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PLA’s Latest Experiment With Mobility and Fire Power:
A Look at the Special (Experimental) Light Mechanized Infantry Regiment,
13th Group Army, Chengdu Military Region

The People’s Liberation Army (PLA) has been described as a large but technologically dated defensive army with limited offensive capabilities. Its past campaigns were carried out with large units of light infantry backed by massive artillery firepower. This force structure where general manpower was plentiful, but funding, technology, and specialized troops were not, offered only limited strategic options to the PLA. This article details the PLA’s most recent attempt at modernization, the experimental Light Mechanized Infantry Regiment.

The technology and complexity of war have increased greatly since the PLA last saw combat. To keep place with those changes and utilize new technologies made available by China’s successful economic reform, the PLA has developed a new joint operations doctrine to fight a limited war around China’s periphery with the focus on a short and intense campaign. This joint campaign doctrine requires a complete overhaul of the PLA’s current force structure by moving away from massive homogenous infantry and artillery formations to multi-branch, high tech, highly mobile, lethal forces capable of offensive operations. The PLA now believes victory can be achieved by attacking the enemy’s vital but fragile targets such as command nodes, communication centers, transportation hubs, airfields, and high-tech weapon platforms, with all available land, air, sea and space forces. Winning the battle against an enemy’s key points will allow the PLA to size the initiative on both tactical and strategic levels and facilitate a short decisive campaign.

The new PLA joint doctrine provides that highly mobile forces allow surprise attacks against an unprepared enemy and concentrated firepower allows quick destruction of the enemy’s vital points without time to mount a meaningful defense. Although mobile forces generally carry limited supply, their concentrated firepower allows for fewer platforms to achieve results with a reduced expenditure of munitions. In addition, Close Air Support from fighter-bombers of the Air Force (PLAAF) and attack helicopters of Army Aviation (LH) are expected to be more responsive to these mobile forces, and Second Artillery campaign units will deliver long-range firepower.