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Based on articles in PLA Daily and Directory of PRC Military Personalities, (2000 Edition) [40], each Military District (Province) and municipality (Garrison) should have at lease one division of reserve troops. Currently, there seem to be three types of PLA reserve divisions in service; Artillery [41], AAA [42], and Infantry divisions [43] at noted at MD level. PLA reserve divisions seems to follow standard PLA Table of Organization and Equipment (TOE) and Organization with motorized infantry, armor, artillery, guided missile, communication troops, reconnaissance units in addition a small anti-chemical warfare element. [44]

A reserve infantry division has a nominal strength of a little more than 10,000 officers and troops, more then 500 types of materiel, with a total weight of thousands of tons and 40,000 sets of equipment. [45] Main elements of a reserve infantry division probably include, 2 to 3 motorized infantry regiments, one AAA regiment, one Artillery regiment, one armor of battalion or regiment size, one recon battalion, one communication battalion, and one engineering battalion. It is stated by PLAdaily, the Reserve Division of Liaoning has a tank regiment [46]. Around 1998, the PLA regular began to call its tank (tanke) units as "Armored" (zhuangjia) units to reflect their more combined arms nature. [47]

But this changed does not apply to the name of the reserve tank units suggest number of support mechanized unit such as Armored Personal Carrier (APC) for the reserve might be very limited, or might not exist at all.

A PLA regiment of a reserve division has 2000 officers and troops, and they all have access to some motorized transport during exercise. [48] Up to 1200 civilian vehicles, apparently mobilized from local enterprise, were employed during a 2001 divisional exercise. While some reserve divisions still have to loan some regimental level equipment from regular force during exercise, [49] not all the equipments are second hand regular force transfers; some AAA unit have received new guns, when their older guns were deemed useless. Some units are well equipped, such as the Beijing MR? reserve artillery division; it has its own artillery training ground, artillery computer simulation and number of mini computers. [50]

In addition, there are large numbers of reserve service arms regiments that report to MR instead of MD. They conduct more training with regular troops, especially in long range and joint exercises. According to Xinhua Net, in September 2002, one such regiment, for the first time, fought against a regular PLA unit. Beijing MR? regiment sized force of 1500 reservist from 5 countries and 48 townships issued regular force equipment, moved 730 km into training ground and engaged a regular unit vs. "Blue army" in a 20 days exercise. [51] At the same time, most of the PLA reserve units training seems to be focused on the basic military operation, such as mobility, logistic, decoy, field communication and engineering works according to the description of PLAdaily articles.

So far, the number of types of service arms regiments as identified from articles in PLA Daily.

Reserve Logistic support and maintenance brigade. [52]
Reserve Engineering regiments with boat-bridge battalions. [53]
Reserve Engineering regiments with mine clearing and mine laying rockets and equipments. [54]
Reserve Anti-Chemical warfare reserve regiment. [55]
Reserve Anti-Tank regiment. [56]
Reserve Independent AAA regiment. [57]
Reserve Tank Regiment. [58]
Reserve Officer Training Regiment. [59]
Reserve Nursing unit from hospitals. [60]