简体中文
China's navy and air force review on Thursday was not just another show-off of the country's aircraft carrier, but a reflection of the latest accomplishments of the military reform.
During the review, Chinese President Xi Jinping asked the navy to comprehensively deepen reforms, vigorously promote scientific and technological innovation, accelerate the development of new types of combat forces, and strive to build a modern maritime combat system in an effort to enhance the ability and level of practicing diverse military tasks.
One of the most significant changes he brought to the army is forming battle groups.
The groups were set up with actual warfare in mind, and were showcased during a parade in July 2017.
China held a grand military parade at Zhurihe training base in north China's Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region in July 2017.
But the parade was mainly about ground forces. Now the battle group formation has spread to the navy and air forces of the army, as shown in the new review.
Points of strength on the sea and in the sky
Seven maritime battle groups and 10 air combat formations, which consist of 48 naval vessels, 76 aircraft and more than 10 thousand PLA troops, were showcased during the review. Each and every one of them represents a point of strength in the PLA Navy.
The seven maritime battle groups include the strategic strike force group, the underwater attack group, the offshore battle group, the carrier strike group (carrier Liaoning), the amphibious landing group, the coastal defense group and the integrated supply group.
Three shipboard helicopter echelons, the anti-submarine patrol aircraft echelon, the airborne early warning and control aircraft echelon, the offshore battle echelon, two sea assault echelons, the refueling and receiver echelon and the air combat echelon are the 10 air combat formations of the naval review.
Air force: Similar logic
“We need to accelerate the process of naval modernization, be innovative, and have the courage to transcend,” President Xi Jinping said during the review. “We need to make great effort to build a world-class navy.”
For the PLA Air Force, the battle group can also be important, as the country has recently built a lot of new-type military planes including the J-20 fighter jet and the Y-20 transport aircraft.
These types might not be the best in the world, but the air force sees them as a treasure. So accompanying them with other jets to form battle groups can be a great choice.
Another battle group that signals important change to navy and air force is the newly-demonstrated support group, which is a Xi-era new addition to the military.
China's domestically-built J-20.
The standalone support team replaced most of the original on-team support personnel, which not only means the support is treated with more attention than ever before, but also has the potential to train a more advanced support force.
From the equipment and formation, we can speculate that China is trying to do more work with less troops by employing better technology.
Shuffle of units
Battle group, also known as task force, is relatively new to Chinese soldiers.
Old military theory groups are forces divided by the equipment they use, like sniper groups, tank groups and battleship groups.
But modern warfare requires collaboration of different types of equipment and vehicles. The most obvious examples include the aircraft carrier. When drifting alone, the giant ship can be an easy target of underwater torpedoes.
But when accompanied by destroyers, the carrier no long needs to worry about such a threat, making the group of ships stronger against enemies.
The battle group is also designed to complete very specific tasks like ground battle, cyber-warfare and support.
(CGTN)
