72nd Group Army

The 72nd Army of the People's Liberation Army Army is affiliated to the Army in the Eastern Theater and the military headquarters is located in Huzhou City, Zhejiang Province.

The group army comprises various modern units such as infantry, artillery, armored signal, antichemical warfare, engineer, air defense, air, and electronic countermeasure units. Though Group Armies often are considered to be corps-sized units, in reality they control many fewer personnel and units than do corps in the US military. A group army with an all brigade maneuver force would be more comparable to a US division than a corps. After the reductions of the late 1990s, the variation in group army structure has increased considerably from previous years. In the 1990s, a Group Army could vary in size from 65,000 to 100,000+ personneL, but by 2020 the totals were about half these numbers.

The 72nd Army of the Army, formed in 2017, has jurisdiction over:

• 10th Heavy Combined-Arms Brigade
• 5th Amphibian Combined-Arms Brigade
• 124th Amphibian Combined-Arms Brigade
• 85th Medium Combined-Arms brigade
• 90th Light Combined-Arms Brigade
• 34th Brigade
• 72nd Special Operations Brigade
• 72nd Artillery Brigade
• 72nd Air Defense Brigade
• 72nd Army Aviation Brigade
• 72nd Brigade
• 72nd Service Support Brigade

In the summer of 2020, during the adjustment of the generals in the summer of 2020, Lin Xiangyang, who served as the commander of the three army groups and twice as the parade leader in recent years, was transferred from the commander of the 72nd Army of the Eastern Theater Army to the commander of the Eastern Theater Army and was promoted. The rank of lieutenant general. The former military and political chief of the 72nd Army, the commander and the military political commissar were both promoted to the deputy theater level during the 2020 general adjustment. In November 2020, Wang Wenquan, then political commissar of the 72nd Army, assumed the role of political commissar of the Joint Logistics Support Force of the Central Military Commission and was promoted to the deputy theater level. The article "The whole army learns and implements the spirit of the Fifth Plenary Session of the Nineteenth Central Committee of the Communist Party of China" on November 13, 2020 confirmed Wang Wenquan's new role.

In August 2020, the 31st company of a brigade of the 72nd Army conducted a one-month sea training in Zhoushan, Zhejiang. In order to adapt to sea operations, the brigade has added coastal training as a compulsory course starting in 2019, and the final assessment is the 1,500-meter swimming team competition. Every company was struggling towards the championship.

In March 2021, a brigade of the 72nd Army organized a night confrontation exercise. The officers and soldiers of the Ninth Company of the brigade equipped with the technical advantages of the new individual night vision device, concealed maneuvers, and carried out precise strikes against important "enemy" targets. It is understood that in this night training, the overall speed of the training teams, the closeness of coordination, and the efficiency of target damage have been greatly improved compared with the past. "With the new type of individual night vision device, training is really even more powerful!" Company Commander Chen Jiafu said that the individual soldiers have relatively close visibility at night, and the range of movement, observation, and attack is limited. After the new type of individual night vision device is allotted and used, Effectively solve these problems.

With the deepening and expansion of research on the use of tactics, the brigade’s new equipment integration into the combat system further deepens the training, which promotes the overall improvement of the combat effectiveness of the unit. Not long ago, a certain type of wheeled armored reconnaissance vehicle and a certain type of UAV reconnaissance system newly installed by the brigade completed research and research, and the next step will be put into actual combat training and combat applications.

On 04 March 2021, a brigade of the 72nd Army organized its troops to carry out airborne coordinated training to temper its capabilities in three-dimensional assault and infiltration behind enemy lines. In early summer of 2021, a brigade of the 72nd Army and a certain navy unit jointly carried out a landing assault exercise to temper the troops' hard work in actual combat.

In April 2021 a brigade of the 72nd Army of the Army exercised a long-distance cross-sea crossing of multiple arms. The training ground noticed that third-generation military vehicles such as the Warrior III assault vehicle and the MV3 military card were combined with the landing ship for the first time in the exercise, demonstrating the extremely strong ability to project force across the sea. Compared with the warrior on the previous platform, the third-generation warrior assault vehicle has achieved leapfrog development in terms of power and protection. Its side can withstand the continuous firing of 7.62mm rifles. The large displacement diesel engine makes its maximum speed reach 120km/h.

In the loading phase, in order to ensure that the equipment can be quickly put into battle, all vehicles and equipment are boarded in a "reverse-in-front-out" manner. The officers and soldiers overcome difficulties such as confined cabin space and limited driver's field of vision, and increase the speed of loading and unloading. In the report screen, even tank repair vehicles with large bodies and poor visibility were "reversed and put into storage", and the movements were smooth and coherent in one go, demonstrating the excellent training qualities of the officers and soldiers.

Before leaving the shore, the officers and soldiers bound and reinforced all the equipment to ensure that the vehicles would not roll and shift during the cross-sea crossing. In this training, the brigade carried out training on practical subjects such as emergency loading, maritime communications, and cross-sea delivery. At the same time, it also carried out joint debugging and joint tests of video, radio, and Beidou.

The latest tank landing ship of the People’s Liberation Army, which dispatched the Wutaishan ship (limited number 917) during the exercise, joined the People’s Liberation Army on March 7, 2016 with the same type 072A landing ship "Wuyishan Ship" and "Dilai Mountain Ship". East China Sea Fleet. Compared with the previous Type 072 landing ship, the bridge of Type 072A is changed from a messy style to a closed type, which improves the ship's stealth performance.

In May 2021, a brigade of the 72nd Army conducted a joint multi-arms cross-sea landing exercise. At the beginning of the exercise, the amphibious armored assault team maneuvered orderly and quickly to the predetermined sea area, and when it reached the loading sea area, it quickly carried out loading. After the armored vehicle is on the ship, it must be tied and fixed. What is different from the past is that in this exercise, in order to help the tanks to quickly seize the beachhead position, the operators directly positioned and fixed the armored equipment on the hovercraft. After arriving at the designated sea area, the officers and soldiers quickly entered the hovercraft. As the hatch opened, the hovercraft took the landing troops and amphibious armored vehicles and quickly rushed towards the target beach. When the landing ship traveled to the unloading area, the amphibious armored assault group quickly left the ship and flooded, changing formations during the travel, alternately covering, and launching an impact on the first-line targets on the beach.

The official English version of the 2013 "China National Defense White Paper" does not use the term "group army", but refers to China's "combined corps". The State Council Information Office, April 2013 release "Diversified Employment at The Armed Forces of China" stated: "The PLAA mobile operational units include 18 combined corps , plus additional independent combined operational divisions (brigades), and have a total strength of 850,000. The combined corps , composed of divisions and brigades, are respectively under the seven military area commands (MACs)". By force of custom, these units are still called Group Armies.

The group armies are the main part of the PLA. In November 2015, the Central Military Commission held a three-day PLA reform meeting in Beijing, during which President Xi Jinping, also the chairman of the Central Military Commission, gave guidelines on reform. After the reshuffle, the People's Liberation Army was regrouped into five new theater commands to replace the former seven military area commands. China announced a military reshuffle with 84 newly adjusted or established corps-level units. The change in designation is significant. In the past, armies only included the PLA army, but in the future, the air force, navy and Rocket Forces will also be included in the group armies and given a new designation. The previous 18 group armies have been reorganized into 13 new ones. All major combat units of the PLA follow a group army-brigade-battalion system.

In 2017, based on the existing 18 Group Armies were adjusted, 13 Group Armies and formed. China's military established five Theater Commands for its operations on 01 February 2016, realigning forces previously distributed under 7 Military Regions. In this round of deepening national defense and military reforms, after the establishment of the army's leading institutions and theaters, in accordance with the principle of "the general management of the military commission, the theater's main battle, and the service's construction", the 18 group armies that previously belonged to the original seven military regions were reassigned to each theater. On 27 April 2017 the Central Military Commission decision adjust the formation of the original 18 Group Armies into 13 newly formed Group Armies. with each of the five Theater Commands. After adjustment, the army forces in each theater had jurisdiction over 2 to 3 Group Armies that are relatively balanced.

The new Group Armies are new units without prior history, rather than a simple renumbering of units that otherwise retained their unit history. The authors of wikipedia mistakenly report that the new Group Armies are redesignations of existing units. For instance, it is reported that "The 78th Group Army ... was established in 2017, by seemingly a redesignation of the former 16th Group Army." But the legacy Group Armies had survived a variety of reshuffles prior to 2017, and if the intent had simply been to tidy up the organzation charts the legacy unit designation could have been preserved, which it was not.

In combat, individual exploits and personal valor are important, but team effort wins the fight. The military pays close attention to team performance, to the organizations in which its soldiers serve and fight, and to the flags and colors that symbolize those organizations. In the same way that patriots fight for their country's flag, in many Armies of the world, soldiers fight for their unit colors. The older an organization, the more soldiers, both active and retired, had the opportunity of serving in and identifying with it and the more opportunities the organization had to win battle honors. In the US Army the term reflagging was coined in the 1980s to describe the phenomenon formerly called a "transfer less personnel and equipment." For those soldiers who have served in the "Big Red One," the "Wolfhounds," or "The Blackhorse Regiment," unit pride is very much a part of their lives. In the US Army, the adoption of the Combat Arms Regimental System (CARS) in 1957 to provide a flexible regimental structure that would permit perpetuation of unit history and tradition.

But this is precively contrary to the reforms of 2015-2017, the intent of which was to completely reboot the upper echelons of the Chinese military. The PLA did not have well established patterns of rotating officers among commands, unlike the US military which has long rotated officers every few years to avoid the emergence of local cliques. Instead, an officer might spend his entire career in series of vertial promotions within the same geographic unit. The 2015-2017 aimed to break up this pattern, which would help to defeat strutures of corruption and nepotism, as well as establish an officer corps and command struture that clearly owed its position [and loyalty] to Chairman Xi Jinping.

Honored Troops

The units that have been awarded the honorary title are:

• Red Army Division : First Division of the First Army Mechanized Infantry (formerly 358 Brigade)
• Red Army : The Second Regiment (former 715 Regiment) and the Third Regiment (former 716 Regiment) of the First Division of the First Army Mechanized Infantry of the First Army of the Army
• Anti-Flood Rescue Model Regiment : The Second Regiment of the First Division of the First Army Mechanized Infantry
• Adherence to the heroic company : the third company of the second division of the first division of the first mechanized infantry of the First Army of the Army, transferred to the 72nd Army of the Army in 2017 [8]
• Attacking the heroic company : the ninth company of the first regiment of the first division of the first army mechanized infantry
• Seven Company of Sharp Knives : The 7th Company of the 3rd Regiment of the First Division of Mechanized Infantry of the First Army of the First Army
• Exemplary Artillery Company : Former Army First Army Artillery Ninth Division 16th Regiment Fourth Company
• Yantai Peak Hero Company : Former Army 42nd Army Infantry 1st 24th Division 371st Regiment 4th Company, transferred to a certain company of the Army 72nd Army Brigade in 2017
• Engineer Red Company: A company of the Army's 72nd Army
• Guo Xingfu Company : A company of the 72nd Army of the Army
• Wang Keqin Company : A company of the Army’s 72nd Army
• Fourth Steel Company : A company of the Army’s Seventy-second Army
• Good Eight Company on Nanjing Road : Theeighth company of the third battalion of the Special Police Regiment of theformer Shanghai Guard District . It was later changed to the eighth company of a certain battalion of the First Army Special Police Regiment. In 2017, transferred to the Army's 72nd Army
• Anti-chemical pioneer company : the second company of an anti-chemical group of the former Army First Army. A brigade transferred to the 72nd Army of the Army in 2017