PLA Ground Forces

Brigade Reform and
the Recent PLA Development

• Introduction
• The Brigades' Role in the PLA's WarZone Campaign Doctrine
• Rapid Reaction Units and Pockets Of Excellence:
• Training and Organization
• New Laws and Regulations
• The Brigades
• Table of Equipment
• Notes

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Brigade Reform and the Recent PLA Development

by Xinhui

Rapid Reaction Units and Pockets Of Excellence: (1/2)

The major characteristic of the WZC is what Nan Li called Trans-Regional Support Operation (TSO, kuaqu zhiyuan zuozhan, ), which refers to deployment of the best forces and arms of the POEs from other Military Regions (MR) into the war zone where, a local war may break out. The rationales that Li cites for TSO are: "to enhanced political and diplomatic initiatives, rather than sustained forward deployment of a large number of forces in the disputed area as during the Cold war. [16] TSO focused on developing rapid reaction units (kuaisu RRU, ) and capabilities in the rear as while maintaining a moderate level of forwardly deployed forces. This in turn reduced tension in the disputed area. On the other hand, the highly mobile and effective RRU constitutes "Indirect Forward Presence" (jianjie qianyan cunzai, ). This itself may contribute to the local and temporary superiority in psychological terms, which may help to deter provocation, thus preventing escalation". [17]

A successfully Trans-Regional Support Operation and Indirect Forward Presence would require a smaller, more mobile and more technologically advanced RRU force, and each these RRU are relatively small formations of brigade or battalion in size. [18] Much of China's research and development efforts, as well as acquisition and training programs, are centered on gaining the capabilities to accomplish such force concentration. [19] Smaller battalion and brigade sized RRU will play a prominent role, [20] as the traditional PLA division-regiment based structure is too big and rigid to carry out rapid reaction and technologically intense missions of the WZC. In Chinese parlance, divisions and regiments have substantial headquarters such as the three departments, while battalion commands do not. Collapsing division and regiment headquarters into brigade headquarters reduces the levels of bureaucracy, which in turn enhances centralized command and control, in addition to greater concentration of trained personal, weaponry and support. Furthermore, the brigade can better accommodate technologically diverse elements than a rigid the "3-3-3" structure associated with the division-regiment- battalion format. [21] In addition, Chinese military planners believe that the traditional pyramid shape force structure would gradually surrender to the flatter, horizontal configuration with more vague level distinctions, whereby the battalion or smaller force is the primary unit of operation (sometimes as target observers) and it reports directly to the group army headquarters instead of to a mid level command unit. [22] Unlike the traditional/ conventional PLA regiments, the new brigade is self sufficient in all arms. It has organic elements such as armor, guided missile, Air Defense, tube artillery, multi-rocket launchers, engineering support, anti-chemical warfare, and communications. [23] A reformed motorized infantry brigade is designed to carry out independent actions of the infantry division.

PLA currently has three kinds of military units for quick deployment to the scene of any border incident. They are the lightly armed special operation forces and the members of the 15 Airborne Corps. However the Chinese airborne forces are even more lightly equipped than their Western counterparts, according to Dennis Blasko, with only limited supplies apparently air dropped to support their operations. Therefore, Chinese airborne forces require rapid link-up with friendly forces. At the other end of the rapid reaction spectrum, [24] the US Department of Defense reported that the PLA has 14 Rapid Deployment Divisions (RDD) capable of deploying by road or rail within China without the need for significant train-up or reserve augmentation. [25] Nevertheless RDDs may still require a week or more before they can arrive at the War Zone. [26] The new mobile brigades will serve as the intermediate force with their elements trained in combined arms operations. They are to give the local or lightly armed airborne and special forces quick boosts, in a concept knows as "component assembly" (bankuai goujian zhuhe, ). [27] This concept may be applied to the combination of forces and arms, and to "supra-normal" (chaochang, ) [28] reinforcement of key categories to destroy select targets in the shortest possible time. Moreover, instead of the old practice of concentrating forces and arms at a point, the PLA is going to use "dispersed deployment" (shusan bushu, )[29] to deny the enemy a clear window of vulnerability.