by Xinhua writer Yan Hao

    BEIJING, Jan. 1 (Xinhua) -- China's armed forces are stepping up combat adversarial training and war games in a bid to make up for diminishing real combat experience among their ranks.

    Field troops of the People's Liberation Army (PLA) are taking year-end military examinations in which their superior commands have introduced war games played by "red" and "blue" sides.

    The testing method, new for all the PLA services, has been set down as a training regulation to improve overall battle effectiveness, said Maj. Gen. Chen Zhaohai, chief of the military training and arms department of the PLA's General Staff Headquarters.

    Simulations of military operations played by adversarial "red" and "blue" sides have been widely adopted by the PLA's Army, Navy, Air Force and the Second Artillery Force, according to the department.

    In addition, war games have been played as joint operations conducted at a theater-level, and a professional "blue" army, which plays an adversary role to test the regular army, has been built in every military command.

    "Military exercises have become a major platform for armed forces around the world to build up their military theories and practice," said Xiao Shizhong, researcher with the PLA's Academy of Military Sciences.

    "The war games, with various titles and objectives, is an effective measure to test weaponry, theory and improve battle effectiveness," Xiao said.

    In 2009, Chinese armed forces conducted at least 18 adversarial military exercises and three joint military training exercises with counterparts from Russia, Singapore and Mongolia.

    The majority of the PLA's current personnel were born or raised in peacetime, said Lt. Gen. Zhang Youxia, commander of the PLA's Shenyang Military Command.

    The PLA is losing veterans who have personal experience of war, which can be passed on through demonstration, Zhang said.

    However, military conflicts have raged constantly elsewhere in the world and the PLA's lack of combat experience compared with foreign armed forces is growing, he added.

    The PLA has to choose a new way to gain new tactical and strategic doctrines, as advances in technology have greatly changed traditional theories on conducting joint operations.

    For the PLA's commanders, the first new question is how to adapt their traditional commanding system dominated by ground force to a more comprehensive system participated by the PLA's all services that is required by joint operations.

    Another tough job is to improve long-range troop projection ability, especially the air transport maneuverability.

    In the PLA's long-range maneuver exercises in 2009, the military headquarters cooperated with civilian transport authorities to utilize railways, high-speed trains, civilian aviation flights to deploy its troops.

    In the "Airborne-2009" exercise, three divisions of the PLA's airborne corps transported 13,000 troops and 1,500 vehicles by more than 2,000 kilometers in three weeks.

    Lt. Gen. Zhang said the PLA is also concerned about large-scale adversarial war games that are increasingly costly and difficult to carry out with limited resources.

    Modern warfare is increasingly difficult to simulate as the scope for the troops to maneuver has reached all dimensions and often extends far beyond visual range, Zhang said.

    Computer-aided digital simulations would be a cost-effective training method, and disaster relief and other non-combat operations are chances for the military to improve command systems, logistics and mobilization, Zhang said.

Special report: Yearender 2009