PLA "Stride-2014" Military Exercise

Bltizo said:

? If the PLA were only training with these kind of scenarios then I'd understand your issue, but the entire point of these exercises is to throw brigades into the deep end and see who drowns and who swims. The entire point is to see how they perform in doomsday scenarios. Also, the fact that it was completely unscripted and gave commanders vast autonomy is also a good thing.

And yes, Phoenix rising may have translated the text rather enthusiastically (or maybe the original article was simply phrased in a way which is propaganda-ish, but that is the case for virtually ALL reports of PLA exercises), but that doesn't mean the original exercise occurred in such a dramatic or scripted or whatever way.

Frankly the idea that these exercises are set up for a political message is ridiculous. Can we seriously anyway it is unrealistic for the PLA to get into a situation where they are facing a technologically superior enemy with air superiority, and with an array of NBC weapons? Give me a break.


So I can understand why you might want to see more combined arms and modern tactics as well, but it is entirely wrong for you to believe there is no place for training in scenarios where you are going up against an OPFOR with far more resources than you. That is not a political exercise, that is the reality the PLA faces.

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Doombreed said:

You know, there's a reason why other modern militaries don't run this kind of scenarios.

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Because it's inherently unrealistic.

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When other military run war games, there's always a measureable objective that you want to test or train. I.e. I want to see if the two mechanised brigades can manoeuvre and rendezvous with each other under electronic black out and constant air attacks. So you force march them 80km and create the testing environment for them that suits. At the end, they either can or cannot RV at the right place at the right time. And you can then take lessons from that. Verifiable results.

Whether your soldiers would perform suicide attacks is not something that you can independently test under normal circumstances. You can bet your ass that if Saddam ran a “doomsday” scenario for his Republican Guards before the invasion of Iraq, they would’ve fought to the last man too. I bet there will be a few bayonet charges against Abrams also. But as we all know, reality is quite different.

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Doombreed said:

I'll be more impressed if in the exercise a unit did a 18km night march through closed country carrying all their heavy weapons by hand to negate Blue forces’ technological advantage. But rolling under tanks with dem charges? That just sounds stupid. As in, how the heck do you even do that without it being scripted? Think of all the health and safety rules you're breaking.

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And the fact that the PLA do the other "real" exercises just make this look even more like a dog and pony show.

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Insignius said:

Actually, this is why my previous comment about how this excercise's outcome would change if the PLA had more high-tech weapons, such as the HJ-12 sino-javelin, NLOS missiles, more drones, more air-power etc. If the PLA brigade in question had these things, then they wouldnt need to suicide charge the enemy anymore, but try for a more symmetric kind of warfare relying on their high-tech systems.

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Bltizo said:

And yes, Phoenix rising may have translated the text rather enthusiastically (or maybe the original article was simply phrased in a way which is propaganda-ish, but that is the case for virtually ALL reports of PLA exercises), but that doesn't mean the original exercise occurred in such a dramatic or scripted or whatever way.
Frankly the idea that these exercises are set up for a political message is ridiculous. Can we seriously anyway it is unrealistic for the PLA to get into a situation where they are facing a technologically superior enemy with air superiority, and with an array of NBC weapons? Give me a break.

Click to expand...