joint training with air force and SAF units

This news is significant because it confirms the tactical fire-support role of the ballistic missile in PLA's overall war doctrine. It grants the PLA ground force a long-range fire support option without having to control the air.

Armored brigade carries out joint training with air force and SAF units

(Source: PLA Daily) 2010-05-19

　　Recently, the reporters saw on the comprehensive exercise ground of an armored brigade of the Chengdu Military Area Command (MAC) of the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) that the tank element requested firepower support from the aviation unit of the Air Force and the armored combat vehicles covered the missile combat vehicles in ambush.

　　This is not a joint training organized by a theatre, but a joint training at the tactical level held by an armored brigade of the Chengdu MAC, a troop unit of the Air Force and a troop unit of the Second Artillery Force (SAF).

　　The leader of the brigade introduced that it had been difficult to implement regularized joint training with brother troop units of different services mainly due to the fact that the standard and pattern of the command and communication systems of the participants were different. It was difficult to share the intelligence resources in the joint training and hard to realize joint command.

　　To change this situation, after more than two months’ study, argumentation and data debugging, the brigade, the Air Force troop unit and the SAF troop unit developed the information platform for joint training and basically realized the joint command and control at the tactical level.

　　The three parties formulated the annual joint training plan and established 8 mechanisms for the organization, examination and support of joint trainings to ensure the regularization of the joint training with a long-term mechanism.

　　By Yu Xin and Ling Tao

Editor:Liu Wanyun