PLA "Stride-2014" Military Exercise

Doombreed said:

Good points and you're right, it's not fair to make blanket judgements from the limited data. But I'm just calling it like I see it. Look at the amount of coverage this is getting. The PLA PR team is obviously quite proud of this. Which leads to the question of what are they not showing you? If their show piece is such a dog's breakfast, I'll hate to see what their regular field ex look like.

The PLA PR team is PLA too right? How the fuck does no one in the PLA know what good soldiering looks like? I don't buy the "oh we're camping this up on purpose, the real PLA operators are a lot more professional".

If anything, the PR footage should look more professional if the real PLA knows what's good soldiering. If this is what they think good soldiering should look like, imagine how they act when the camera is not around.

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you ask too highly of the pr people of PLA and their press service too....
chinese service men and netizen like me joke a lot about the poor performance of chinese military PR and their press service.

ahho said:

I was watching the video was a bit concerned at first when they interviewed soldier and he was stating that dust was a problem (he was not really complaining, but he stated it in a way that he did not encounter this level before). Tanks were breaking down and gearbox is broken. I was really concern until I re-read the first post and got a little comfort knowing that they are from different military region. This still make me wonders how different military region train their troops. Do they focus of training and have troops familiarizing their own military region environment and the immediate neighbor's. (More defensively then offense)

This exercise is really good to give troops a taste of the endurance required and experience working under different environment (such as repairs and combat). I love seeing all type of equipment being thrown to battle

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MR do train their forces to suit the terrain,that's for sure....considering the only MR which does not have a pre-set opponent is the jinan MR,other MRs all have quite clear opponent...... shenyang MR is there to prep for korea and russia, chengdu MR is to prep for Indians and Vietnamese etc. only Jinan MR does not have a preset opponent and being used as a strategic reserve....you can actually see this from major disaster relief efforts conducted by the pla,like the earthquake in 2012,chengdu MR is the first to mobilize(the earthquake hit chengdu MR's region),and jinan MR was the 2nd to mobilize for the relief efforts,and other MR provided army AVA support or medical and other technical support but didn't send many actual troop....

this exercise, to an extent, is to simulate a near-worst case scenario near the 38th parallel...they just tossed some NBC element to make it harder for the redfor....

TerraN_EmpirE said:

Tanks getting clogged with sand is not a unrealistic event for the desert. Happens all the time particularly in fine sand types.

The PLA BlueFor (for the PLA they reversed the colors with RedFor being PLA and BlueFor being Opfor) likely increased its sophistication no doubt. Although I wonder just who they are simulating? Normally you approximate the most likely tactical situation to be encountered. This as written up by Phoenix sounds weird. American ECM and air supremacy combined with Soviet style infantry. A bizarre combination.

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bluefor is simulating US.Army,or at least some version of it...

bluefor is equipped with only modified type59 but been given M1A2SEP's combat stats(protection,firepower etc...maybe not its mobility and its net-centric abbility,you really cant simulate that with a 59....) this lead to a joke about bluefor using M1A59SEP in these drills....
another thing...bluefor this year was played by a dedicated bluefor unit...a first in PLA history
i do think limited ground forces funding is the main reason why bluefor infantry looked so "soviet" or "china",and it is definitely part of the reason for choosing a brigade equipped with older hardware to be a dedicated bluefor unit...in these drills hardware combat effectiveness can be adjusted in the drill settings,hence forementioned M1A59,while older hardware is much cheaper to maintain....