Just Photo: Type99MBT With New Cope Cages / Slat Armor

 

Forever Type 59 MBT Extreme Mod — M1A59, Bad Guy Edition

The PLA’s professional full‑time Blue Force,  the folks paid to be the bad guys in confrontation drills sure has its own flair for theatrics. 

The unit in question here is the 195th Mechanized Infantry Brigade, call it a version of the US Army’s NTC OPFOR (11th ACR) with "Chinese characteristics". And of course, if you’re going to act the part, you might as well look the part. Enter the Type 59 MBT, taken to its logical extreme: vismod to mimic M1A1 for training. It’s the kind of thing that makes PLA‑watching unexpectedly entertaining from time to time.

 

If you want a deeper doctrinal background dive on the PLA OpForce/Blue Force, there are great works by Dennis Blasko to get you started with,  they are: (here) and (here)

Monday, March 05, 2018

PR photos of the day: "Plain Wolf" China's 1st professional opforce blue-army bad guy brigade (A mouthful isn't it?)

Soldier assigned to a combined brigade with the 81st Group Army under the PLA Central Theater Command helps his teammate wear a "CHINA OPFOR" arm-badge prior to an actual combat training exercise. The brigade, nicknamed "Plain Wolf", has participated in over 40 major military confrontation training exercises such as the "Stride-Zhurihe" exercise since it was established 6 years ago. (eng.chinamil.com.cn/Photo by Shen Dongdong)

Monday, June 08, 2015

Stride-2015: Bigger Longer & Uncut

 Nine changes in Stride-2015 Zhurihe series exercise
( Source: China Military Online  )         2015-June-3 16:36

　　HOHHOT, June 3 (ChinaMil) -- The curtain of the PLA's trans-military area command (MAC) actual-troop confrontation training in 2015 has risen with the "Stride 2015• Zhurihe A" series exercise kicking off at the Zhurihe training base in North China's Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region on June 1.

　　According to a person from the exercise commanding team, the "Stride 2015 • Zhurihe" series exercise has nine new changes compared with last year.

　　Larger scale: ten combined brigades of the PLA Army will participate in the "Stride 2015 • Zhurihe" while the number of the brigades in last year's exercise was seven.

　　More rounds of confrontation: compared with last year's single round of positional battle of attacking and defending, this year's confrontation has three more rounds of troops' advancing and deploying, positional battle of attacking and defending, and seizure of city landmarks.

　　Intensified operational commanding training: the "Stride 2015 • Zhurihe" highlights building up of strategic mindset, application of IT-based commanding system, planning of precision operations, improvement of combat tactics, and asymmetrical combat fighting method innovation and practice.

　　Intensified systemic confrontation: according to operational requirements, new strength including air force, army aviation force, special troops, technical reconnaissance troops, electronic countermeasure troops and psywar units will coordinate the participating land forces in the "Stride 2015 • Zhurihe" .

　　Higher difficulty and intensity: the battlefield maneuvering distance of wheeled vehicles in the exercise is increased by 100km, and 10km is added to the march distance in the long-range raid. Participating troops will come cross difficult situations including dangerous terrain conditions, complex electromagnetic environment, air reconnaissance, long-range strike, harassing attack by special operation forces, nuclear and biochemical attacks in the exercises while they are given less time for launching a combat than last year.

　　Verification of operational experiments highlighted: the participating troops are scheduled to use the operation testing system in the combined operation experiment center of the training base to verify their combat schemes before the actual troop confrontation begins.

　　Night combat training enhanced: It is stipulated that the maneuver distance at night in the periods of long-distance force projection and battlefield maneuver shall be no less than 100 km. The number of night-time targets for live ammunition shooting training was increased, and aviation was also dispatched at night to carry out reconnaissance and attack for battlefield maneuvering and on evacuation areas.

　　Realizing air-to-ground simulated confrontation: The air force actual-troop combat system is improved and the interconnection between the actual-troop combat systems of the ground and air forces has become possible for the first time, which ensures the preliminary integration of the ground and air battle situations.

　　Stringent avoidance system: The group armies to which the participating troops belong are not allowed to interfere in the operational commanding in the exercise. The members of the exercise directing team coming from the PLA's military area commands shall not participate in the directing and evaluating of the exercises conducted by the troops from their own military area commands.

 

Wednesday, July 20, 2016

"Stride 2016•Zhurihe A" exercise enters position attack phase

Soldiers from the "Red Army" provide security for their tanks during an attack to the "Blue Army". "The "Stride 2016•Zhurihe A", a trans-Theatre Commands(TC) confrontation drill held by the PLA Army, entered the actual-troop confrontation and position attack phase at the Zhurihe Training Base in North China's Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region on July 19, 2016. An armored brigade attached to the 1st Group Army with the PLA Eastern Theatre Command acted as the "Red Army" and assaulted another Army brigade acting as the opposing force "Blue Army"

Rare Photo of the Day: Han 401 Decommission Group Shot

Every so often a rare PLAN submarine photo bubbles up from the Chinese internet, and today we’ve got a good one. The crew group photo below (yes, submarine pun fully intended) was taken in September 2003 at the Han‑class SSN 401 decommissioning ceremony.

The boat actually looks in decent shape — not surprising - considering she never racked up a huge number of nautical miles. Han 401 (Changzheng‑1) was China’s first attempt at a nuclear‑powered attack submarine, built during the fog of the Cultural Revolution, when “learning to weld a pressure hull without a political campaign interrupting the reactor lab” was a real engineering challenge.

High‑level specs for context:

• Length: ~98 m
• Displacement: ~5,500 tons submerged
• Speed: ~25 knots
• Armament: six 533 mm torpedo tubes

Say what you will about the Han class — trust me, I’ve said worse — but it laid the foundation for everything that followed.  

 

PLAAF’s Professional Bad Guys Just Got Upgraded: J‑10C, J‑16, and J‑20

 The PLAAF’s aggressor braide, their professional bad guys,  just quietly leveled up. And yes, Wikipedia is once again behind the curve (link):

“The 66th Brigade appears to operate Su‑30MKK, J‑10A, and J‑11B… while the most modern Chinese fighter aircraft such as the J‑20 and J‑16 are still being fielded to combat units.”

That was true once. According to the latest CCTV segment celebrating the PLA’s 99th birthday (Aug 1, 1927), the PLAAF’s OPFOR brigade is now flying J‑10C, J‑16, and J‑20 all front‑line, current‑generation fighters.

So the “Blue Force” isn’t just a bunch of Su‑30 holdouts anymore. 
 

•  J‑10C — single‑engine, medium‑weight multirole
• J‑16 — heavy twin‑engine strike fighter
• J‑20 — depending on which corner of the internet you visit, either China’s crown jewel or “unproven hype”

Joking aside, you don’t need to be an armchair blogger to see what’s happening with their pairing: the PLAAF is pairing its frontline “good guys” with frontline “bad guys.”  

The Blue Brigade just became a lot bluer.

 

 

Sunday, September 09, 2012

Desert camo for China Air Force’s Su-30s.

It is noted in a September 6th “Blue” vs. “Red” air-to-air confrontational tactical maneuver exercise over Guangzhou, that the bad guy is now sporting a new “desert camo” paint scheme. I can’t confirm what their mock adversary in “desert camo” is meant to be; perhaps this photo of a USAF F-15 of Weapons Academy is just a coincident.

 

Here are rest of the photos from that confrontational exercise 

 

 

Saturday, January 15, 2011

More "bad guys"

Judging from this publicly released photo of a J-10S sporting a serial number of 60x8x, it seems that PLAAF's 1st "Blue Army" Regiment, Flight Test & Training Center, is increasing in size to take on more twin-seaters for its training curriculum.

As the PLAAF takes on more modern fighters into its orbat, it is logistical to assume its training infrastructure would increase in due course.

Previous entry  on the "Bad Guys" of the PLAAF.

Tuesday, February 02, 2010

http://china-defense.blogspot.com/2010/02/bad-guy-su-30mkk-of-plaaf-8th-flight.html

"Bad guy" Su-30MKK of the PLAAF 8th Flight Academy (61x8x).

The 8th PLAAF Flight Academy is home to the SU-30MKK fighter-bomber "Blue-Army Aggressor Squadron." It is trained to act as the "bad guy" in war-games by simulating the US F-15E or other SU-30 equipped Asian air forces.

There are a total of three Blue-Army Aggressor squadrons under the PLAAF orbat; the other two are equipped with J-10A (60x8x) and J-7E (15xxx) to simulate lighter, single engine, opponents. These squadrons operate under the PLAAF Flight Test & Training Base (FT&TB) at Cangzhou Airbase in Hebei.

The first PLAAF aggressor squadron was commissioned in June 1987 (here) and was modeled after the US "Top Gun" and "Red Flag" schools. It has been serving as a grindstone for sharpening pilot combat skills ever since. Yup, they are putting their skills acquired from the Moscow Pilot School to good use. (here)

Su-30MKK (61x8x) Aggressor Squadron

Which one is Goose?

J-10A (60x8x) Aggressor Squadron

J-7E (15xxx) Aggressor Squadron